The Way Undercover Filming Revealed a Multi-Million Pound Timeshare Scheme

Prosecutors have labeled it as a major deceptions of its kind in the UK.

Altogether 14 defendants have been found guilty for their involvement in a £28m conspiracy to cheat over 3,500 vacation property owners.

The targets were eager to terminate long-standing holiday ownership agreements and tried to find support.

Most were from 60 and 80. More than 500 of them lost over £10,000, and one paid more than £80,000.

Those victimized were exposed to intense consultations lasting up to six hours. They were out of money, holding valueless fake "rewards" and continued to be trapped in high-priced timeshare contracts they frequently were unable to use.

The Company Central to the Scam

The company at the core of the scam was Sell My Timeshare (SMT). They accepted customers' funds to finance the directors' opulent lifestyle of prestigious schooling, millionaire mansions and private jets.

The individual at the helm of the firm, the company director, was sentenced to a seven and a half year prison term in January for fraudulent conspiracy.

Recently, his partner one of the co-defendants was part of the concluding cases to receive sentencing.

She was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty to money laundering.

This has been a lengthy process and signifies a major victory for the people who spoke out, the authorities and the Crown.

How the Probe Was Initiated

I first heard about the firm was in the mid-2016. The role involved in the reporting team of a media outlet, producing current affairs features.

A acquaintance pointed out that his parent had taken over the ownership of a timeshare apartment in the Spanish coast and, after long-term use, had begun looking to exit the deal.

It is important to recall how common vacation properties had evolved with UK travelers in the last decades of the 20th century.

Timeshares enabled families to occupy the identical property annually, or exchange their weeks with additional holders who had units in alternative destinations. Roughly 600,000 vacation seekers took up that option.

The early surge was paired with a many stories about dishonest operators deceptively promoting units. They were regularly featured on investigative shows.

The common timeshare contract tied investors in for long periods.

At that time, those owners who had experienced their guaranteed place in the sun for decades were ageing, and a significant number were attempting to end their association to their timeshares.

Several had reduced ability to travel and couldn't get to their apartments. Some just believed they'd achieved their goals from them. And some had died, in many cases leaving their family members to assume the contracts - including their regular contributions and maintenance fees.

The Undercover Operation Develops

This was the situation the family member had ended up. She looked online for answers and discovered the organization, a business whose online presence promised to get her out of her deal.

But, having submitted funds and scheduled a consultation with them, her relatives smelled a rat.

Further research showed hundreds of people reporting they had paid money and achieved no result in return. Indeed, they had been left out of pocket. Substantial amounts.

The reporting group started looking into what was happening. It quickly became clear that there were questionable operators working within the timeshare resale sector.

One lawyer had many grievance cases aiming to litigate against the company.

We spoke to clients who had used the firm and they all told the same story. They thought the business would buy their property away from them but when they attended a meeting (for which they made an advance payment) they were told there was no market for their property.

Instead, they were pushed - indeed pressured - to commit further cash investing in "Monster Rewards", associated with the outfit's parent company, the parent organization.

The precise definition was not exactly clear. They sounded like a form of credit, providing discount travel and benefits and retail offers.

And they were apparently "exchangeable with other owners, at a future date.

Paying cash at the time would result in an future return that would offset SMT's fees and allow the timeshare holder in profit, released finally from their pesky agreement.

An unbelievable offer? Certainly, that proved correct.

A 'Bait-and-Switch Scam'

Assuming these reports were true, this was a major deception.

It's what is called a "deceptive marketing."

Someone - here the organization - "attracts the customer by marketing a specific service but then to say that's not available, steering the client in the direction of another, inferior option.

That's illegal. Equipped with all the evidence we had assembled, we presented the rationale to covertly record one of the firm's consultations.

The process requires dedication, work, and compelling reasons for why this is the exclusive approach to collect the data necessary to demonstrate illegal activity.

With approval secured, our small team set up a consultation with one of the company's representatives in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Posing as a ordinary individual aiming to get his mum free from her timeshare contract|holiday ownership agreement