Victim of scam while abroad

hyte1

Hello,

I wonder if anyone could give any advice. My grandparents owned a timeshare which they wanted to get rid of. To cut a long story short they paid a fairly decent amount of money for a company (in Tenerife) to take ownership of it. Part of the bargain was that they also got access to their software and website for searching for discount holidays. They were also told that they could add an extra week to the holidays for the sum of £56.

They bought this last september but have only just got around to looking for a holiday. They asked me for some advice and I've found that it's all a scam. The website they paid for access to is rubbish - its a holiday search engine same as you can get for free, and it's very poor. Holidays are booked direct with the tour operator and therefore no way of getting the extra week for £56 as they promised. Also I've been in touch with the people they had the timeshare with and my grandparents are still listed as the registered owners of the timeshare. Although they have signed copys of a "contract" which say all responsibility for the timeshare is now this companys, they clearly have been scammed. The deeds to the timeshare were also left with them.

They paid with their credit card, in two transactions so I'm going to draft a letter to the card issuer to try claim the money back. Just wondered if anyone could offer any advice on the matter before I send it off.

Thanks.

brettcta

my advice would be not to hold your breath.

i know they're getting on in life, but i can't believe some of the stories i hear sometimes about how gullible some people are and how easily parted from their money they are.

good luck, you're going to need it

hyte1

brettcta wrote: »

my advice would be not to hold your breath.

i know they're getting on in life, but i can't believe some of the stories i hear sometimes about how gullible some people are and how easily parted from their money they are.

good luck, you're going to need it

Thanks for the comment, your right but from what I can gather these people pray on the elderly and put up a pretty good sales pitch. They also 'demo' the software working, but it's all a setup and is not a live site in the demo. I didn't want the name the scam company involved, but a google search on them shows many many people also scammed by them

maninthestreet

Let me get this straight - they paid money to someone else to take ownership of their timeshare? Surely if you sell something to someone, they pay you money, not the other way around??

st999

I didn't want the name the scam company involved

Why not? name and shame, that is why they get away with it.


Also old people do become confused and believe anything they are told.

My father went like that, in the end I could get him to believe anything I told him, even if it was a load of rubbish.

I will probably go that way myself.

Stan

hyte1

maninthestreet wrote: »

Let me get this straight - they paid money to someone else to take ownership of their timeshare? Surely if you sell something to someone, they pay you money, not the other way around??

I'm no expert in timeshare, however my understanding is that they arn't an investment, rather a service you agree to buy for an agreed number of years. Therefore you can't easily 'sell' them on. I understand it's quite common for people to buy their way out of timeshare by transferring them in this way, as the new owners are then responsible for the maintenance fees.

As I say I'm no expert in timeshare, just trying to help my grandparents out of a mess.

isplumm

hyte1 wrote: »

I'm no expert in timeshare, however my understanding is that they arn't an investment, rather a service you agree to buy for an agreed number of years. Therefore you can't easily 'sell' them on. I understand it's quite common for people to buy their way out of timeshare by transferring them in this way, as the new owners are then responsible for the maintenance fees.

As I say I'm no expert in timeshare, just trying to help my grandparents out of a mess.

Hi

Have a look at this place http://www.timeshare.org.uk/index.html see if they can help.

Mark