Suspected Scam paid on Credit card, but told to wait 30 days

DiB_2

My parents received a cold call about a time share that they used to have to say that the contract has not been ended properly and they may be liable for unpaid maintenance costs. We suspect that this is a scam, and she is going to tell them she is not paying the rest of the upfront payment and would like a refund. When she contacted the credit card company to ask them to cancel the card in case they tried to take more money, she asks about getting the money refunded and they said she would have to wait 30 days before reporting it. This doesn't sound right to me. She paid £2000 and now thinks that she is not going to get it back. 

eskbanker

That's not very clear - how long ago did they have this timeshare, and what does 'the rest of the upfront payment' relate to?  Was the contract definitely cancelled properly and agreed to be so in writing by the provider?

Cancelling a card isn't necessarily a viable way of avoiding charges, as there's an updater service available to merchants.

On what grounds would they be seeking a refund from the card company?

km1500

Timeshares are, unfortunately, rarely cancellable

goater78

Cancelling the card won’t work if the transaction has already been authorised. 

born_again

It's correct. It will have to be dealt with as a dispute (chargeback or S75) As you can not claim fraud on a payment made by yourself.

We take it that there has been a timeshare at some point, or still is?
Or is it up for sale?

DiB_2

Thanks all. As far as they are concerned the timeshare has gone. They received compensation for misselling of the finance by Barclays last year. 
Last week they got a cold call from a company saying that the contract hadn't been terminated properly, that there was a fraud investigation going on and that my parents may be sued by the time share company for unpaid service and maintenance charges. The cold callers said they could deal with the issue for my parents, they had a zoom call and showed them the contract still "live" on "the timeshare register". They said in order to deal with it they needed upfront payment of £9000. They paid £2000 on credit card last Monday and were due to pay the balance today. Once I started looking into it, the company looked very dodgyand we think its a scam. My step-mum has now cancelled the credit card and when they phone her today, she is going to say she changed her mind and wants her money back.
We are looking into the whole timeshare thing to find out if the contract is still live, but wanted to know if she is entitled to the £2000 back.

eskbanker

DiB_2 said:

My step-mum has now cancelled the credit card and when they phone her today, she is going to say she changed her mind and wants her money back.
We are looking into the whole timeshare thing to find out if the contract is still live, but wanted to know if she is entitled to the £2000 back.

The card company's liability to her will be constrained by their obligations under the chargeback or section 75 schemes - these allow consumers to recover costs paid to companies who then fail to deliver goods or services and refuse to refund, but aren't a general facility to cover change of mind.

So, it may ultimately be viable to construct a chargeback or s75 claim if she can demonstrate that it's a scam, but that may be difficult where it's allegedly being used to service a debt, i.e. it needs much more than a suspicion....

What's the name of the timeshare company and the cold-calling one?

born_again

DiB_2 said:

Thanks all. As far as they are concerned the timeshare has gone. They received compensation for misselling of the finance by Barclays last year. 
Last week they got a cold call from a company saying that the contract hadn't been terminated properly, that there was a fraud investigation going on and that my parents may be sued by the time share company for unpaid service and maintenance charges. The cold callers said they could deal with the issue for my parents, they had a zoom call and showed them the contract still "live" on "the timeshare register". They said in order to deal with it they needed upfront payment of £9000. They paid £2000 on credit card last Monday and were due to pay the balance today. Once I started looking into it, the company looked very dodgyand we think its a scam. My step-mum has now cancelled the credit card and when they phone her today, she is going to say she changed her mind and wants her money back.
We are looking into the whole timeshare thing to find out if the contract is still live, but wanted to know if she is entitled to the £2000 back.

These are 2 totally different things.

What was the mis selling about? Was this a company that said they would sell the timeshare for them?
If so, then they may well still own the timeshare.

I know some of these companies will say they have buyers, when they do not. As such the whole selling process takes a lot longer. In many cases never sold, just a means to extract funds. But until the timeshare is actually sold & they have the legal paperwork to prove it, they still own & are liable for the timeshare maintenance costs.

Barclays paying out is a totally separate issue to the actual ownership of the timeshare.


Perhaps it might be better to engage a solicitor in the country where the timeshare is to find out exactly what the status of the timeshare is.
Not any 3rd party company offering to sort it out for them.

DiB_2

The cold callers are James Yardley and Ceafoot. Not much info available on line. They called and said she didn't want to carry on and they said that she can't cancel. I have come round as she asked them to call back when I was here. Just waiting...

born_again

https://afterinsidetimeshare.com/relinquishments-claims-another-new-player/

Pretty damming.
163 companies registered @ address.

DiB_2

born_again said:

https://afterinsidetimeshare.com/relinquishments-claims-another-new-player/

Pretty damming.
163 companies registered @ address.

Yeah we saw that - one of the first red flags for us. But there are so any organisations offering help and it is really difficult to actually find out who is legit.
They called back and started saying she could cancel but she couldn't get a refund as they had already lodged a dispute with the European Court of Something something. When I said that all contracts have a 14 day cooling off period, he said that it didn't apply to this because it was "a SERVICE, not a product". Also he said that there were already arrears on the account and I asked how there could be arrears when they had never been sent a bill.