How Undercover Filming Uncovered a Multi-Million Pound Timeshare Fraud

It has been described as among the biggest deceptions of its nature in the Britain.

In all 14 individuals have been convicted for their part in a £28m plot to cheat more than 3,500 timeshare owners.

The targets were eager to get out of long-standing vacation property deals and sought out support.

The majority were aged between 60 and 80. Over 500 of them parted with over £10,000, and one transferred over £80,000.

Those targeted were subjected to aggressive sales meetings continuing for six hours. They were out of money, owning useless fake "points" and still trapped in costly timeshare contracts they could no longer use.

The Business Central to the Fraud

The firm at the core of the scam was Sell My Timeshare (SMT). They collected people's money to support the directors' opulent way of life of prestigious schooling, high-end properties and personal aircraft.

The man at the head of the firm, the company director, was handed a seven and a half year jail time in January for fraudulent conspiracy.

On Friday, his wife one of the co-defendants was part of the concluding cases to learn their fate.

She was handed a two-year long suspended jail sentence at the judicial venue after admitting illegal fund handling.

The outcome represents a lengthy process and marks a significant success for the individuals who testified, the authorities and prosecutors.

The Way the Inquiry Started

I first heard about SMT was in the mid-2016. The role involved in the reporting team of a news organization, making documentary shows.

A colleague mentioned that his mother had assumed the use of a timeshare apartment in a European resort and, after decades of vacations, had commenced searching to terminate the contract.

It is important to recall how widespread timeshares had evolved with English tourists in the eighties and nineties.

Holiday ownership enabled people to access the identical property every year, or swap their time slots with additional holders who had units in other resorts. About 600,000 vacation seekers seized that opportunity.

The initial boom was linked to a lot of stories about unscrupulous sellers fraudulently marketing units. They were regularly featured on consumer shows.

The common holiday ownership agreement bound owners for decades.

At that time, those owners who had enjoyed their regular accommodation in the sunshine for decades were getting older, and a large proportion were looking to wave goodbye to their holiday properties.

A number had health issues and were unable to visit their properties. Others just thought they'd got all they wanted from them. And others had deceased, in frequent situations passing on their family members to take over the deals - including their annual payments and service charges.

The Undercover Operation Progresses

And that's where the relative had ended up. She browsed the internet for options and found SMT, a firm whose digital platform promised to terminate her deal.

However, having made a payment and arranged an appointment with them, her loved ones had doubts.

Further research uncovered hundreds of people saying they had handed over cash and achieved no result in return. Actually, they had been left out of pocket. A lot of it.

Our team began investigating what was happening. It soon emerged that there were dubious individuals active in the holiday ownership market.

An attorney had hundreds of individual complaints preparing to take action against the organization.

We spoke to people who had dealt with the organization and they collectively described identical situations. They assumed the company would buy their property from them but when they attended a meeting (for which they made an advance payment) they were told there was no potential buyers.

Rather, they were persuaded - actually coerced - to commit further cash purchasing "the firm's incentive scheme", associated with the business's umbrella group, the overarching entity.

What exactly these were was rather ambiguous. They seemed similar to a kind of currency, giving access to reduced-price holidays and amenities and retail offers.

And they were apparently "exchangeable with other owners, some time down the line.

Paying cash up front now would produce an future return that would pay for the company's charges and leave the timeshare holder in profit, released finally from their burdensome deal.

Too good to be true? Indeed, it was.

A 'Misleading Scam'

Based on these descriptions were accurate, this was a massive scam.

This is known as a "misleading sales."

An operator - in this case SMT - "baits" the consumer by promoting a particular product only to then state it cannot be provided, directing the customer towards an alternative, lesser option.

Such practices are unlawful. Possessing all the accounts we had assembled, we presented the rationale to secretly film one of the organization's sessions.

Such an operation demands dedication, work, and strong justifications for why this is the only way to collect the information needed to prove wrongdoing.

With approval secured, our compact group set up a consultation with one of the firm's agents in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Pretending to be a ordinary individual wanting to get his mum released from her timeshare contract|holiday ownership agreement