How Undercover Filming Uncovered a £28 Million Holiday Ownership Scam

Authorities have called it as a major deceptions of its kind in the United Kingdom.

In all 14 defendants have been found guilty for their involvement in a £28 million plot to swindle more than 3,500 vacation property holders.

The victims were desperate to get out of decades-old timeshare contracts and sought out support.

The majority were from 60 and 80. Over 500 of them surrendered more than £10,000, and a single victim paid in excess of £80,000.

Those victimized were exposed to intense consultations lasting up to six hours. They were out of money, owning worthless fake "rewards" and continued to be trapped in costly timeshare contracts they frequently were unable to use.

The Firm At the Heart of the Scam

The company at the core of the scheme was the timeshare resale company. They collected clients' cash to fund the directors' luxurious standard of living of exclusive education, luxury homes and exclusive air travel.

The individual at the head of the organization, the company director, was handed a seven-and-half year sentence in January for deceptive scheme.

In the latest development, his partner Nicola was among the last group to hear their sentences.

She received a two-year suspended prison term at the London court after pleading guilty to illegal fund handling.

This has been a long time coming and signifies a major victory for the victims who came forward, the law enforcement and the Crown.

How the Inquiry Began

The initial awareness of the firm was in the that particular year. The role involved in the investigations unit of a broadcasting service, producing current affairs features.

A colleague pointed out that his parent had assumed the ownership of a holiday property in Spain and, after decades of vacations, had begun looking to get out of the deal.

It should be noted how common vacation properties had evolved with English tourists in the eighties and nineties.

Vacation properties enabled families to occupy the same accommodation each season, or trade their vacation periods with other owners who had properties in different locations. About 600,000 vacation seekers took up that opportunity.

The first timeshare rush was linked to a many stories about dishonest operators mis-selling investments. They appeared frequently on consumer shows.

The common timeshare contract tied investors in for long periods.

In that period, those owners who had enjoyed their assigned property in the resort for 20 or 30 years were advancing in years, and a significant number were hoping to end their association to their holiday properties.

Some had health issues and couldn't get to their apartments. A few just believed they'd achieved their goals from them. And some had died, in numerous instances passing on their family members to take over the deals - including their yearly fees and upkeep costs.

The Covert Probe Progresses

And that's where the family member had ended up. She searched the web for solutions and came across the organization, a firm whose online presence promised to get her out of her deal.

However, having submitted funds and arranged an appointment with them, her relatives became suspicious.

Subsequent checking uncovered many victims claiming they had handed over cash and achieved no result from the service. Indeed, they had been left out of pocket. Significant sums.

The investigative unit started looking into what was occurring. It was rapidly apparent that there were questionable operators active in the holiday ownership market.

One lawyer had many grievance cases waiting to sue the organization.

Reporters contacted individuals who had dealt with the organization and they all told the same story. They assumed the firm would purchase their timeshare from them but when they went to a consultation (for which they made an advance payment) they were advised there was no potential buyers.

In place of that, they were encouraged - actually pressured - to spend more money purchasing "Monster Rewards", linked to the organization's holding firm, Monster Travel.

What exactly these were was not exactly clear. They seemed similar to a form of credit, providing discount travel and services and retail offers.

And they were apparently "tradable" with additional holders, at a future date.

Committing funds up front now would produce an eventual payoff that would pay for the company's charges and leave the property owner in profit, freed at last from their troublesome contract.

An unrealistic promise? Well, yes.

A 'Deceptive Tactic'

If these accounts were accurate, this was a major deception.

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

A business - here SMT - "baits" the consumer by promoting a particular product but then to state it cannot be provided, pushing the individual in the direction of a different, lower-quality offering.

This is against the law. Possessing all the accounts we had collected, we made the case to covertly record one of the firm's consultations.

The process requires dedication, work, and strong justifications for why this is the exclusive approach to obtain the data required to prove wrongdoing.

Armed with that permission, our limited crew organized a consultation with one of the company's representatives in the English town.

Acting as a ordinary individual wanting to help his mother out of her timeshare contract|holiday ownership agreement