Continuing with our Consumer Awareness articles, AIT has received enquiries into another “Cold Calling” company regarding timeshare relinquishments and claims. Most timeshare owners are very much used to receiving these calls and tend to treat them with the contempt they deserve, but unfortunately, some will fall for the “pitch”. Today we give you a very good example of why you need to make thorough checks before making any decision.
The company being highlighted today is Timeshare Termination Team (not to be confused with a US company of the same name), is based in Truro Cornwall, with the website:
https://www.timeshareterminationteam.co.uk/
At the foot of their website, they state that Timeshare Termination Team is a trading style of Exit My Timeshare Group, yet there is no company record of this group, but there is a company registered for Timeshare Termination Team.
The registered address is: Penstraze Business Centre Penstraze, Truro Cornwall, TR4 8PN
Company Number 12301911
So it is a registered company, but this is where we now find the inconsistencies. According to Company House records, the company was Incorporated on 6 November 2019, just over 3 years ago. Yet according to their website under “Who Are We?”, “they started in 2014”, so how does a company that was only incorporated in 2019 claim to have been operating 5 years before company formation?
At first, we thought it may have been a change of company name, which is not unusual, but according to the filing history, no such change has taken place. What has taken place is the change of director, on 21 October 2021 the first director resigned, and the replacement was appointed on 20 January 2022, almost 4 months later. These are not the only points that AIT finds dubious.
In the same paragraph, they claim to have helped over 500 hundred timeshare owners relinquish their contracts, all without an “upfront fee”. That does look very impressive, but it is the next statement which really does get the alarm bells ringing, “We have also recovered over £600,000 in claims for our clients”.
In fact, Mindtimeshare did highlight this company back in 2019 and also concluded that over 500 clients helped and over £600,000 recovered was exaggerated, to say the least, especially considering Mindtimeshare published in October 2019, which was only 5 months after registration of the website and a month before the company was registered.
What we also find very strange are these figures were published in 2019, yet in 2022 they are still the same, surely in the past 3 years the number of relinquishments and the number of claims paid out should have gone up, so what have they been doing since then?
Another statement from “Who Are We?” which AIT also finds difficulty in believing is:
“Our dedicated partners and practices are all approved by the Solicitor Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority”.
There appears to be no mention of who these “partners & practices” are, so that makes it very difficult for any consumer to check with the SRA or the FCA for confirmation. This also indicates they may be just a “marketing company” and do not actually carry out the work, which is then “contracted” out to third parties. This is always something to be very wary of.
So the question is can you actually believe what they claim so far?
The website was registered on 20 June 2019 almost 6 months before company registration and is due to expire on 20 June 2023, at least it is not one of those registered for only 1 year. It is quite an extensive website with FAQs, Reviews, a Blog and the usual information on claims and terminations. One which did get the laughter going was this statement on Azure Services Limited:
“As of the 27th of April 2020 Azure Services Ltd filed for liquidation. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse. We all knew that they had already started to put plans in place to cease operations.”
Considering that Azure is part of the Limora Group which includes Silverpoint this claim that they have used Covid as an excuse for liquidation is absurd, we all know that Silverpoint and many more of the Limora Group of companies including Limora Investments Ltd itself are in administration. We also know the reasons why, the owner Robert “Bob” Trotta died and the family under the direction of Kwang Boon Sim, the “Financial Guru” for Bob Trotta, liquidated companies in order to preserve the family fortune. https://afterinsidetimeshare.com/?p=140
As for the “client reviews and testimonials” we always take these with a pinch of salt, we have seen many fake reviews on these types of websites, in fact, we only just published one which was blatantly fake. Using genuine pictures from people’s profiles with a change of name. https://afterinsidetimeshare.com/?p=1174
They may be genuine, they may be a scam, and there is probably much more on the website where we will find many more discrepancies, but what we have published here should be enough to make you think twice.
Link to Company Registration
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12301911
Link to web registration
https://www.whois.com/whois/timeshareterminationteam.co.uk
Link to Mindtimeshare October 2019
https://mindtimeshare.me/2019/10/30/timeshare-termination-team-uk-offering-relinquishment-services/
As always, AIT’s advice is not to take any call or company as genuine, especially with timeshare, do your checks first and if you find anything untoward as we have done here, then think very carefully about engaging their services.
If you are unsure how to make any checks and require any help or information, please use the details on our contact page and we will get back to you. Any comments on this or any article please place them on the appropriate page.
We hope you had a great weekend, I’m not sure that Baby Dog is taking his job as “Undercover Watchdog” seriously, although he does look like he had a fun weekend.
