It is a fact for timeshare owners and ex-owners that they will be on the receiving end of “cold calls” with one aim in mind, to fleece them of their money. In the past it was only a handful of companies, with most tending to actually be registered and identifiable in any searches, now we seem to be plagued with so many names and the search results are not promising.
In a recent article by our friends at the TCA, one of their regular readers has been playing “detective” with all the cold calls he receives, the TCA has named him “Poirot”.
He has been keeping a check on all “cold calls” he receives gathering as much information as possible, and compiling a list of all the different names. In their article Time share scams – Who are we today? The TCA explained they could not yet say if any are “bogus or not”, below are the results of our quick check on the list, leaving you the reader to make up your own mind.
The first on “Poirot’s” list is Financial Services Bureau, it would seem there is no such organisation, all searches gave a complete blank. There is no website or any company with that name either registered or unregistered, now to AIT that does look highly suspect.
The next on the list is very similar to the above, again there was nothing to show if this company existed, apart from a warning on the Timeshare Business Check website.
According to their information, Financial Services Bureau is linked with the following which has figured prominently in past warnings.
- Contract Resolution Centre
- Charles Worthington
- Contract Consultancy
- Contract Fraud Action Team
- Contract Resolution Group
- Contract Resolutions Centre
- Contracts Resolutions
- Contracts Resolution Centre
- Contracts Solution Centre
- CRC
- David Bentley
- Fraud Action
- Fraud Panel
- Martin James
There is also a list of numbers which have been associated with these companies and cold calls.
01225 809387, 01484 819373, 01135 118975, 01925 398837, 01908 041985, 01223 790495, 01252 756887, 01235 886550, 01452 347521, 01914 325638, 01228 808952, 01213 923760, 01305 896725, 01615 202190, 01256 809682, 01614 644974, 01277 886955, 01376 386535, 01243 882918, 01202 124856, 01617 381192, 01371 868911
Two of the list supplied by “Poirot” Contract Fraud Action Team & Fraud Action Centre are also in the list above.
Our next one is Edward James Advisory, again no company came up on any searches, but again a warning was issued by the TBC Website. According to their information they were unable to verify the company, it is not FCA registered and it failed their “Transparency Test”.
Moving on to Sonata Advisory, this name has appeared before and at the time no search showed anything listed, the same goes for the search conducted today. They are ghosts.
Sonata Administrators, The TCA has in the past issued warnings on this company in the past in their article Sonata Administration Services – Be Very Careful
Another warning was also issued by the TBC on Met Advisory. Although they are registered with company house, TBC has found some issues with this company, one being they are not FCA registered in relation to claims.
Another name which we found difficult in tracing was CMC Consultants, there were plenty with the same name or similar but nothing about timeshare claims or exits. Below are three examples of the same name.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/cmc-consultants/
https://www.cmc-consultants.com/
Our next name obviously plays on what appears in any search, which makes it very easy for the scammers to hide, the name AML Executive.
The only items to appear on any search were for the initials AML, this brought up a list showing anything to do with Money Laundering. Quite apt really considering they are in the Scamming game.
York Advisory has also appeared before, this was one of those which was deliberately used to throw off any research by the consumer. At the time we originally searched and again this time are references to York University and information for students.
For Howard Advisory there was absolutely nothing listed and for Harwood Andrews, there is only a listing of a law firm in Australia, so I think we can rule them out.
Contracts International, again nothing was found in any search although there are plenty for International Contracts, throwing you off the scent again.
Our last one is TTS Partners, now this one is strange, it is registered at Company House, with the Company Number 12920956 and the Registered Address of Suite 2a, Blackthorn House, St Paul’s Square, Birmingham, B3 1RL. It has been registered for just two years. According to the Filing History, it is known as a “Micro” company, which means it has a turnover less than the prescribed amount, fewer than 10 employees and most importantly, their accounts do not need to be “Audited”.
Their website https://tts.partners/ appears to be very clear about who they are and what they do. According to the website they use JCLA & AS Lawyers, a genuine Spanish law firm with offices in London, and state that all claims are conducted by FCA-regulated firms.
So, this is clearly a company that finds the clients, signs them up and the “third party” firms are “contracted” to do the work. Looks OK so far, until you remember that any payments are likely to be made to TTS. This is a point that started the warning bells to sound as we have seen the consequences of this before, the “contracted” party has not been paid.
These “companies” are the result of just one consumer keeping track of a few weeks’ worths of calls, just from our own preliminary searches we have sounded every alarm bell going, including the “nuclear alert”.
It is clear that you the consumer have to negotiate a huge minefield of suspect companies, all with one motive, to get your money. There is only one failsafe method of not being scammed, and that is to
