How Secret Filming Uncovered a Multi-Million Pound Timeshare Fraud

Prosecutors have labeled it as one of the largest deceptions of its nature in the United Kingdom.

In all 14 defendants have been found guilty for their involvement in a £28m scheme to swindle more than 3,500 timeshare investors.

The victims were keen to terminate decades-old holiday ownership agreements and went looking for assistance.

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

Those affected were faced high-pressure sales meetings lasting up to six hours. They were financially worse off, holding worthless fake "points" and remained trapped in costly vacation property deals they often use.

The Business Central to the Scam

The business at the centre of the fraud was the organization in question. They took people's money to fund the proprietors' opulent standard of living of exclusive education, luxury homes and exclusive air travel.

The man at the head of the organization, Mark Rowe, was handed a seven and a half year prison term in January for deceptive scheme.

Recently, his spouse Nicola was part of the concluding cases to hear their sentences.

She received a two-year deferred imprisonment at the judicial venue after admitting financial crime.

This has been a lengthy process and represents a significant success for the victims who came forward, the authorities and the Crown.

How the Investigation Was Initiated

The initial awareness of the company came in the mid-2016. I was working in the reporting team of a news organization, producing investigative programmes.

A friend noted that his mother had taken over the ownership of a vacation unit in a European resort and, after years of holidays, had commenced searching to terminate the contract.

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

Timeshares allowed families to occupy the same accommodation every year, or trade their time slots with other owners who had apartments in alternative destinations. Roughly 600,000 sun-lovers took up that option.

The first timeshare rush was linked to a lot of stories about dishonest operators mis-selling units. They were regularly featured on consumer broadcasts.

The common vacation property deal tied investors in for many years.

In that period, those holders who had experienced their assigned property in the resort for decades were advancing in years, and many were hoping to wave goodbye to their vacation investments.

Several had health issues and found it difficult to access their apartments. Others just thought they'd got all they wanted from them. And some had died, in many cases leaving their loved ones to assume the agreements - including their regular contributions and service charges.

The Covert Probe Develops

And that's where the family member had found herself. She browsed the internet for answers and came across SMT, a firm whose online presence claimed to release her from her contract.

But, having made a payment and booked a meeting with them, her relatives became suspicious.

Additional investigation revealed hundreds of people reporting they had handed over cash and achieved no result from the service. In fact, they had lost money. Significant sums.

The investigative unit started looking into what was happening. It quickly became clear that there were some shady characters working within the timeshare resale sector.

An attorney had numerous client reports waiting to sue the organization.

We spoke to clients who had dealt with the organization and they collectively described identical situations. They believed the business would buy their property from them but when they went to a consultation (for which they paid up front) they were advised there was no re-sale value.

Rather, they were pushed - indeed coerced - to commit further cash acquiring "the company's points system", named after the organization's holding firm, Monster Travel.

What exactly these were was rather ambiguous. They seemed similar to a form of credit, offering discount travel and services and shopping deals.

And they were apparently "exchangeable with fellow investors, eventually.

Committing funds at the time would lead to an future return that would cover the company's charges and allow the property owner ahead financially, freed at last from their burdensome deal.

An unrealistic promise? Certainly, that proved correct.

A 'Misleading Tactic'

If these accounts were accurate, this was a large-scale fraud.

The technique is termed a "bait-and-switch."

A business - specifically the organization - "attracts the client by advertising a particular product only to then claim it is unavailable, pushing the individual towards another, inferior product or service.

This is against the law. Armed with all the testimony we had collected, we made the case to secretly film one of the organization's sessions.

This takes commitment, energy, and clear arguments for why this is the exclusive approach to gather the information required to demonstrate illegal activity.

Armed with that permission, our limited crew organized a meeting with one of the organization's staff in the location.

Pretending to be a potential client wanting to help his mother released from her timeshare contract|holiday ownership agreement