If you have been victimized by either a timeshare resale firm or a timeshare resort, add your complaint below.
Timeshare Scams and Fraud
Universal Consultants - cannot verify this company - Universal Consultants
Company Name: Universal Consultants
Company Address: Av. Espana 27,29680 Estepona,Andalusia Spain, 29680 Estepona, Andalusia
Company Website: NONE
Company Phone: 0034 95120352 / 0034 951203525
Sales Person: Karen Robinson/ Tracey Cook
We were approached by Universal Consultants by phone and were told that the they were part of an Investment company and that Timeshare resale’s were not their core business and they had a customer that wanted to purchase our points.
They knew a lot about our CLC membership, that we didn’t use CLC much and the number of points we held. When questioned they said this was available from a Register in the Isle of Man that Investment companies have access to.
We were told we would get £24K for our points - but we would need to pay for Liability Insurance of £1600 by credit card up front. They said the fact we paid by credit card meant we were protected.
I did some research on the company could find absolutely nothing on them and was unable to verify their existence - We asked for information in writing they emailed using a GMAIL account - The letter looked as if it had just been made up on the computer and the same telephone number on the letter printed at the top and bottom of the letter were slightly different by one number. Google Street mapping the address didn’t give us any positive indication that the company existed.
So I pushed them for Parent Company information such as Name, VAT, Co registration no, Country registered in, Directors names, contact details, who would the Liability insurance be managed through and a copy of the terms and conditions. This was so I could make some Validation checks on the relevant Companies House and Graydon’s report.
I agreed to take a phone call from them prior to requesting the validation information. Needless to say that call never happened.
I emailed explaining that I was waiting for the call and we should probably wait until they had fulfilled all my data requests. We subsequently received a phone call to say they had found another vendor because we asked for too much additional information.
We really hope that this experience will help others to also apply due diligence and not be blinded by large ££££ signs