Warning about fake company cold-calling timeshare owners.

A consumer advocacy champion who writes for thisismoney.co.uk and regularly investigates customer complaints, is warning a company named JSD Group Limited has been cold calling timeshare owners claiming they have been mis-sold them.

After some investigation into the company the paper reported that it was in fact registered to a man who is currently serving jailtime in a prison in Indonesia for defrauding a hotel by paying with a fake credit card. They also learnt that the company address is actually located at a property on a housing estate in Carlisle.

In addition to these rather suspicious activities, the company only opened its doors a year ago and claims to have helped people win back money for mis-sold timeshares. They even had some extremely roaring reviews from people that seem just too good to be true. One such review wrote “God bless you guys” and another “Thank you from the bottom of my heart”. The This Is Money report then goes on to, quite rightly, question, how such a young company in such a short space of time would be able to claim back so much money for its clients. One person who was cold called by the company explained how the caller promised to get rid of their timeshare, for a large upfront fee of course, despite them explaining that they no longer owned a timeshare and had got rid of it twenty years previous.

Timeshare scams  

Above is just another example of a company springing up out of the blue with the sole aim to scam timeshare owners. Unfortunately, this is a very easy thing to do, and it happens on a regular basis, all they have to do is get hold of a list of timeshare owners, start cold calling them and luring people in with false promises. There are too many stories of companies doing exactly this and defrauding people out of thousands of pounds. This is unethical and immoral, not to mention against the law. Eventually bad companies do get noticed and sometimes even prosecuted, but this only happens after someone has been victimised and defrauded. The problem is there are too many timeshare owners who are desperate to get rid of them and the resorts do not want to help these people. Mainly because they will lose the income from maintenance fees, but also because they lose the opportunity to keep upselling existing owners and possibly these people could go on to make a claim against them for a mis-sold timeshare. If the resorts themselves looked at how they treated owners and put in place feasible exit processes that meant people could leave when they had enough or actual real-life reasons for not being able to use their timeshares, then the industry would not have such a bad reputation, there would not be so many unhappy owners and there would be no market for scammers at all.

People who enter into timeshare agreements often find it difficult to keep up with the mounting maintenance fees and simply cannot afford it any longer. They may also find that the timeshare no longer suits their needs and simply want to end the contract. There are too many individuals who are willing to take advantage of timeshare owners and offer fake products, along with timeshare exit schemes. Before agreeing to any timeshare termination or exit procedure with an individual or company, seek independent advice and fully research any company you are thinking of working with.

The mis-selling of holiday products is, unfortunately, common practice within the holiday industry and these types of crimes often go unreported by the most vulnerable in our society and criminal convictions are few and far between. If you have purchased a Lifestyle / Concierge Service, a timeshare or a ‘holiday points’-based product from a resort or company and feel unhappy with the service or feel you have been mis-sold this product, please get in touch with us to discuss how we may be able to help you with a possible Money Back Claim.