RESALES

Case 1

Mrs X owns 3 consecutive weeks in the same apartment at Anfi. One day Mr. Y contacted her and said he was acting as a sales agent and offered her €65,000 for her 3 weeks.

When she asked him why he was not buying directly from Anfi, he said he couldn’t get 3 weeks in the same apartment if he purchased directly from Anfi. To prove who he was, he sent her a copy of his national identity card.

Mrs X made 3 payments to Mr. Y for “administrative charges”: one of €10,000, another of €5,000 and a last one of €3,000, making a total of €18,000. After making the payments she never heard from Mr. Y again.

She then checked the identity card. Since German ID cards also contain the holders address, she discovered that Mr. Y wasn’t the true holder of that document. The real owner of the ID card had no clue how someone else could have obtained a copy of his ID.

Case 2

Client X was contacted by Mr. Z who said he had a buyer for the week owned by the client at Anfi. However, he stated that the property should be first registered at the “Land Registry”.

Client X was told that this would cost approximately €3,240 and, if the client agreed and paid this initial amount, then Mr. Z could arrange the sale.

After sending the payment, the client never heard from Mr. Z again.

Case 3

Mr. A was contacted by somebody who said they had a buyer for his week. However, to proceed with the sale first they would need to do some paperwork at the town hall.

Mr. A received the papers by fax and, when he showed us the documents, despite speaking Spanish fluently and knowing the paperwork requested from the town hall, I was unable to tell the difference between authentic paperwork and these falsifications.

The client paid what the broker asked for but never heard back from this person again.

Case 4

The clients were contacted by a sales agent who told them that he had a buyer for their week who was offering a very interesting price.

However, the clients had to fly to the south of Spain solely to sign the contracts.

When the clients landed in Spain, the buyer had disappeared, and the couple was instead offered a new time-share week with a very tempting price.

Needless to say, the clients were not interested.

There was no sale and they had to cover the costs of their flights and accommodation.

Nina Kåhlberg (Clients department)

Case 5

The Collection Department received a call from a member to confirm they had received the maintenance fee payment and to arrange an invitation certificate for a friend to use her Christmas week in Anfi del Mar. When we informed her that she was not the owner of the week and apartment quoted, she was shocked. She confirmed that she had recently purchased the week privately through a resale agent who had published the week for a reasonable price, and that she had paid for the week (and supposedly the maintenance fee) some weeks previously, believing that the transfer of the week into her name had been completed. After doing some research, the real owner of the week turned out to be a very happy member with no intention of selling his week, and the woman had clearly been conned. After some days, the woman called back to tell us that the company’s telephone line that she had previously dealt with had gone dead and that there was no way of contacting them. Unfortunately, this is not a one-off case and, I hate to say, I have seen this situation too many times.

Case 6

We constantly receive calls from members who have been contacted by re-sale companies calling and asking members if they want to sell their weeks. Some claim to have someone interested in buying their week for an interesting amount, but in order to make the sale, the member is asked to pay an up-front “administration” fee. Some members have mentioned the fee to be around €1,000 or more. They are then informed that the sale will be fulfilled by the company and that they will receive the agreed amount within a couple of weeks after providing their bank details. A member called us after not receiving the promised payment. He called the agent and was told that the sale hadn’t gone through, and that the buyer had purchased a different week. He was told that they would find another buyer and that they would get in touch in due course. Approximately eight weeks later, he tried to call again after not receiving any updates, only to discover the line had been disconnected.

Karl Stones (Collections department)

Case 7

Mrs X has been a proud owner of three floating weeks at Anfi Emerald Club since 2007 which she uses every year. The weeks are affiliated into AVC Points which makes it even easier for her to book her holidays at Anfi.

At the beginning of year 2010, Mrs X took a short break to the south of Tenerife where a company (hereinafter, Company Y) approached her to offer two weeks at Anfi Beach Club in a 2-bedroom unit for the sum of GBP12,000.

The offer sounded really good and since Mrs X loves Anfi and making use of her Anfi weeks, she decided to accept the deal for this amount – knowing that the price for the two weeks in a 2 bedroom apartment would never be possible if purchasing from Anfi Sales directly.

She signed a purchase agreement with Company Y and gave them a bank cheque for the sum of GBP12,000. In exchange, she was given two photocopies of a membership certificate for two weeks at Anfi Beach Club. The membership certificates seemed legitimate although they did show somebody else’s name on the front page as the registered owners.

The resale company told her not to worry, that they would get in touch within a few days with the membership certificates in her name.

A few days after returning home, Mrs X had still not received any phone calls from the resale company. She tried to telephone and e-mail them on several occasions to see when she was going to receive the new deeds for her purchase. Despite numerous tries, she never received any reply from the Company Y. It seemed that the phone line had been cut off and nobody replied to her e-mails.

In August 2010, whilst holidaying at Anfi, she brought this issue to our attention and asked if we at Anfi had any confirmation of her two new weeks at ABC. She provided all the information to us and we immediately realised she had been dealing with a scam company and had been cheated.

We provided the RDO Enforcement Project all the information, who sadly confirmed that the resale company was indeed fraudulent, they had operated from Tenerife since 2008 and specialised in taking large amounts of money from people in exchange for fraudulent paperwork.

The weeks she had supposedly purchased at ABC through Company Y actually belonged to a young couple who were going through financial issues and had asked for help from the aforementioned company.

This couple had made an advance payment of GBP1,000 per week on the promise that they would get a good price for their weeks once sold.

Company Y had taken the GBP2,000 from these members who were trying to sell their weeks, plus the GBP12,000 from the member buying the weeks. The company disappeared with the money from both parties, no transfer of membership was ever made and both parties (seller and buyer) were left disappointed and with a substantial loss of money.

After a few weeks of investigation and discussion, RDO supported both sides to recover their money. The police managed to track down the fraudulent company and closed down their business.

Although no money was ever returned, the company was closed down and those behind the company were arrested by the police in Tenerife.

Anfi helped both members to find the best suitable options for the client and find the best solution for their situation.

María Hidalgo (Customer Service Department)