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It has been described as one of the largest scams of its kind in the United Kingdom.

A total of 14 individuals have been sentenced for their role in a multi-million pound scheme to swindle in excess of 3,500 timeshare investors.

The targets were desperate to terminate long-standing holiday ownership agreements and went looking for support.

Most were in the age range of 60 and 80. Over 500 of them surrendered more than £10,000, and one paid more than £80,000.

Those targeted were subjected to aggressive presentations continuing for six hours. They were out of money, owning useless fake "credits" and continued to be locked into high-priced vacation property deals they often use.

The Company Behind the Deception

The company at the heart of the scheme was Sell My Timeshare (SMT). They took customers' funds to finance the proprietors' luxurious standard of living of exclusive education, luxury homes and exclusive air travel.

The individual at the head of the company, Mark Rowe, was handed a seven and a half year jail time in January for fraudulent conspiracy.

Recently, his partner another individual was one of the final three to receive sentencing.

She received a 24-month suspended prison term at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty to illegal fund handling.

It has been a lengthy process and marks a huge win for the victims who came forward, the authorities and legal representatives.

The Way the Inquiry Started

I first heard about SMT came in the summer of 2016. The position was in the investigations unit of a media outlet, creating investigative shows.

A friend mentioned that his mother had taken over the use of a holiday property in a European resort and, after years of holidays, had begun looking to get out of the contract.

It's worth mentioning how popular holiday ownership had evolved with British holidaymakers in the 1980s and 1990s.

Vacation properties enabled individuals to use the equivalent unit each season, or exchange their time slots with additional holders who had units in other resorts. Roughly 600,000 holiday enthusiasts seized that opportunity.

The first timeshare rush was paired with a lot of accounts about rip-off merchants deceptively promoting properties. They were regularly featured on public interest shows.

The standard holiday ownership agreement locked buyers for long periods.

At that time, those investors who had enjoyed their guaranteed place in the resort for 20 or 30 years were advancing in years, and a large proportion were attempting to say farewell to their holiday properties.

A number had reduced ability to travel and were unable to visit their properties. Some just thought they'd got all they wanted from them. And some had passed away, in frequent situations passing on their loved ones to inherit the contracts - along with their regular contributions and service charges.

The Undercover Operation Develops

It was at this point the family member had been placed. She searched the web for answers and discovered SMT, a firm whose online presence claimed to release her from her deal.

Yet, having submitted funds and arranged an appointment with them, her relatives became suspicious.

Subsequent checking revealed numerous individuals reporting they had paid money and achieved no result out of it. In fact, they had suffered financially. A lot of it.

Our team started looking into what was occurring. It was rapidly apparent that there were some shady characters working within the holiday ownership market.

One lawyer had hundreds of individual complaints waiting to sue SMT.

We spoke to clients who had used the firm and they each reported similar experiences. They thought the business would buy their property away from them but when they participated in a session (for which they paid up front) they were informed there was no market for their property.

Instead, they were persuaded - in fact coerced - to spend more money investing in "Monster Rewards", linked to the organization's holding firm, the parent organization.

The nature of these rewards was rather ambiguous. They seemed similar to a form of credit, giving access to reduced-price holidays and amenities and consumer discounts.

And they were reportedly "transferable with fellow investors, some time down the line.

Committing funds immediately would result in an eventual payoff that would offset SMT's fees and allow the timeshare holder ahead financially, released finally from their burdensome contract.

Too good to be true? Indeed, it was.

A 'Misleading Scheme'

Based on these descriptions were accurate, this was a massive scam.

It's what is called a "deceptive marketing."

Someone - in this case the company - "baits" the consumer by advertising a particular product but then to state it cannot be provided, pushing the client to a different, lower-quality offering.

That's illegal. Armed with all the testimony we had collected, we made the case to covertly record one of the firm's consultations.

Such an operation demands time, effort, and compelling reasons for why this is the only way to gather the information needed to confirm deceptive practices.

With approval secured, our small team arranged a meeting with one of the company's representatives in the location.

Pretending to be a ordinary individual wanting to assist his parent out of her timeshare contract|holiday ownership agreement