This a new scam-beware

[Unregistered]

I was contacted by a chap called Jonathan Knight, Humphries Solicitors & Co, 40 Bank Street, Canary Wharf, London E14 0LJ and was told that he had a cheque in the sum of £995 for us which was compensation for the mis-selling of our timeshare week. I asked who had awarded this cash and he said the court in Malaga. He asked that we send by moneygram £240 to Ross Gary Martin in Malaga. On receipt of this cash (for services rendered, though we had no knowledge of it) the cheque for £995 would be sent to us by recorded delivery on Thursday 27th January 2011 between 10am and 12 noon. I checked with the Law Society in London, they had no knowledge of either the firm or the man, I checked the post code which gave me a different street in London (Leven Street), then I found a solicitor who actually worked at 40 Bank Street and when they replied 3 days later, had no knowledge of the firm or the man. Despite my misgivings, we sent the cash and hoped we had not been scammed again, but of course we had. I phoned Jonathan Knight on the number supplied 020 7183 8453 several times, but it did not sound like a UK dial tone and it cut out after 6 rings. My feeling is that this scam is being run from Spain and that Jonathan Knight and Ross Gary Martin are one and the same person, though I have no proof of this. The reason we paid the cash - we had reported End Vacations to various auhorities i.e. Spanish Embassy, some outfit connected with the EU, and had had correspondence which told me that they had forwarded by complaints to the Fraud Squad, so you can see why I thought the whole thing Kosher.
Wondering what to do I looked on the internet and Googled for Lawyers in Spain to deal with timeshare scams, and Ramirez and Ramirez came up (their webside is very impressive), so I e-mailed them with the information above. This morning I had a call from a very nice lady who assured me that they were looking into it, that she would send details by e-mail of the company and would I scan and e-mail copies of any transaction I had with End Vacations and also Etoo. I thought to be on the safe side to check up on this outfit, and found this forum for which I am gratful, as this is apparently another scam - what rogues.
As yet I have not got the information she promised, but it will not help their scam anyway and I will not respond with any information, but will let her know that I do not trust the company.

[Unregistered]

I've just had a call from 'Jonathan Clark' who said he was from Humphrey's solicitors and he gave me exactly the same story as the one above. I told him I wanted a letter with all this in writing or at least an email so I could show it to my own solicitor and as soon as I said that, he put the phone down! It's my elderly mother-in-law's timeshare sale problem but she has asked me to act on her behalf as she was recently widowed and also gets very confused. She explained all this to this man when he called her first, and he STILL had the nerve to try and wangle the money out of us. They know many timeshare owners are elderly and not as clued up to scams as they should be - sickening.

[Unregistered]

About a month ago i was contacted by a Gareth Fletcher from Ramirez and Ramirez informing me they are acting as the lawyers in trying to obtain customers monies back from Incentive Leisure run by a Gary Lee. Their call seemed genuine enough and seemed to know a lot of information about my timeshare I had sold to Incentive Leisure in June 2009. He informed that they were being investigated and had appeared on the BBC's Watchdog programme in October 2010. He then asked me for proof of information, documents, bank transactions for him to process my claim, thinking that this was a genuie call i provided him with the information.

Today 17th March 2011 at 2pm i receiced a call from a John Didcot the prosecuting lawyer from Ramirez and Ramirez informing me that all the documents i had sent and was proceeding with my claim. He explained in great detail the circumstances about the case and he told me that Gary Lee's family were going to settle out of court hence the phonecall today. apparently Gary Lee had been killed cycling up a mountain in Spain by an 83 year old man which started to ring alarm bells that this might be a scam afterall. I let John Didcot continue and he stated the the phone call was being recorded and explained that everything he said was genuine and above board. To get my money back i had 3 options, 1 to do nothing and write the money off, 2 appoint another lawyer which had to speak and translate spanish and dealt in fraud or 3 let Ramirez and Ramirez continue with the procedure.

I then like a fool opted for option 3 because i certainly wasn't going to write the money off and i didn't know how much a spanish lawyer would cost. I went for option 3, he went on to inform me that in order to get my money i had to pay a fee of £860 or 998.6 euros for the documentation, administration, court time and postage of legal documents. I the asked him to send written documentation by e-mail so my wife and i would look it over, it was then he informed me that tomorrow 18th March 2011 was the final day of the claims and to proceed i had to send him the fee by credit card. My wife and i had a discussion about it and i decided to have a look on the internet just to give us reassurance that they were genuine, only to find to my disbelief quite a few sites informing me of the scam.

I hope this helps in any way and will be forwarding my information to the relevant authorities.

J Brown

[Unregistered]

My wife had a similar phone call yesterday from Humphries solicitors, Canary Wharf, London. They are claiming that they they have a payment from a law court for compensation from a re- sale company who failed to sell. They alledge that I had paid a re-sale company £1000 to sell my timeshare some years ago which is not true. In order to get back my money I should obtain a moneygram from the Post Office and send £290( paid in cash) to Ryan Anthony Fallows today. A Jonathan Clarke will ring this afternoon to ask for the reference number of the moneygram. A cheque for £890 will then be sent to me by courier tommorow morning ha ha ha and the moneygram will not be cashed until my cheque is cleared ha ha ha! They are using the reliable reputation of the Post Office to make this all appear authentic.
In searching internet for this scam I could not find any of the names given to me but came across your page so I thought it may be of interest to your readers.
Cheers Derek