Is the company Resale Strategy legitimate?

[Stuart]

I have also been contacted by them. They firstly asked permission to market my apartment, having never seen it, but did not ask for any paperwork. I then received a call back 2 or 3 days later to say they had 'found a cash buyer' from Russia. They then said I needed to sign the contract and pay the fee. I asked to see the paperwork and contract of sale in order for my Spanish Solicitor to review. I received the standard T & C's omitting any reference to fees, of which I have since discovered to be £990 + 2% of the sale price. I was chasing a copy of the contract of sale when I received a call from the 'Head of Contracts' in Coventry to inform me that the 'purchaser' had withdrawn his offer!!!!!!!!!!!

[Unregistered]

Hi. We also have received 2 telephone calls and email from Resale Strategy. Having read the previous posts I don't think we will entertain them. We had our doubts from the offset because the inspection trips would have the clients staying in our property for maybe 5 to 7 days. Nice holiday. We didn't like the selling fee of 990.00 pounds either. He told me that if they did not sell our property after 365 days then the fee would be refundable. I wonder. No thanks Resale Strategy.

[Lawbird Lawyer]

I refer the forum lurkers and posters -for reference purposes only- (we take no personal stance on the company being discussed on this thread) to our useful blog post (scroll below):


9 Tips on How to Determine if an Offer is a Scam
October 17th, 2008 @ 14:10 by admin




We are receiving a dozen queries every day asking about the legitimacy of certain offer, generally received by email or over the phone after a cold call. Unfortunately, we cannot analyze case by case, and therefore will provide a set of useful hints which will help you evaluate the legitimacy of the company or individual yourself.

The list below is provided in no particular order:

1. Is the domain name old enough? By means of a Whois search you can find out when the domain name was registered. If it’s only a few weeks old, be suspicious.

2. Are they using mobiles? – If the phones used as contact numbers are mobile numbers instead of land lines, it’s definitely not a good sign. In Spain, mobile numbers start by +34 6..

3. Have you been contacted out of the blue? – If you where cold called, or received an email from someone you don’t know, ask yourself why these people have your contact details.

4. Are you being requested to pay money upfront? This is the single most worrying point if it comes in conjunction of with one or more of the above.

5. Is the offer too good to be true? If the offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

6. Is the company properly registered? – Although it’s something positive if they can provide you with company registration details, you shouldn’t give this point too much importance. Fraudsters have been registering companies for decades with the sole purpose of deceiving (e.g. dozens of companies where incorporated by fraudsters to conduct the infamous Timeshare Resale Scam)

7. Is the address for their offices correct? – Not sure why, fraudsters tend to provide you with fake addresses which don’t really exist. Check any of the online street directories and find out if the address provided is correct.

8. Something strange about their names? Funny names such as “Woley Fernandez” or “Barrister Perez Santos ESQ” are names made up by Nigerians conducting 419 advance fee scams (the terms “Barrister” or “ESQ” don’t exist in Spanish law). Also, fraudsters tend to cite fake organisms such as “The Ministry of Finance” or “The Security Company”.

9. What others are saying – Use search engines to find information about the company. Try putting the company in inverted comas, and add terms like “scam” or “fraud”. The company or individual you mention might have already been reported online as fraudsters by other people.

Needless to say, the above list shouldn’t be taken as definitive, nor the absolute legitimacy o illegitimacy of a company established based on one or more of the above points. You can use it, however, to personally evaluate the risk of the transaction.

My recommendation is that you never pay any moneys upfront if you have been contacted out of the blue. However, if you have to, before doing so always suggest the use of an escrow company (chosen by you) to hold the funds until the product or service has been delivered. If they refuse, I recommend that you back off.

Always remember; have a lawyer analyze the transaction before making any up-front payments.

[MHC]

Hi,

I received a call from Resale Strategy Ltd (RSL) today (already suspicious by the name) and they offered to sell my apartment in Bulgaria for me. They said they operate differently to standard Bulgarian estate agents (didn't explain how) and that they had Polish and Russian people waiting to buy multiple properties. RSL said they take on a maximum of 250 properties for marketing at any one time (do you know of any other company that limits its growth potential for the benefit if its clients?).

I asked if there were any upfront fees and the caller said "yes, but the fees were fully refundable if there was no sale" (if the fees are fully refundable...why charge an upfront fee?).

Anyway, as soon as I said I was not interested in anything that involved an upfront fee, the caller lost interest.

I can't say for definite if this is a scam, but it felt really fishy, so please be carefull and remember the golden rules:

- DO NOT PAY MONEY UPFRONT
- IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT PROBABLY IS
- IF THEY ARE SO CONFIDENT OF MAKING YOU MONEY...WHY ARE YOU PAYING FEES UPFRONT?

[Unregistered]

You may ask the Spanish CNMV, Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (www.cnmv.es), wether they are registered in any the Official Registers. If not, they are not authorizied to render investments services in Spain.

[Lawbird Lawyer]

You may ask the Spanish CNMV, Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (www.cnmv.es), wether they are registered in any the Official Registers. If not, they are not authorizied to render investments services in Spain.

As the poster quoted correctly writes they have to be registered with Spain's equivalent of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) which in Spain is the CNMV to render financial investments services such as buying and selling shares.

Please follow this link to the FSA's list of overseas boiler rooms (regularly updated) which target expats with share scams and such.

The CNMV's web is available in English, top right tab to change the language. There are many list of unregulated companies which offer their "financial services", please browse the whole list.

CNMV's Public warnings.


Investing through non-authorised companies implies a high risk of suffering capital losses since such entities operate apart from the controls carried out by supervisory authorities. In order to prevent this, the CNMV and other foreign regulators publish warnings on companies which are not authorized to provide investment services.

By using the “Search Engine for Warned Companies” you can find any entity that has been entered in any of the above-mentioned warnings categories. To do that search, the entire or only a part of the name of the entity should be typed.

Should you wish to verify whether a certain entity is authorized to provide investment services, please, use the search engine included in number 2 of the following link.

[Unregistered]

I sold my property with resale strategy 2 months ago, they acting very profesional and kept ther side of the contract. I hope you all the success I had. David S

David

I note from the site you have had a good experience from them, every other person seems really put off....what made you go with them??, how did you here about them>

[SteveH]

Hi all.

Am I the only person who suspects that the elusive David, delighted erstwhile client of Resale Strategy is actually connected to the company?

I too have been contacted regarding an apartment I have completed on in Bulgaria with the same story as previously reported by others. Interestingly, I have also been contacted by one Emma Burton at Godiva Marketing which offers a contract which is a cut-down plagiarism of that proffered by Resale Strategy & further digging reveals that these two companies are linked.

I have received emails from both companies, one signed off thus:
Richard Duncan
Resale Strategy Limited
The Meridian
4, Copthall House, Station Square,
Coventry,
West Midlands.
CV1 2FL
0121 383 8033

and the other, simply:
Emma Burton
Godiva Marketing

Many companies use the same address at Coventry, perhaps partly due to the presence there of Simple Formations, "owned by Small Firms Services Limited, a UK registered company with registration number 3658573, providing company formation and business support services since 1998." It's motto is "Limited Company Formation the simple way" and I'm now certain this is an accommodation address and the companies are operating a SCAM.

Cheers
Steve H

[Unregistered]

Can you please give me 1 name and number from any clients that have joined and been ripped off by this system..It seems to me that not 1 of you have actualy tried the system, its easy to say bad things about a company, what if the system actualy works. Have you not got better things to do, if you are trying to sell a property tell me what real-estate is actualy at present selling any. With out marketing, no sales, no money, no marketing, the system has been put in place to help people move there property, at the end of the day if it does not work you are offered a full refund.

You may ask, they offer a refund but do they actualy pay it back. the answer to that is because of all the timeshare scams in Spain companies have to now pay huge deposits for the credit card machines, if only 1 client makes a complaint they look to lose there deposit and there payment structure.


Think before you speak.

Gareth.

Hi all.

Am I the only person who suspects that the elusive David, delighted erstwhile client of Resale Strategy is actually connected to the company?

I too have been contacted regarding an apartment I have completed on in Bulgaria with the same story as previously reported by others. Interestingly, I have also been contacted by one Emma Burton at Godiva Marketing which offers a contract which is a cut-down plagiarism of that proffered by Resale Strategy & further digging reveals that these two companies are linked.

I have received emails from both companies, one signed off thus:
Richard Duncan
Resale Strategy Limited
The Meridian
4, Copthall House, Station Square,
Coventry,
West Midlands.
CV1 2FL
0121 383 8033

and the other, simply:
Emma Burton
Godiva Marketing

Many companies use the same address at Coventry, perhaps partly due to the presence there of Simple Formations, "owned by Small Firms Services Limited, a UK registered company with registration number 3658573, providing company formation and business support services since 1998." It's motto is "Limited Company Formation the simple way" and I'm now certain this is an accommodation address and the companies are operating a SCAM.

Cheers
Steve H

[Unregistered]

Hi,

I've been contacted by resale strategy as well, oddly enough they got hold of my home address. They had problems sending me emails and although the guy "David" was very helpful answering all my questions I still have doubts that they are for real. I've not found anywhere on this site or any other site of anyone that has used them and managed to make a sale except for "DAvid S" whose 2 line post was very vague and never replied to the questions. All in all, stay away, this site is just after desperate sellers who will do anything to get rid of their property, there are lots out there so they know the game.
It will be good to hear from either david s or anyone that has registered and sold sucessfully