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Police have been called in to investigate after a couple from Bristol lose a holiday home and £272,000 in life savings, after the collapse of a £10 million foreign exchange firm. Civil servants, Bryn and Trish Pailing were fortunate enough to retire early and were about to complete the purchase of a dream home on Portugal’s Algarve coast.

It all began when the couple attended a ‘Place In The Sun’ exhibition in 2015 and met with Premier FX, who were sponsoring a Portuguese stand. They spoke with company representatives, who explained they acted as a foreign exchange company, that … Read more

A new report states that £500 Million has been stolen from customers of British banks in the first half of 2018 alone.

Industry group UK Finance says £145 Million of the stolen amount was due to APP scams, or Authorised Push Payments. APP crime is the fastest growing type of crime and these new figures show a sharp increase in the amount stolen from 2017. In short, APP fraud is where a victim believes they are paying for a legitimate service or item and the criminal poses as a trusted third party and redirects the payment to a different account.… Read more

Some towns no longer have a bank or won’t have a bank by the end of the year. Latest figures published by Which? Say nearly 2,900 branches nationwide will have been lost between 2015 and the end of 2018. In the West Midlands alone 208 branches have or will be closed by the end of the year.

The banks say a significant drop in footfall makes many branches impractical. But many people are upset and feel their communities are being treated unjustly.

The people affected the most are local businesses who operate during business hours and need to deposit cash … Read more

Hilton Grand Vacations Expand To The Caribbean.

Hilton Grand Vacations has announced that it is expanding its timeshare holdings to the Caribbean, and is planning a purchase of The Crane Resort in Saint Philip, Barbados. It is expected to sell for $54.6 million.

Hilton Grand Vacations is acquiring the existing one, two and three bedroom timeshare suites that operate and are currently owned by Millennium Investments Ltd. The deal will take 3 years to complete but sales will start by the end of this year. The Resort will be available for existing Hilton Grand Vacations members from January next year.… Read more

GDPR made its highly foreseen debut back in May of this year and, until recently, the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”), who are in charge of enforcing the new regulations, had yet to issue any fines.

There had been a lot of speculation as to when the first fine would be issued and to whom, and now Facebook has been issued with the maximum fine of £500,000 under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998. Under the terms of the legislation, companies must report data breaches to regulators within 72 hours and failures to adequately protect information can result in … Read more

An unnamed 40-year-old man has appeared in a Singapore court to face charges for his suspected involvement in a series of timeshare recovery scams.

It is alleged that between 2014 and 2017 the 40-year-old had cheated more than 20 timeshare membership owners out of approximately $600,000 by claiming to terminate their timeshare memberships. The case was first investigated by the Consumer Association of Singapore when they received complaints from customers who had paid for services that had not been performed. The ringleader and his associates cold-called potential customers and offered unregulated unchecked services to those who had bought timeshare … Read more

A man has been sentenced to 13 years in prison, after he was found guilty of conspiring to con dozens of investors out of millions of pounds. Michael Nascimento, ran a call centre where investors were offered shares in fraudulent companies. But instead, the court heard, how he spent some of the proceeds of his crimes on private school tuition, Arsenal season tickets and expensive trips.

For four years, Nascimento ran a ‘Boiler Room’, another name for a high pressure call centre, where investors, many of whom were elderly and vulnerable, buy shares in companies with credible sounding names. … Read more

A recent increase in cases of Timeshare owners being targeted for further abuse has prompted Action Fraud to warn owners to be on the lookout. Scammers are actively seeking out Timeshare owners who may be vulnerable or previously mis-sold their Timeshares and telling them they are owed compensation. The scammers pose as reputable companies offering unsuspecting customers exit from their timeshare burdens for a fee and promising to be able to reclaim compensation.

The scammers are aware of the Timeshare owners personal information from their previous investments which provides them with false credibility. They request upfront fees from owners … Read more

In their latest newsletter, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has warned banks to treat victims of financial fraud more fairly, instead of assuming the victim was grossly negligent and to blame.

FOS see thousands of complaints from customers, who have had money stolen from their accounts, and assesses cases where the bank and customer both say they are not responsible for the loss.

Often victims have had their life savings stolen in sophisticated scams and to make matters worse, the banks often refuse to reimburse their customers when this happens. As state-of-art scams become more prevalent and more convincing, the … Read more

Praetorian Legal have the pleasure of helping over 6,500 clients terminate their timeshare burdens, which often have caused years of financial hardship and stress. It is extremely rewarding to be able to help so many people, who more often than not have been through some thoroughly harrowing experiences.

Being able to provide these clients with a resolution and a successful claim is why we endeavour so hard to help owners navigate their way out of the Timeshare trap.

We have the pleasure of sharing with you yet another successful claim for compensation for one of our clients who has received … Read more