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It has been described as one of the largest frauds of its kind in the UK.

In all 14 defendants have been found guilty for their role in a multi-million pound plot to cheat in excess of 3,500 timeshare owners.

The victims were desperate to exit age-old holiday ownership agreements and tried to find support.

Most were in the age range of 60 and 80. Over 500 of them lost over £10,000, and one individual handed over in excess of £80,000.

Those targeted were exposed to intense consultations extending for six hours. They were out of money, owning valueless fake "credits" and remained bound by expensive vacation property deals they could no longer use.

The Business Central to the Fraud

The firm at the centre of the scheme was the timeshare resale company. They accepted clients' cash to finance the proprietors' lavish lifestyle of exclusive education, luxury homes and exclusive air travel.

The leader at the top of the firm, the main defendant, was given a seven-and-half year jail time in January for fraudulent conspiracy.

In the latest development, his wife one of the co-defendants was one of the final three to learn their fate.

She was given a two-year suspended jail sentence at Southwark Crown Court after confessing to financial crime.

The outcome represents a long time coming and marks a major victory for the people who spoke out, the police and prosecutors.

How the Investigation Started

The first knowledge of the firm emerged during the summer of 2016. I was working in the research department of a broadcasting service, making documentary features.

A friend mentioned that his parent had assumed the ownership of a timeshare apartment in a European resort and, after long-term use, had commenced searching to get out of the contract.

It is important to recall how common holiday ownership had become with English tourists in the 1980s and 1990s.

Vacation properties enabled families to occupy the same accommodation each season, or swap their time slots with other owners who had apartments in alternative destinations. About 600,000 vacation seekers accepted that opportunity.

The initial boom was paired with a lot of reports about rip-off merchants fraudulently marketing investments. They were regularly featured on investigative TV programmes.

The typical timeshare contract bound owners for many years.

By 2016, those investors who had experienced their guaranteed place in the sunshine for 20 or 30 years were ageing, and a significant number were attempting to wave goodbye to their vacation investments.

A number had reduced ability to travel and found it difficult to access their units. Some just believed they'd got all they wanted from them. And some had deceased, in frequent situations bequeathing their family members to take over the agreements - plus their regular contributions and upkeep costs.

The Investigation Progresses

This was the situation the friend's mum had ended up. She browsed the internet for solutions and discovered the organization, a enterprise whose website promised to release her from her deal.

Yet, having submitted funds and booked a meeting with them, her family had doubts.

Additional investigation revealed numerous individuals reporting they had paid money and got nothing in return. Actually, they had been left out of pocket. A lot of it.

Our team began investigating what was occurring. It quickly became clear that there were questionable operators operating in the holiday ownership market.

One lawyer had numerous client reports waiting to sue the company.

Reporters contacted people who had engaged the company and they collectively described identical situations. They thought the firm would acquire their investment away from them but when they attended a meeting (for which they submitted funds initially) they were told there was no potential buyers.

Instead, they were pushed - actually pressured - to spend more money acquiring "Monster Rewards", associated with the outfit's parent company, the parent organization.

The precise definition was not exactly clear. They sounded like a kind of currency, providing discount travel and services and consumer discounts.

And they were apparently "transferable with other owners, eventually.

Investing money at the time would produce an future return that would offset the firm's costs and allow the timeshare holder in profit, liberated eventually from their pesky agreement.

An unrealistic promise? Well, yes.

A 'Bait-and-Switch Scheme'

Assuming these reports were true, this was a large-scale fraud.

This is known as a "bait-and-switch."

An operator - here SMT - "baits" the customer by advertising a specific service but then to claim it is unavailable, pushing the client towards a different, lower-quality offering.

This is against the law. Possessing all the accounts we had collected, we made the case to covertly record one of the firm's consultations.

This takes commitment, energy, and clear arguments for why this is the sole method to collect the data required to prove wrongdoing.

Armed with that permission, our small team arranged a consultation with one of the organization's staff in the location.

Acting as a ordinary individual aiming to assist his parent released from her timeshare contract|holiday ownership agreement