Alpha Group Resales
Having a timeshare in Spain, for nearly twenty years in the very up market town of Puerto Banús, Marbella (Málaga), and it is called Club Jardines del Puerto. I love the place, to see the many large yachts in the harbour, the expensive cars, which drive round the harbour at night, and the diners at night sitting in the open fronted restaurants.
In the evening, I like to go early for a meal, say 8pm. It means that it is too early for most diners, thus there is the possibility to be seated at a front table, so I can watch people passing by, watching me, watching them. I love it.
In the last couple of months, companies have telephoned to say that they have a buyer for the timeshare if it is to be sold.
I am always careful of cold callers, people offering special deals over the telephone. Offering commission for windows installed ten years previously, (see Weatherseal Windows, do you think I am stupid?), special deals on mobile phones and purporting to be a service provider, Orange or Vodafone.
The latest call was from a company called Alpha Group Resales.
They said they have a purchaser who wishes to buy the timeshare at a very good price, and potential buyer had put a deposit down with the company Alpha Group Resales. Worth considering I think.
There would be a number of contract stages I was told, two I believe, that would be gone through, before the sale would be finalised.
Firstly, could they have my credit card number.
"What for?" I asked.
They would take £995 (UK Pounds Stirling), as a form of guarantee in case I pulled out. It would be paid back upon completion of the sale.
This smells of a scam, a con, of somebody trying to extort money from me. Why should I have to pay up front? Why would they not take commission from the sale?
"How did these people know about the timeshare?" I asked. "Oh they viewed the flat."
Strange, why didn't the resident management team of Club Jardines del Puerto contact me? I had not appointed this company to sell the timeshare. How could they sell something or take a deposit when they did not know if the timeshare was for sale in the first place?
I asked for Alpha Group Resales telephone number, and was given
I asked them if they had more details, a web site, references.
They gave me a telephone number of 08712041621 which they said was for the Timeshare Advisory Service. An 0871 number is a national call rate number in the UK, which can be diverted to any phone line in the world.
I asked them to call back.
Yes there was a web site, www.alphagroupresales.com, but the site was not listed in any search engines.
Strange?
I checked on "whois", a web site which gives details of the registrant of a domain name, dates of registering and who owns the domain name. The domain was first registered or created 8th July 2008, less than a month ago, so not a long standing company, and registry expires 8th July 2009, so they do not intend to trade for long. It has the owner details restricted.
I checked for the Timeshare Advisory Service on the search engines. The only reference I can find to a company with such a name is in Queensland Australia, with no website and no telephone number.
Searching on the web for the telephone number 08712041621 reveals that other people have been given this number, and that the whole set-up is a scam.
There is another resale company mentioned in this type of scam, again asking for £995 payment up front from the seller. This company is Holiday Network Solutions (HNS), with a very nice looking site, but no address or location nor any telephone numbers, the only way of contacting is via the on-site inquiry form.
It seems many people have reported being conned by this company out of £995. The credit card companies refuse to pay back, as there was a freely entered contract between the parties.
It appears that once the £995 is paid, the so called potential buyer will back-out, and another purchaser will be found, offering a substantially lower price. Obviously the seller will say "no deal", but the £995 will not be repaid, as the seller has broken the contract by refusing to sell, or they will delay supplying the next potential buyer for a year, by which time the company and money has disappeared.
I hope if you are reading this blog, it has reached you before you have parted with your money. This scam is rife.
Oh Katie Bond of Alpha Group Resales did call me back, but when and I said I would not continue as I had seen the scam on the internet, the telephone went dead.
Intuition can be a powerful tool.
Categories: Thoughts
Tags: Puerto Banús Marbella Malaga Málaga Club Jardines Del Puerto Puerto Banus Spain Timeshare Weatherseal Windows Scam Alpha Group Sales cold callers timeshare advisory Service 08712041621 Holiday Network Solutions HNS Katie Bond
Hi my name is xxxxxx xxxxx, my mum has a timeshare with RCI, and own's two weeks in club Salina Wharf Malta, of which we have owned since 1994.
We have recently been thinking of selling it, but not sure which road to go down, we have'nt bothered looking into it yet.
Then a few weeks ago my mum had a phone call off Alpha Group Resales, asking her if she wanted to sell her timeshare, at the time she just told them she was thinking about it, and since then has
had five phone call's, they said that they had a buyer for Salina Wharf, and they would carry on paying the maintenance fee, oh and what an offer!
To good to be true I said!
I knew straight away it was a scam, I could'nt find anything on the web, but luckily enough I came across your page, and would like to thank you for putting it on the web, as someone is going to phone my mum tomorrow, to ask her if she's decided if she's goin to sell it.
Well thanks to you we know exactly what to say to them.
X XXXXX
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My mother to has had a too good to be true offer for her timeshare in tenerfie from a company called Alplha based in Dublin. Thanks to the comments and telephone numbers added on this site when searching for the timeshare advisory service,it has stopped us from going through with any resale and saved us from potentailly much heartache.
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I have had dealings with this company and have successfully sold my timeshare through them, you have posted these comments but not one of you has actually gone through with it. More fool you as i am now rid of my timeshare.
I would not believe everything you read on the internet, at the end of the day the internet is a tool for many things, bomb making and peadiphillia being just two of them. I would recommend this company to anyone.
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Thank you for you comment.
I will leave people to make there own mind up. Our own club (Jardines Del Puerto) administrators have advised not to part with credit card details, or to deal with such organisations. If Alpha Sales Group are above board, can they provide references of sales made.
I also wonder why they do not publish the address of the company on the web site.
As stated, the web site http://www.alphagroupresales.com was registered 7th August 2008, which means they have not been going a long time. So they must have sold your timeshare very quickly.
Also the web sites rigistrant's address is :-
Protect Details Inc
Domain Manager
29 Kompozitorov st.
Saint Petersburg
194358
RUSSIA
The web site service provider seems to be located in the Ukraine.
I do not consider myself a fool, but a rational person that is fed-up of being spammed, emailed and telephoned by people who think I am a fool with money to give away.
I agree the internet is a tool for many things, scams being one of them too, especially from Russia.
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I would like to thank you very much for your thoughts as they reassured that my instincts were right. I also searched for this "company" and found that has all the ingredients of another scam. Falling twice in the same trap has hurt me and my family and I am fed up of this criminals taking from me the money I've worked so hard for. Once again, thank you for saving one more family from this scams.
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Last night they called me. Full of the usual BS which having been stung by Real Escape in spain made me very wary. Oh yes they said many companies in Spain are conmen, take your money then the purchaser pulls out. Credit card companies won't cough up due to contract. Well this time Alpha Group came up against me who found them listed on the Timeshare Council Website BLACK LIST. Luckily no money lost this time but he did offer to cut that from 1200EU to 600EU, I should be so stupid.
The phone numbers given are as in the original post. Beware men bearing outlandish offers.
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Further to my last submission.
I called the Advisory service that they gave me the number for and it was an answer machine. Later in the day they called me back. Gave me the all clear on Alpha Group resale adding that they were the best on their list. Told me they had been running since 2005 and have a registered brokers number of 201418260061 and are legit.
Now the strange part, I had been told that the advisory service was in UK, but my phone showed INTERNATIONAL on the number display.
About an hour later Alpha called and I told them I would not proceed with them. The phone showed INTERNATIONAL on the display
I was going to tell them that I was not impressed, they appear in a blacklist etc etc, but thought I'd stay stum on it, except to put it on here.
in my opinion the adversroy service was in the same building (maybe next desk) to Alpha.
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Having been bitten once by Holiday Network Solutions, I was wary when I received the cold call from Alpha Group Resales and consulted the Internet. Thanks for your posting; I tried the "Contact Us" option on the Alpha Group website and on pressing send, was advised that the option didn't actually exist. Why do the various timeshare organisations not come out more strongly and with more advisories about these scams? They tell us that they are cleaning up their act, but nothing seems to change.
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BEWARE OF ALPHA GROUP - I am an Independent Financial Adviser, who has just had a call from two of my most elderly clients (84 to be precise) they have totally been conned out of £995 (Alpha Groups Fee!) on a timeshare that there were prepared to pay £3950 to my clients for. What a load of cobblers as soon as I called the number on the paperwork sent to my clients I was put through to a spanish woman who said that no one was available to take my call till next week....i told her that I was going to inform the police and trading standards and she said that she would make a note of that and then hung up!! Please beware and ensure that if you have any elderly friends of relatives or anyone who easily gets confused on the phone who are in possession of a timeshare to not talk to them over the phone as they are very persuasive and sound legitimate when really they are going to be sunning themselves at your expense!
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Thankfully I read all the comments regrading this scam.I to had been contacted and was given a very persuasive offer but as I felt there was something very fishy about the deal I declined.Beware of a company called Blue-bell Properties in Spain another company who have a very proffesional web site but are just conmen. They to suggest you contact the Time Share Advisory Service to prove they are legit. If you lock at the web site you will notice there is no address or contact numbers, a sure sign of a fishy dealer. Do not have any dealings with these companies.
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Alpha Group is using a mail drop service in Dublin Ireland. I contacted them and they are a long established company who stated that since they have learned of this scam in January, they have cancelled Alpha Group's mail drop and mail forwarding service.
They stated their mail was been forwarded to another mail drop service in Gibraltar.
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i have been contacted by a tony west who said he was a holiday broker then was contacted the same day by a man who called himself bill, i told him i wasnt going to do it but then he contacted me twice the same day and the following day and then talked me into sending him cash of 500 pound. he told me the pay point certificate couldnt be cashed without the other 8 numbers but they already cashed it on the friday afternoon, i have been trying to contact them for nearly a week on 02081238652 but to no avail. also been trying to contact 08712041621 these are the numbers i was given. all i have been able to do it leave answer machiene messages and i have also been to the police. what do you advise me to do about this? do you think i will get my money back or not?
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Sorry to hear your story, but I do think that you may have lost your money.
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