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Grenfell Fraudster Jailed

Sharife Elouahabi has been jailed for six years for falsely claiming over £100,000 from the disaster fund.

Elouahabi told authorities that he had been living with his uncle and family in the tower and claimed to be a member of the El-Wahabi family, five of whom had died in the fire. In reality, he had no connection to them at all. He also told authorities he had suffered constant nightmares, anxiety and weight loss because of the tragedy. Nine days after the fire, he approached Kensington and Chelsea council claiming he was the nephew of Mr El-Wahabi, who died alongside … Read more

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Major Data Breach at Amazon

Just two days before Black Friday launched, Amazon has suffered a major data breach, which caused customer names and email addresses to be disclosed on its website. Amazon has emailed the customers affected, but has refused to say how many customers were affected. Amazon say this is not a breach of the website’s security or any of its systems, but a technical issue, that led to customers names and email addresses being posted.

Amazon said: “We have fixed the issue and informed customers who may have been impacted.”

Customers who received an email were told: “Our website inadvertently disclosed … Read more

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87% of Black Friday deals aren’t as good as you might think

Consumer advocacy group, Which, have been tracking product prices for the last twelve months and found that better bargains are available after Black Friday. The investigation found that 87% of products were the same price or cheaper than their Black Friday price at other times of the year. They also discovered that 46% of products were cheaper on at least one day during the six months after Black Friday.

Which covered retailers including Currys PC World, Amazon, John Lewis and Argos and tracked 94 popular products for six months before and after Black Friday last year. They found that most … Read more

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Are you paying too much for your groceries?

Do you shop at small supermarket convenience stores ? Well, if you do, you are probably paying more than if you shopped at their larger stores. In some cases, it can be double the price to buy goods from them. The BBC Inside Out programme carried out a survey to compare the price of items from Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, M & S and, Waitrose supermarkets with those sold at their convenience stores. The survey found there was a big difference in the way these supermarkets have been pricing items.

Convenience stores now account for a quarter of the grocery market; understandable … Read more

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Westgate Resorts Hitting The Headlines Again

Westgate resorts has been hitting the headlines again recently with yet more unhappy timeshare owners speaking out. A new lawsuit against the timeshare giant claims the resort is selling timeshare units in dream locations, but when owners go to book there is nothing available.Westgate resorts are well known for their high pressured sales tactics and unfair practices, but what this lawsuit alleges is quite shocking. It says that Westgate is purposefully selling timeshares to customers over and over again. So if a customer books a specific week at a Westgate resort each year, this week has actually been sold multiple
… Read more
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Repeat Timeshare Fraudster Sent to Prison

Wesley Aldred from Kissimmee, Florida was sentenced to a day in prison in 2015 for a timeshare telemarketing scam. He has now been sentenced to a new term of 21 months for running a similar scam while on supervised release. Aldred was one of a group of telemarketers accused of participating in a timeshare resale fraud scam which targeted timeshare owners all over the United States. They would contact timeshare owners and falsely claim to have found a buyer for their timeshare, if they could pay a small fee upfront then the company would facilitate the sale. Victims paid thousands … Read more

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Defence attorney sent to jail for his part in $3 Million Timeshare scam

An attorney representing a bogus timeshare company is sentenced to jailtime after pleading guilty to attempting to influence witnesses and lying to prosecutors.

Joshua Gayl pleaded guilty in court to a single count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Gayl had been representing a timeshare consultancy firm, who were being prosecuted for conning timeshare owners out of more than $3 million, through their fraudulent consulting services. The owners of Vacation Ownership Group LLC were sentenced back in 2016 to a total of 51 years, for running a mortgage fraud scheme orchestrated to sell consulting services to owners of vacation properties. … Read more

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£6.1 Million a year lost to courier fraud

Fraudsters posing as police officers and bank officials have stolen over £6.1 million over the past year. The scams directly target elderly and vulnerable people, they call victims claiming that their bank account is at risk from fraudsters. These despicable and elaborate crimes have been dubbed ‘Courier Fraud’ and in most cases, they involve a victim being tricked into giving out their personal information or pin numbers, followed by a courier arriving at their home to collect their bank cards or cash.

A victim in her late 70’s was told that there was a suspected counterfeiting ring at her … Read more

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Timeshare owners take Marriott to court

Timeshare owners are continuing with their suit against Marriott Vacations Club, despite the resort giant’s attempts to disrupt and delay the class action. Lawyers for the timeshare owners have now asked the court in Florida to penalise Marriott over intentionally withholding documents. This is the latest action taken by the owners in an attempt to hold Marriott Vacation Club responsible over its conduct. They allege Marriott operated a fraudulent scheme which allegedly sold misleading points based timeshare memberships. If the owners are successful, it could have huge implications for Marriott and other resorts, over how they sell timeshares and … Read more

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Thinking of selling your timeshare ?

If like the many timeshare owners, you have become tired of your burdensome timeshare, or simply can’t continue to pay the mounting maintenance fees, you have probably thought about selling it. After all, you were told that when you no longer wanted to keep it you could sell it on and make a profit.

But before you enter into the murky waters of timeshare re-sales there are some important things to be aware of. Just as there are rouge sales reps and scammers when buying a timeshare, the same is true when trying to sell one.

If you own … Read more

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