It has been brought to our attention, and reported by various other timeshare sites, one being Inside Timeshare, that there is another imposter posing as a Lawyer on the popular timeshare island of Tenerife. We reported last year on the lawyers Litigious Abogados being fraudsters, gaining a client’s confidence with false promises and then duping them out of their hard earned cash.
Well, these bandits have stricken again with a new name ‘Abogados Canarias’. They have also managed to delete all of the previous websites that related to ‘litigious abogados’ that we included in the previous article in January 2017 have now been deleted. However, the same faces now appear on the new website ‘http://abogados-canarias.com’ with a couple of new lawyers on there.
The website domain name has been purchased from GoDaddy on the 8th November 2017, and the purchaser has elected privacy for ownership details, meaning they do not want to disclose personal details of themselves or their business in relation to their website. This is quite a strange option for a legitimate business to select, as you would think any business would prefer to have more details about themselves showing to the public than less. Unless of course they are not legitimate.
The website: http://abogados-canarias.com is almost identical to the previous websites that have now been deleted. The references to ICATF (Legal body for institute of Lawyers in Tenerife) are still present on the website, as is another reference to ICAM (College of Lawyers, Madrid), it seems odd that they have not realised that they are being referenced, or that they have not had their logos removed from this site.
Furthermore, the website claims that the business was founded in 1990 by a Manuel Cilavoz Varinitos; however, the website was only registered in November 2017. Also the registered company number A-24867219 doesn’t actually exist in Spain. This is the registered company number that they have publicised on their website. If you check it on the business registration checker: www.infocif.es, you will see that there is no such registration number.
The telephone numbers that the ‘lawyers’ will be calling you from will be one of the following which appear on their website: 0800 802 1662 or 0034822680088. Email addresses to watch out for are varintos-uk-claims@consultant.com, abogados-canarias@consultant.com.
The company is believed to be functioning exactly the same as before, telling their clients that they are going through court procedures with their timeshare resort, and that they have to pay taxes to get money released. The cheque will be made out in the clients name to cash once they have paid the court tax up front. Please do NOT listen to this advice, as soon as this company has your money, you will probably not hear from them again.
We at the TCA would like to hear from any of you that have had dealings with Abogados Canarias. Our contacts are below.
For more information regarding this article or assistance in any other timeshare related issues please contact the TCA on 01908 881058 or email: info@TimeshareConsumerAssociation.org.uk