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John Derrick Spoors, of The Crescent, Bridge Hill, Consett, northwest of County Durham claimed he mistakenly allowed for his personal bank account details to be used in a timeshare scam against the elderly, has appeared in court.

Spoors who cleans cars for a living claims he knew nothing of the scam and said his friend asked if he could filter money through his bank account.

However, Spoors, 32, did admit to a charge of assisting in the control or use of criminal property when he appeared before magistrates in Newton Aycliffe.

Unfortunately, the two pensioners involved, both elderly and frail were scammed out of thousands of pounds. The scam involved contacting the unsuspecting consumers and telling them if they transferred £1,800, they would each, in turn, receive a £16,000 refund which they were told was from previous timeshare investments, obviously, the monies never arrived.

81-year-old Paul Coney, one of the prosecuting, said he had received a call from a woman who claimed to be working on behalf of the Spanish courts, and they were to award money to people who had purchased failed timeshare investment in a firm which had ceased trading after being investigated.

She said they required a trustee bond of £1,800 so the money would be awarded the next day,” he said.

Mr. Coney made the arrangements and transferred £1,800 to the account holder, Mr. John Spoors.

I was told the cheque would be posted on the very same day and I was supposed to receive it the following day, but sadly it never did arrive.”

Another elder, a 76-year-old, whose was partially blind, was scammed out of £6,000 in the scheme, with around £1,500 passing through Mr. Spoors’ account.

Jonathan Stirland, mitigating, said: “This was a cruel crime by those who perpetrated the fraud. It is not the position at all that this person had anything to do with those telephone calls or anything at all that persuaded these people to part with their money“.

His role was he allowed his bank account to be used to move the money through the system. He is a person at the very edge of the offending. There were much more sophisticated criminals than him. He had limited awareness of the extent of criminal activity.”

Spoors claimed to have been offered £100 for his ‘help’ however, he was ‘adamant’ he knew nothing about the fraud or what it involved. He was charged with 50 hours community service and was ordered to pay £200 costs and a £85 victim surcharge.

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