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It has been described as a major scams of its kind in the UK.

Altogether 14 defendants have been sentenced for their part in a £28m plot to swindle over 3,500 vacation property investors.

The affected individuals were desperate to exit age-old vacation property deals and went looking for assistance.

A large number were aged between 60 and 80. More than 500 of them parted with over £10,000, and one transferred in excess of £80,000.

Those victimized were subjected to intense sales meetings extending for six hours. They were financially worse off, owning useless fake "credits" and continued to be locked into expensive timeshare contracts they could no longer use.

The Company At the Heart of the Scam

The business at the centre of the scam was Sell My Timeshare (SMT). They took customers' funds to fund the owners' lavish standard of living of private schools, high-end properties and personal aircraft.

The leader at the head of the company, the main defendant, was handed a seven-and-half year sentence in January for conspiracy to defraud.

On Friday, his partner Nicola was one of the final three to receive sentencing.

She received a two-year long deferred imprisonment at Southwark Crown Court after confessing to money laundering.

The outcome represents a lengthy process and represents a major victory for the individuals who testified, the authorities and legal representatives.

How the Investigation Began

I first heard about the company was in the summer of 2016. The position was in the reporting team of a broadcasting service, producing current affairs features.

A colleague noted that his mother had taken over the rights of a timeshare apartment in Spain and, after long-term use, had started seeking to get out of the contract.

It's worth mentioning how popular holiday ownership had grown with UK travelers in the 1980s and 1990s.

Vacation properties enabled people to use the equivalent unit annually, or swap their time slots with additional holders who had apartments in other resorts. Approximately 600,000 vacation seekers seized that opportunity.

The early surge was paired with a numerous stories about dishonest operators mis-selling units. They became a staple on public interest TV programmes.

The standard timeshare contract locked buyers for many years.

In that period, those investors who had used their guaranteed place in the sunshine for a long time were advancing in years, and a significant number were attempting to end their association to their holiday properties.

Several had declining mobility and were unable to visit their properties. Others just felt they'd achieved their goals from them. And others had died, in many cases bequeathing their family members to inherit the deals - plus their yearly fees and service charges.

The Covert Probe Develops

And that's where the relative had found herself. She searched the web for options and came across the organization, a business whose digital platform claimed to get her out of her deal.

But, having made a payment and arranged an appointment with them, her family had doubts.

Additional investigation uncovered hundreds of people saying they had paid money and received no benefit out of it. Indeed, they had suffered financially. A lot of it.

Our team started looking into what was happening. It was rapidly apparent that there were questionable operators working within the holiday ownership market.

An attorney had numerous client reports preparing to take action against SMT.

Reporters contacted people who had engaged the company and they all told the same story. They thought the company would buy their property away from them but when they went to a consultation (for which they made an advance payment) they were informed there was no re-sale value.

Instead, they were pushed - in fact pressured - to invest additional funds acquiring "Monster Rewards", named after the outfit's parent company, Monster Travel.

The precise definition was rather ambiguous. They seemed similar to a type of exchange medium, providing cheaper vacations and amenities and retail offers.

And they were apparently "tradable" with other owners, some time down the line.

Committing funds immediately would result in an long-term benefit that would pay for the firm's costs and allow the property owner in profit, released finally from their pesky contract.

An unrealistic promise? Well, yes.

A 'Bait-and-Switch Scheme'

If these accounts were accurate, this was a massive scam.

The technique is termed a "bait-and-switch."

A business - specifically SMT - "lures the customer by promoting a particular product and then state it cannot be provided, pushing the client in the direction of a different, lower-quality product or service.

This is against the law. Equipped with all the evidence we had collected, we argued to covertly record one of the organization's sessions.

Such an operation demands time, effort, and compelling reasons for why this is the only way to obtain the evidence required to prove wrongdoing.

With approval secured, our limited crew set up a meeting with one of the company's representatives in the English town.

Acting as a potential client aiming to help his mother released from her timeshare contract|holiday ownership agreement