A new company has been brought to our attention, Universal Travel market or UTM as they state on their website.
This website www.universaltravelmarket.com was registered on the 5th of March 2012, so “hot from the press” but with a large listing of timeshare memberships for sale.
Surprisingly this listing is mainly DWVC and Club Class membership packages, are they really selling these on?
Universal Travel market cold calls consumers with the usual pitch on how successful they are in selling and they certainly have a buyer waiting already.
No mention though of where they obtained these personal details of the timeshare owner.
The telephone number is 0845 557 7297 and their email info@universaltravelmarket.com
As address they provide on their web: St. Nicholas House , 31-34 High Street , Bristol ,BS1 2AW
Checking out UK Companies House there is no such company as UTM – Universal Travel Market registered.
They have only just started and the consumers that have alerted us didn’t get that far as an upfront fee as they didn’t trust it straight away.
But with the fact that they cold call, guarantee sales for worthless memberships and their website which was created recently does not really provide the information it should do…well extreme caution is in place!
Have you been contacted by UTM – Universal Travel Market from 08455577297 ? Please let us know.
You can place a comment on the blog or send us a direct email to customercare@mindtimeshare.com
Mindtimeshare 
Hello I work in The Plaza on Old Hall Street in Liverpool and it appears Universal Travels have been using our address too to try to prove authenticity. Although we do have over 50 companies in this building Universal Travels are DEFINITELY not one of them. I wrote a reply to the poor people who had sent a letter in to inform them they’d been conned, I just feel awful that this happens to people 😦
I manage. St. Nicholas House, a serviced office in Bristol. We have never heard of this company and have never given them the authorisation to use our address. They are quite obviously using our address to give them a vague hint of authenticity. I would advise people to have nothing what so ever to do with this company. It is a scam
Dear Zoe,
Thank you for placing this comment on the blog.
This is very important information for the consumers.
Kind regards
Customer Care
UTM called my 89 year old father about buying his club class membership,and unforunately he was taken in by them and paid them £1200.I have been away on holiday but while i was away he sent the money even though i had warned him not to send any money to anyone, but he thought this was a good offer and went ahead.
I am boiling mad that these people prey on innocent folk,especially an old couple like my parents.
He has now asked me to check up on them,as he has heard nothing back,and i came across this website.
He did pay by credit card so hope he will be able to get the money back.
Also he tells me that he has also been contacted by a company called Xpress Retail based in London who wanted £1000,fortuntaely he hasn’t sent them anything yet,but he was thinking about it.
I know he was rather stupid to have sent the money,but he just wanted closure and thought it was a good deal.
Hi Richard,
What a terrible story! Unbelievable these people have no scrupulous at all.
We will send you more info by email and we can help with guidelines on how to claim the refund.
Kind regards
Customer Care
Thanks for your prompt reply.I would be grateful for any help you can give to enable my father to claim his money back
I too have been scamed by Universal Travel Market who it turns out are the same people as Imperial Strength. I know this because one of the several people who I spoke to made a mistake and introduced herself as from Imperial Strength instead of Universal Travel Market. When I queried this she covered by saying that UTM were simply the brokers and that Imperial Strength actually carried out the transaction on their behalf. I was scammed initially for almost £2k followed by another £800 when they came back for more. With hindsight I know how stupid I have been but these people are soooooo plausible it’s unbelievable. I even wondered if the people making the calls are being scammed themselves and don’t know that they are telling lies they are so convincing. After I paid the £800 I never heard from them again and I couldn’t get hold of them on the number they had provided. Thankfully I managed to claim back the £2k but not the £800. I hate the thought of these b*********s profiting at the expense of the credit card company though.
well to add to this long list….. i was contacted approx 2 weeks ago about selling our “time share” from approx 5yrs ago.I thought hmmm might make a couple of pounds so went along and got the list of take £900 as a refundable deposit etc etc ,i asked and have not yet got e-mail confirmation of who / what they are as i said i would not give any money when i had not got any infomation or contact from them except over the phone as a cold call. THE THING IS WE TOOK OUT THIS POLICY AND CANCELLED 2 DAYS LATER. So the infomation thery have is second hand and is without fraudulant,stay well well away .
I have been called by Universal Travel, Liverpool today. They said that they had sold my club class membership for £7900. They want my credit card details for a deposit of £1200 just in case I did not send the paperwork back. I said I would discuss with my husband. I knew it was another scam who would want to buy Club Class Membership!
HI Helen u did right to not fall in the same trap that I did. I paid out some money but luckily have reclaimed it from my bank. I did everything that I was asked and felt gutted when I realized I had been scammed.They wanted more money out of me but I said no. Julie.
Recd, a call yesterday supposedly from Club Class, asking why we were not using our Club Class Sapphire package. He then asked if we wanted to sell. He then stated that Club Class use UTM to resell there packages. Today patrick from UTM called to say that a Mr & Mrs morris had offered £8850(same name as on previous posts) for our package. No deposit or surcharge required from us at all, but legal fees had to bepaid, but we would get them back after sale went through. Said i need ed to discuss with husband as was out at the time. Having been stung before on this type of scam, I checked the internet. Thank heavens for sites like this that warn of these scams. Be warned though, the previous call from “Club Class” may catch some people out. Thanks to all that put these sites on line to keep us safe.
I unfortunately have been sucked in by this. I paid £475 equivalent to 600 Euros Originally I was told £1000 but I said I, could not afford it. I have been so stupid. It was meant to be completed by 28th August. Then I was told on that day that the client pulled out. Somebody would phone me to give me back my deposit in two days time. I was phoned today only to be told that a corporate would buy my Club Class ~sapphire. They seemed to know alla bout my membership. I would get 8,900, originally it was 8700 and that if i paid £1500 I would get 11,000 which included deposit and interest. I said I could not afford any more and that I got a loan to pay the original. I did and am kicking myself. She said it would be cancelled and that I would get a call in 10 days time.I paid by Debit Visa so will have to contact the bank.
I was cold called today by a lady called Jane Hunter from Universal Travel saying that she had a buyer offering £9400.00 for our platinum Club Class membership which club class were now selling for £16,000.00 I asked her how she found us, she said it was because our membership was inactive, I said I was surprised anyone want to buy our membership! She wanted to know if we had our paperwork if not we could sign a disclaimer and they would recreate new. She then said that they would need a a deposit to stop us pulling out of the sale mid way of £1395.00 by credit card which if there were any problems we could get back. I have asked her for an e-mail with all this information we wait and see!! but after reading all of the above it is as we thought, if it is too good to be true then it probably is
Had a call today from a lady in UTM’s Liverpool office offering to buy our membership. I asked her how she’d found our name and phone number and she told me it was because it was on the “Inactive list” due to us not using our membership. I queried their right to access this info but all I got was a lot of waffle. I pointed out that Club Class were currently subject to a hearing in the High Court and that if UTM was intent on recovering money they’d need to act PDQ. This was the end of our conversation.
I’m fairly certain that the fact that UTM had some personal information about our membership, our name and phone number is a breach of data protection, but I can’t really be bothered to do anything about it.
I cancelled our standing order to CC years ago when we we became aware of the ‘cash back’ scam. It was not a time share membership but entitled us to cheap holidays and would be worthless to anyone else stupid enough like us to buy it.
Thanks for these comments I received a call today they asked for a retainer I have been scammed before so I was a little wary so I havnt done anything so when they phone back I can say no many thanks
Unfortunately I’ve seen these comments too late. “Joana Larkin” got my retainer fee to-day but told me that if things don’t work out I can get this back from the credit card company. I’ll just have to wait and see!
Jimmy
Like you I got Scammed. However, I have received my money from the bank.Hope this helps. Julie
I have been contacted by UTM wanting to buy my ownership with Club La Costa. They said they would pay £10 for every point I owned, which meant they would pay me £15,100. In a subsequent phone call I explained that I had paid maintenance for the year and they said they would pay this for me as well, making a total offer of £16,190. It all sounded very attractive as they had a buyer already etc. etc. When I asked about the process they told me that they would send a contract for me to sign as the first stage. I asked to see a copy and they then emailed a sample copy to me. They said that I would need to pay a sum in respect of their legal fees. This would be refunded on completion. The legal fees were a sum of £1,484. The sample contract started by saying it was about services to be provided by the Company to the Purchaser. I emailed to say that as I was not a Purchaser perhaps they had sent me the wrong contract. They said they would get their legal people to phone me which they did the next day. She merely told me that there could be no changes to the contract. I told her that as I was not happy with the contract, was not prepared to advance money upfront and had seen the concerns expressed on the internet about the company I was not going to proceed. You might like to know that the address they are using is 535 The Plaza, 100 Old Hall Street, liverpool L3 9QJ. The phone number is the same.
would just like to inform you that I have had a phone call from Universal Travel regarding the sale of a time share type holiday we purchased 6 years ago. They told me they had a buyer for it and said we would get £8,700 for it but I had to make available £1,493 as a retainer. I realised this wasnt right. Why would I need to make these funds available when they had £8,700 supposedly of my money. They said it was to ensure I sent the paperwork back to them when i had received the cheque.
Thanks for the early alert on the internet before I had made a big mistake.
Have just received another call from ‘Patrick’ at UTM who told me that he has already found a buyer for our Fortina timeshare – amazing!! in only 24 hours when we have been trying to sell for over 12 months. I informed him that I had seen some very adverse comments on the Internet and he said that many companies put adverse comments about them on there, but I told him it was from ordinary people like myself, not companies. I asked what it would cost me for this sale to go through and he would want £1000 plus (can’t remember the exact sum) as a guarantee that we would sell and for the legal and transfer fees. This is exactly the same procedure as we experienced with Beauregard Marketing ! I told him this and he said that Beauregard and Fleetway were based in Spain, but I argued that we had dealt with them in this country and he said that Beauregard had used UTM’s way of selling. He continued to try to persuade me that we would received £8450 (the amount he said that he had been offered for our timeshare), but I could not ascertain if the £1000+ would be refunded or not. I told him that if I found a buyer for our timeshare we would only have to pay about £299 transfer fee to Fortina and in most cases the transfer fee and any legal fees are paid by the buyer. He continually tried to get me to agree to the sale but I informed him that I was not interested in the light of the comments on this website and that all our details must be removed from their records and I did not want him to contact me again. We shall see !!!!!!!
I have also had a phone call today from Universal Travel Market, they informed me that they are the only resale company who deal with Fortina Spa Resort resales, funny ! I’ve seen Fortina timeshares advertised on a number of websites and Fortina have never advised me that UTM are the people to deal with for a sale of our timeshare. My caller said his name was ‘Patrick’ and he gave me an 0845 number to contact him. He said they would be holding a presentation in Birmingham and would put our timeshare in for offers, I wonder what he will have to tell me if he calls back. Glad I found these comments, I asked him what it will cost me and he said there would not be any charge to me, that would come from the buyer !!
Patrick called me last week and told me the same, he rang back today to say Mr & Mrs Morris wanted my platinum membership and had offered £11500 forit. He then went on to tell me that there were legal fees that the buyer would pay but could I just give him a card number so he hold my share of the legal fees until the contracts were exchanged.
£1250 was the figure. I told him he’d said there would be no charge to me, and as I was at work, I asked him to call me back at lunch time, he didn’t. He also said they cahrge 10% of the sales after the deal has gone through.
I also have been approached by this company today 6th June, this the second scam I have encountered, the first being Beauregard Marketing Solutions, stay well clear of them. Fran
Thankyou for this post. Only yesterday I was contacted by these people for exactly the same thing, I will now stay clear. You have at least saved one couple from alot of hassle.
We were called by UTM earlier this week and then called back later in the week as we have Club class membership and UTM were offering to sell the membership for us saying they already had a buyer who had put a deposit with them. UTM said they could sell our membership for £9600, we paid £5900, this is because Club class have opened a second part up and it costs £18k to join but if someone bought ours it would entitle them into the new side of Club class. I rang UTM and they did not answer the phone but them rang me back immediately, I spoke to a guy called “Terry Potts” who said he was a salesman and had been with the company for 2 years and that he had sold 4 Club class memberships that day so farand all involved were happy, he said that UTM get 10% of the fee for the mebership and that there were standard legal contracts, they credit check buyers, BUT they ask for a £1200 deposit from us as a guarantee that we will sell our membership and if we do not sell the potential buyer uses that money to assist them to buy the next one but use our credit card so that we have cover so that if anything happens we can calim the £1200 back through the credit card company, when asked why we would need cover he said that you always want cover when you buy anything– and I thought we were selling not buying. I asked him how long the company had been running and he said years when I challenged him on that saying that Mindtimeshare says the company was only setup earlier this year he said no the website was revamped earlier this year. “Terry” also said that they have sold over 200 Club class memberships in total, when asked how he had got our details he said it’s all done legally and we get thousands of peoples details and some are sceptical but most of them sell and are happy when all the deal is done and they have got money back for something they see as useless to them. Needless to say I declined his kind offer to make me a near 100% profit on my fabulous holiday membership as I just could not bear the thought of this scroupulous little man line his pockets with our or someone elses money, I also asked him to remove us from his contact list and never contact me again—lets see. I had been contacted via email by Tony Sedgewick sometime ago stating that Club class and ETOO were a rip off and if i had paid any money by Visa to contact my bank and see if i could claim any money back, i did contact the bank and got my £1900 deposit back so thank you Mr Sedgewick for that, but also Mr Sedgewick you ****** you were emplyed by ETOO as CEO at the time I got conned, sour grapes because you were dismissed from ETOO and could no longer benefit from their scams???? or possibly you have got ethics and found out what they were doing and like the rest of us made you sick to the pit of your stomach and had to try and right the wrongs done bt ETOO?? SOAP BOX RANT OVER!!
Please beware of these people, thankfully I found this website before being conned a second time after Club class (ETOO), I hope others find this website in time also and not after the event of losing money. Unfortunately the law does not deal with these people quickly or adequately – anyone setting up a vigilante group count me in!! Thanks for reading.