Maybe the questions sounds strange or funny, and asking if a bank would have money for you without you even knowing the bank existed, certainly sounds very dubious.

But when you are called by a lovely lady telling you she works at the La Caixa Bank or Unicaja bank in Spain, you might drop all guard and be all ears for her story.

This nice lady explains that the company who previously cheated the consumer out of their money for a timeshare resale or claim has been investigated for money laundering and fraud and while they was being investigated all of their bank accounts were frozen as demanded by the fraud squad investigation team in Spain.

Eventually these companies were found guilty of both fraud and money laundering and the judge demanded that any money in their accounts was to be divided equally to every person that made any payment to them.

And here comes the best part…an amount of close to £20.000 has been awarded to the consumer on the phone!

There are though laws about transferring money from Spain to the United Kingdom when the amount is over €10,000, and the consumer needs to confirm that they are a British Residents and that they have a bank account in the United Kingdom.

Any money that leaves Spain to go to another country is stopped in Madrid in the main branch. Madrid checks who the money is going to, where it is coming from and also if the tax has been paid.

As you a British resident the consumer will have to pay a temporary tax that he will get back after 28 days of payment.

If he was a Spanish resident the tax would be 21% and it would not be refundable but as the consumers are British residents the tax is a temporary payment of 8% €2100.

Once the temporary tax payment has been made the official paperwork gets stamped and signed by the bank and tax office of Malaga and your £20.000 would be paid into the account within 24 to 48 hours.

Once the consumer received their £20.000, the bank will send them their tax paperwork for them to sign and send back to them so the can process the refund of the temporary tax.

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A SCAM!

There is no such thing as money in an account waiting for you to pass your bank account details and receive a substantial amount back. There is no such thing as temporary tax payments over awarded amounts of money.

There is no such thing as employees calling from Unicaja or La Caixa or any other bank in Spain!

If you have been contacted by any person claiming to be working at a Spanish bank and coming up with a similar story as described above, then please let us know.