Claim Your Claim is a company, who has been present on our cold caller list for ages.
Each month we receive numerous enquiries from consumers about the cold call received, the offer to travel to Tenerife and the guarantee to get money back from a claim.
More than once people actually tell us they agreed to travel, as after all, what can happen?
The following story is the descriptions we received from a consumer who attended the meeting, and fell into the trap of Claim your Claim and is regretting it dearly…
Judge for yourself if a “free week” holiday is worth this stress…. and money!
The initial call:
When I responded to the initial call I was responding to the fact that we once bought a timeshare type package, this didn’t work out, we paid our money over 10 years ago now; we put the loss down to a bad decision and moved on. The company, Claim Your Claim explained to me that they would be able to recoup my money back based on a no win no fee basis. The first question asked was how they responded with:
“Come to Tenerife as you have to be in the country to register your claim. We will put you up in a hotel with no expense, all you will have to pay is your airfare.”
I then asked: “Is it likely that our claim will be successful?” We were told they have never lost a claim yet. I then asked what would we owe you and they said “20%”. We agreed to do this and they booked our flights.
The meeting:
In Tenerife we met a man called “Andy”, no surname and a woman called ‘Debbie’ (supposedly a Lawyer) …no surname. Andy told us that they could claim our money back but since there is nothing in it for them, all they asked is that we would give them a go and book more holidays with them in the future. He said you would not be buying into anything, just promise to book a holiday with us to the tune of at least £150 as a deposit initially.
Andy then proceeded to show us a website that had tons of holidays on there and prices that we severely reduced. Of course, this was designed to entice us and make us believe that this company was legit. He then proceeded to use pressure sales techniques as well as confuse us in order for us to sign paper work. Sadly, we signed the paper work due to the information they gave us.
We were told that we do not need to pay anything apart for a £4,000 fee on the day but that we would get this back. The only reason that we need to pay it is to register our claim due to the tax advantage in the UK. When we questioned page one of the document that says 4 weeks accommodation, we were told that that does not relate to you, this is just for the week you have had in Tenerife, and you will get this back.
As we didn’t have our credit card on us, they said no problem as they retained the information from the flight booking they made on our behalf. The £4,000 was charged to our credit card moments later.
Then they explained that in order for our claim to be worthwhile, they would use £8,000 on our behalf. In order to get this £8,000 they would put 8,000 into our account, I will then need to use that £8,000 to pay them back, therefore I am not arranging a loan, money is being moved in order to avoid tax and because the claim was claimed in Tenerife.
I asked him if this was legal and of course, he said yes.
We were told a person from the finance company would contact us about the £8,000. When this gentleman from the finance called, he said I understand you have required a household loan for £8,000. He also explained the loan would be under the agreed terms and conditions and you would need to pay an early repayment fee if you want to pay the loan off early, in addition, the loan was subject to interest charges. None of this was explained to us we were told £8,000 would go in and £8,000 would go out. NOBODY MENTIONED A LOAN!
What did we sign in the end?
Looking at the paperwork, there is no mention at all of a company called Claim your Claim. The supposed accommodation agreements signed are in the name of two different companies; 7 Island Experience and Alternative Travel.
The agreements are for supposed “rental weeks” including the “FREE” week we were using at the moment of the meeting. Against each week they put a value adding up a total of £4,000 for each agreement. (So in the end we paid the week of the invitation, nothing was FREE.)
These 4 rental weeks from the Alternative Travel agreement are pre-booked through a booking website called Altura.
The value though of these 4 weeks are certainly not what they state on the paperwork and the same weeks can be booked on the internet for 3 to 4 times cheaper.
The agreement of 7 Island Experience is supposedly for a “holiday membership” with no explanation of what this includes or how to use this and 5 worldwide accommodation weeks, and 2 return flights at the value of 250 Pounds.
The weeks are to be booked through 7 Island Experiences and with no apparent expiry date.
Other documents signed are for the refreshments taken at the meeting, a certificate for “Sovereign credits” with no further explanation on how to use these and a document stating we were picked up from the airport.
There is NOTHING about a claim, no mention of any Claims company or Legal company that will handle such claim…
We feel cheated and are trying to get a refund through the credit card company for the £4,000 they took from the card.
Mindtimeshare 
I had the same experience lost £10000. Tried to claim my timeshare with CLC back from the finance company only to find out that it was time barred, when I mentioned to Alternative travel Deborah said the finance company were lying, when I said I had a letter from the ombudsman stating it was true she started trying to make out that she wasn’t aware of the time allowed, then she said they would file our claim as an indemnity claim with a Spanish lawyer, never heard anything else. When we demanded our money back she ignored us. Next thing we knew was when another company got in touch to tell us they had gone into administration and they could get our money back from CLC but we would have to pay £6000 to get the contract ended as it was showing as being suspended and not closed and we could be liable for all the maintenance payments since 2005. Told them no thanks sounds like another sc**.
Omg word for word what they told us and fir every query they had an answer when I went to book a hotel they wanted 333 supplement for hotel I phoned them no supplement and it was cheaper if I booked myself what cro*** I lost 9 thousand
I had a meeting with Tony and Gordon from CM(Centaurus Mediations) in their Los Cristianos office.
This was arranged by info.22officeservices@gmail.com
I was initially informed that I needed to register my claim in Tenerife as this is where the initial purchase from Diamond Resorts took place.
I was given a one-week free accommodation but required to pay my flights.
I indicated numerous times that I would only attend if the guarantee of no money will be handed over by me was given, and this was given to me each time I stated this question.
However, during this 3hr. meeting, I was informed that a cost of under £7k was required to release me from the DR Contract first before a claim can be registered.
When I informed them(although they already had this information from me) that I had arranged my release in 2014 with DR personally and received a£1.1k refund for the last years Maintenance Fees, I was told that this was not legal and I was still a member.
Obviously, halfway through this meeting with CM, I was totally aware this was a s*** and therefore politely told them I was not interested in parting with any money which I may get refunded two years from now and with a 100% add-on!
I have contacted all parties at least 5 times to attempt a claim back from this wasted trip to Tenerife but so far no one has got back to me.
Just thought it correct to put this out there for anyone else to ensure that they don’t get sucked into this bloody s***
BEWARE!!
So sad. Picking on folks who are older and already potentially skint or they wouldn’t be so desperate to try and reclaim this cash to begin with. They clearly see these as people who are susceptible to a scam so the market is already hand picked for them. Disgraceful. My mother is young enough to still have her wits about her but even she listened to the first few calls before doing some digging into them.
Just had that initial call. Don’t think I will be going! !!
All the above comments are exactly the same as what happened to us. My money was paid to 7 Islands Experience and because I had not got any paperwork for a “claim” from this company, just accommodation vouchers arranged by Alternative Travel, I wrote to my bank and asked for my money to be refunded. My basis of the request for refund was that the accommodation was not paid by us but it just happened to add up to the same as paid by my card. I paid for a “claim” which was not forthcoming. It took 6 months. My bank has not processed this under Section 75 but has re-claimed the money from the merchants bank. The merchants bank responded by just sending the same accommodation vouchers back which I had already sent to the bank as part of my claim…. so no new information. What helped also was a text we kept from Claim your claim arranging the accommodation which showed we definitely went to register a claim and not to purchase accommodation.
I am in same situation now, made payment on credit cards.
What can I do to cancel contract with refund. W
Hi,
We will reply by email what you can do.
When a credit card has been used you can claim under the Consumer Act and we will explain how to do such claim.
Kind regards
Customer care
My credit card provider refused my claim…twice.. even though I never received the accomodation …their argument was that as I received accomodation once in Tenerife it had provided part of the contract…
in the same situation, only we were actually going on holiday so said we could meet them, now they have taken 8,000 from us but we didn’t
pay on credit card but on debit.
Trish Farrell contacted us. Same story up to 7 nights in tenerife to avoid tax that way it’s a win win win for all 3 parties . Seemed to know we’ve got timeshare but had to fish to get the right resort. Thanks to you we will not be doing anything about this. We probably would like to get rid of our timeshare so if there are genuine people out there who can point us the right direction. It’s purchased in the USA which is a problem we believe unless the laws have changed. Thank you.
Would this be Trish Farrell as agent from Refund my Funds, or Trish Farrell as “independent” consultant for claims companies? She has many jobs….
We went yo tenerife with a cold call from refund mr funds
The company dealing with is T.APOGEE
As I have just read one of your customer comments it sounds exactly the same
What can we do to get out of it
We only aid £300 of a debt card as we don’t do credit cards they then went on to tell we should have a credit card
I have recorded one of our conversations where he states it’s not a loan
T Apogee did the same to me and my wfe! when we got back to the UK,a lady rang me up to arrange a loan to pay T Apogee £6000 pounds!! days later,a lady from M&S Loans rang and said did I want the loan for home improvements to proceed? I said it was to pay T Apogee,. she immediately told me I had been scammed and cancelled the loan!!!!.The guy who blinded us with facts and figures was called Alan,. the lady who took our £3000 from my credit card was Debbie. the £3000 was to register us for tax and on going holidays.i`m so mad with myself!!
What you say is true. I see many clients being given the hard sell in the village of Adeje in Tenerife,where they have 5 offices, ie Island Experience, T.Apogee ect.
Unfortunately I see many people signing the documentation.
Thank you for your comment.
People are put under a lot of pressure and they sound very convincing.
It is not always a matter of being stupid, these sales people know their ways, and after keeping you in the sales room for over 4 or 5 hours, bombarding you with all kinds of facts and figures, people end up signing for the sake of being left out.
Sometimes people think that they can sign and just cancel the next day, but things are not always this easy.
Imagine how confused and drained some consumers are that they even sign up for a loan and don’t know until arriving home the lender gives them a call.
Kind regards
Customer Care
Do not have any contact with them just don’t answer any phone calls or emails we have just got our money back from the bank but they still try to contact us did you see the firm on rip off Britain we was ripped of in November 2018 good luck