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It has been described as among the biggest frauds of its nature in the UK.

In all 14 people have been sentenced for their part in a multi-million pound scheme to cheat over 3,500 timeshare investors.

The victims were keen to get out of age-old holiday ownership agreements and sought out assistance.

The majority were in the age range of 60 and 80. More than 500 of them parted with in excess of £10,000, and a single victim handed over over £80,000.

Those victimized were exposed to intense sales meetings extending for six hours. They were out of money, possessing useless fake "points" and still locked into expensive holiday ownership agreements they often use.

The Business Behind the Scam

The company at the heart of the fraud was the timeshare resale company. They took customers' funds to finance the directors' opulent standard of living of prestigious schooling, luxury homes and personal aircraft.

The man at the helm of the firm, the main defendant, was given a seven-and-half year prison term in January for conspiracy to defraud.

On Friday, his spouse Nicola was one of the final three to hear their sentences.

She received a two-year long suspended jail sentence at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty to money laundering.

The outcome represents a lengthy process and signifies a significant success for the people who spoke out, the police and legal representatives.

How the Probe Began

The initial awareness of the firm came in the that particular year. The role involved in the reporting team of a broadcasting service, making documentary shows.

A acquaintance pointed out that his mum had assumed the use of a holiday property in Spain and, after years of holidays, had commenced searching to terminate the agreement.

It's worth mentioning how widespread vacation properties had become with English tourists in the last decades of the 20th century.

Holiday ownership allowed individuals to use the same accommodation annually, or trade their time slots with fellow investors who had apartments in alternative destinations. About 600,000 sun-lovers seized that opportunity.

The early surge was paired with a lot of accounts about rip-off merchants deceptively promoting properties. They were regularly featured on consumer shows.

The standard timeshare contract locked buyers for long periods.

At that time, those holders who had used their regular accommodation in the sun for a long time were ageing, and a large proportion were attempting to wave goodbye to their timeshares.

Some had reduced ability to travel and were unable to visit their properties. A few just felt they'd achieved their goals from them. And some had passed away, in frequent situations bequeathing their loved ones to inherit the contracts - including their annual payments and maintenance fees.

The Covert Probe Unfolds

This was the situation the family member had ended up. She looked online for answers and found the organization, a firm whose online presence claimed to get her out of her contract.

Yet, having made a payment and arranged an appointment with them, her family smelled a rat.

Additional investigation uncovered many victims claiming they had submitted funds and got nothing out of it. In fact, they had suffered financially. Substantial amounts.

The reporting group commenced probing what was going on. It was rapidly apparent that there were some shady characters working within the vacation property industry.

One lawyer had hundreds of individual complaints waiting to sue the company.

The team interviewed clients who had dealt with the organization and they collectively described identical situations. They thought the business would purchase their timeshare away from them but when they attended a meeting (for which they paid up front) they were informed there was no re-sale value.

In place of that, they were pushed - indeed pressured - to invest additional funds acquiring "the firm's incentive scheme", named after the outfit's parent company, the overarching entity.

The nature of these rewards was not exactly clear. They seemed similar to a form of credit, giving access to reduced-price holidays and benefits and shopping deals.

And they were seemingly "transferable with fellow investors, eventually.

Committing funds up front now would produce an eventual payoff that would pay for SMT's fees and allow the timeshare holder with a gain, liberated eventually from their troublesome contract.

An unbelievable offer? Certainly, that proved correct.

A 'Bait-and-Switch Tactic'

Based on these descriptions were true, this was a large-scale fraud.

It's what is called a "deceptive marketing."

A business - here SMT - "lures the customer by advertising a specific service only to then state it cannot be provided, pushing the customer towards another, inferior option.

That's illegal. Equipped with all the accounts we had collected, we argued to covertly record one of the company's meetings.

This takes time, effort, and compelling reasons for why this is the exclusive approach to obtain the information needed to demonstrate illegal activity.

With approval secured, our compact group arranged a appointment with one of the company's representatives in the English town.

Posing as a ordinary individual hoping to assist his parent out of her timeshare contract|holiday ownership agreement