members, very interesting articles , must read !!
AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs
May 30, 2011 - 4:31 am
Citycorp Media, Realty Access, Boston Ventures, Concord Developments, ARTAG, Worldex, etc. David G Grimes (who identifies himself as “George”), another who identifies himself as “Mitch” and a bunch of other UK and local people are all one and the same. Currently operating in OCBC Centre #25-05.
They use all kinds of pressure tactics to get you to sign documents that are not what you agreed to. But because they know where your vulnerable point is they will keep pressing it and delaying you until you either give in or get pissed off and push your way out of all the “bouncers” they station at the door to stop you from leaving. Ethical? No. Professional? Definitely.
I checked up on them online and found surprisingly little information. All the listed websites required logins and passwords, which is nonsensical for a company trying so hard to sell itself and claiming to have hundreds of thousands of subscribers. I only found them when I Googled “Singapore holiday scam”.
I noticed on the web:
1. They change company names many times to avoid detection – all legally set up companies in Singapore (usually utilising their local employees signing up as Directors so that they can’t be traced).
2. Google searches on them lead to deadends, unless you know specifically that it is a scam or target search the names of the UK men.
3. Blogsites and third party sites suddenly suspend user accounts when the user reports them as scams (but sometimes you get to see the cached version if it was done recently). Probably someone threatening a defamation suit.
4. Some personal sites reporting their scams get mysteriously vandalised and taken down.
I consulted a very senior legal professional, and who took the trouble of reading through their documents in detail for me and here are some interesting points:
1. A lot of what they say during the presentation is not reflected in the documents.
2. The amount that you agree to pay as one sum for the purchase of one product is chopped up to be paid to several unrelated companies, making it harder for you to trace your money.
3. They set up agents to be agents of agents, who are agents of agents, etc. Essentially making it impossible for you to hold one person responsible, especially when they are overseas.
4. They word their terms very carefully, making sure they sound like what they promise you but actually meaning something else. Definitely the work of a lawyer, and not an honest one. E.g. they will verbally tell you that the agreement is governed by Singapore law. But what it actually says in the document is that they “respect” Singapore law but are under no obligation to submit to it.
5. They know they are legally obligated to explicitly inform you of the 5-day cooling off period but they hide it in a small paragraph stuck between a thick stack of useless information and make you sign a document that says you have read through the whole thing and understand and agree to it.
6. They know they have to refund your money within the 5-day cooling off period so they make you sign the deposit away as a “purchase” for some non-refundable deal that you didn’t want but they will tell you it’s the same thing but it isn’t at all.
After you ink the documents, all attempts to talk to them to get your money back will be useless. They will try to stall you until after the 5-day period is over. If you refer to anything that they claimed during the presentation, they will tell you that the only things that are binding are what you signed with them. In other words, “You are screwed”.
There are several ways you can try to get your money back:
1. File a police report
2. File a complaint at CASE
3. File a complaint to ACRA
4. File a complaint to their building landlord.
5. File a complaint to Singapore Immigration and Registration. These foreign talent give others a bad name.
6. Lodge your claim via Small Claims Tribunal
7. Engage a law firm and back it up with a lawsuit if you have to.
8. Go to their office during their presentations and let the people going in know what happened to you.
Options 1 to 5 are straightforward and add weight to your case but won’t get your money back. Option 6 seems attractive for most people and I hear of several people succeeding in getting their money back. Option 7 can be costly unless you have connections but if you show them that you are willing to cause them pain and let them become public knowledge, they will probably back down. Option 8 takes a special breed of personality but I also hear of people who manage to get their cash back on the spot. If they threaten to call the police, take out your police report and challenge them to call so that all the people there at the presentation can hear of what happened to you.
I recently heard of “AX Holdings” at Burlington Square. They always claim to be different but I doubt it when the telemarketer gets aggressive when you question their credentials.
It’s surprising that so many people in Singapore lose so much hard-earned cash and yet there is still so little information available on the web about these “professionals”.
If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
http://www.timesharepages.com/world...arns-against-worldex-timeshare-firm/#comments
