Holiday pair warn of 'timeshare' con

Andrew Voyce, of London Road and Leonie Leckie, of Mitten Road, were approached by smooth-talking conmen just yards from their hotel.

The group tried to rope the pair into parting with thousands of Euros for a timeshare scheme in Qawra, Malta on February 9 as they were walking to a bus stop to go on an excursion to Mdina.

Mr Voyce said: "These people told us whopping great lies. It was so unbelievable.

"A man called David approached us and said the buses were cancelled and that he had a courtesy car from our hotel, the Bella Vista, to take us to the town centre.

"He explained that there would be no more buses till after 2pm as the town would be shut while the floats for the February 10 St Paul's Day carnival would be displayed at Qawra and there would be courtesy cars all day from the centre to the hotel."

Mr Voyce and his friend were taken to the Salina Hotel in town and left with another man call Phil.

He said: "This man told us we could have a free holiday for a week in the Salina Hotel and we could have a voucher for money off flights from Gatwick to Malta.

"Phil then took us upstairs to where many other couples were sitting and said he was offering 'holiday ownership' which was not timeshare.

"He showed us a brochure with many pictures of Malta, Cyprus, the Canaries, and elsewhere, saying they were of self-catering holiday resorts where we could stay for very low weekly rates and with discount flights.

"He said the name of the company doing this deal was called First National Trustee Company and that it worked with another company called RCI.

"Phil did some figures that showed that if we spent hundreds of Euros on membership, followed by hundreds more on rental and flights, we could 'save' lots of money and then he ratcheted up the sums to more than 1,000 Euros and said we could now save thousands."

Mr Voyce became suspicious when he did not see the ABTA logo on any of the brochures he was given.

He said: "Phil became less interested when I wanted to go away to look up the two companies on the internet and the holiday places in Phil's glossy book of holiday locations.

"He then said there were expenses with getting us to the presentation and providing the drinks, so I offered to put a donation into their charity box for that.

"He said no and asked us to leave. The men were quite intimidating.

"When we left the hotel we could see buses running so the claim that they would not run till after 2pm was false.

"We stopped at the gardens near to the bus terminus and heard another English man talking to a mature couple.

"He was saying that they had won a prize on a scratchcard and were entitled to a free holiday."

Mr Voyce described the men as 'evil' who 'deliberately prey' on unwary tourists.

He said: "I feel we left just in time.

"We could have paid a substantial sum for whatever purported to be on offer and received nothing for our money.

"We stood to be ripped off."