In October 2014, eight (8) months after I purchased a timeshare at Las Palmas in Costa Rica, I was contacted by Roberto Torres from R & D Properties. He informed that he had a client that would like to purchase six (6) weeks of rental time for $3,100 USD per week (total sum of $18,600) and their commision would be 8% for brokering the deal.
This sounded fantastic to me since it would help me recoop some of my initial expenditures.
Next came a Letter of Intent for the rental, a contract, copies of my orinigal purchase agreement, etc. Everything looked very professional.
After the above, I was introducted to Derek Williams form Infinity Financial Services who was going to be responisble for financial / escrow portion of the transaction.
I was informed by Derek Williams that I had to pay for some upfront fees, that would be held in escrow and then returned at the deal closure. Of course, I was foolish enough to wire the requested funds.
This was the first of many back and forth conversations with R & D Properties and Infinity Financial Services that resulted in me having to wire additional funds to cover unforeseen costs. At the end of the day (my last Wire Transfer was in May 2015), I was I was taken for around $15,000 USD. I feel like a total idiot, but hope my report will help others.
Listed below is a summary of the different names (most likely all are alias):
R & D Properties: Roberto Torres, Troy ??, Stacie Rom, and Joseph Fischer
Infinity Financial Services: Derek Williams and Sandy Gomez
Listed below is summary of the Wire Transfer Account Names at Banco Nacional de Mexico S.A.:
Sage Agencia Internacianal
Javia Agencia Internacional Mexican
Eldrui Agencia de Turismo
I have ommitted the Account Numbers, but they will be forwarded to appropriate US Government Agencies.
This involves R and D Properties who claim to market and resell timeshares. They claim to be associated with Las Palmas Residences, a timeshare property in Costa Rica. They are also associated with an escrow company called Infinity Financial Services supposedly in Florida (again address does not exist and they are not registered with FL ).
They claim to have a buyer for your timeshares and say they do not want any payment before closing and that all the funds will come from the buyer's payment. After signing a contract they tell you that you have to pay the transfer taxes (to prevent money laundering) and this needs to be wired to a bank in Mexico.
I have emails, documents and even a voice recording (I told them I was recording).
This is a total SCAM.
The names used (probably not their real names):
Anthony Guzman, Agent
Chris Solis, Supervisor
Dereck Westbrook Legal Advisor
Steve Griffin Executive Closing Agent -- Infinity Financial Services
If anyone else has had this problem, I encourage you to add to this report and report it to the Federal Trade Commission, and IC3 (http://www.ic3.gov/), a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the involved State Attorney General Fraud Hotlines.
R and D Properties Reviews
In October 2014, eight (8) months after I purchased a timeshare at Las Palmas in Costa Rica, I was contacted by Roberto Torres from R & D Properties. He informed that he had a client that would like to purchase six (6) weeks of rental time for $3,100 USD per week (total sum of $18,600) and their commision would be 8% for brokering the deal.
This sounded fantastic to me since it would help me recoop some of my initial expenditures.
Next came a Letter of Intent for the rental, a contract, copies of my orinigal purchase agreement, etc. Everything looked very professional.
After the above, I was introducted to Derek Williams form Infinity Financial Services who was going to be responisble for financial / escrow portion of the transaction.
I was informed by Derek Williams that I had to pay for some upfront fees, that would be held in escrow and then returned at the deal closure. Of course, I was foolish enough to wire the requested funds.
This was the first of many back and forth conversations with R & D Properties and Infinity Financial Services that resulted in me having to wire additional funds to cover unforeseen costs. At the end of the day (my last Wire Transfer was in May 2015), I was I was taken for around $15,000 USD. I feel like a total idiot, but hope my report will help others.
Listed below is a summary of the different names (most likely all are alias):
R & D Properties: Roberto Torres, Troy ??, Stacie Rom, and Joseph Fischer
Infinity Financial Services: Derek Williams and Sandy Gomez
Listed below is summary of the Wire Transfer Account Names at Banco Nacional de Mexico S.A.:
Sage Agencia Internacianal
Javia Agencia Internacional Mexican
Eldrui Agencia de Turismo
I have ommitted the Account Numbers, but they will be forwarded to appropriate US Government Agencies.
This involves R and D Properties who claim to market and resell timeshares. They claim to be associated with Las Palmas Residences, a timeshare property in Costa Rica. They are also associated with an escrow company called Infinity Financial Services supposedly in Florida (again address does not exist and they are not registered with FL ).
They claim to have a buyer for your timeshares and say they do not want any payment before closing and that all the funds will come from the buyer's payment. After signing a contract they tell you that you have to pay the transfer taxes (to prevent money laundering) and this needs to be wired to a bank in Mexico.
I have emails, documents and even a voice recording (I told them I was recording).
This is a total SCAM.
The names used (probably not their real names):
Anthony Guzman, Agent
Chris Solis, Supervisor
Dereck Westbrook Legal Advisor
Steve Griffin Executive Closing Agent -- Infinity Financial Services
If anyone else has had this problem, I encourage you to add to this report and report it to the Federal Trade Commission, and IC3 (http://www.ic3.gov/), a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the involved State Attorney General Fraud Hotlines.