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It has been described as among the biggest scams of its type in the UK.

Altogether 14 individuals have been convicted for their role in a £28m conspiracy to cheat more than 3,500 holiday ownership owners.

The targets were eager to terminate decades-old holiday ownership agreements and sought out assistance.

A large number were in the age range of 60 and 80. More than 500 of them parted with more than £10,000, and one transferred more than £80,000.

Those targeted were faced aggressive sales meetings lasting up to six hours. They were financially worse off, owning useless fake "rewards" and remained trapped in high-priced timeshare contracts they often use.

The Business At the Heart of the Deception

The company at the heart of the fraud was Sell My Timeshare (SMT). They accepted people's money to finance the owners' luxurious lifestyle of private schools, millionaire mansions and exclusive air travel.

The individual at the top of the firm, the main defendant, was handed a seven-and-half year sentence in January for conspiracy to defraud.

On Friday, his wife another individual was one of the final three to learn their fate.

She was given a two-year suspended jail sentence at Southwark Crown Court after admitting financial crime.

It has been a extended wait and represents a major victory for the people who spoke out, the police and the Crown.

How the Inquiry Was Initiated

The initial awareness of SMT came in the mid-2016. The position was in the investigations unit of a broadcasting service, producing current affairs features.

A friend mentioned that his mother had assumed the ownership of a timeshare apartment in the Spanish coast and, after long-term use, had commenced searching to terminate the agreement.

It's worth mentioning how popular holiday ownership had evolved with English tourists in the last decades of the 20th century.

Holiday ownership allowed individuals to access the same accommodation each season, or exchange their time slots with fellow investors who had units in other resorts. Approximately 600,000 vacation seekers accepted that chance.

The initial boom was accompanied by a lot of accounts about rip-off merchants deceptively promoting units. They appeared frequently on consumer shows.

The common holiday ownership agreement locked buyers for many years.

By 2016, those holders who had experienced their assigned property in the sunshine for a long time were advancing in years, and a significant number were looking to say farewell to their timeshares.

A number had health issues and couldn't get to their units. A few just felt they'd enjoyed sufficient use from them. And others had deceased, in many cases bequeathing their loved ones to assume the agreements - along with their yearly fees and maintenance fees.

The Investigation Progresses

And that's where the relative had been placed. She browsed the internet for solutions and came across SMT, a firm whose online presence assured to release her from her deal.

Yet, having submitted funds and booked a meeting with them, her family became suspicious.

Additional investigation revealed numerous individuals reporting they had paid money and got nothing out of it. Actually, they had suffered financially. A lot of it.

Our team began investigating what was occurring. It quickly became clear that there were questionable operators working within the vacation property industry.

A legal professional had hundreds of individual complaints preparing to take action against SMT.

Reporters contacted individuals who had dealt with the organization and they all told the same story. They thought the business would purchase their timeshare off them but when they participated in a session (for which they made an advance payment) they were advised there was no re-sale value.

Instead, they were encouraged - in fact pressured - to spend more money investing in "the firm's incentive scheme", associated with the organization's holding firm, the overarching entity.

What exactly these were was rather ambiguous. They sounded like a form of credit, offering reduced-price holidays and benefits and retail offers.

And they were reportedly "transferable with additional holders, some time down the line.

Paying cash immediately would produce an eventual payoff that would cover the company's charges and leave the investor ahead financially, released finally from their troublesome contract.

Too good to be true? Well, yes.

A 'Deceptive Scam'

Assuming these reports were true, this was a massive scam.

This is known as a "bait-and-switch."

A business - here the organization - "attracts the customer by advertising a particular product but then to claim it is unavailable, steering the client to another, inferior option.

This is against the law. Armed with all the accounts we had collected, we presented the rationale to discreetly video one of the firm's consultations.

This takes commitment, energy, and compelling reasons for why this is the only way to gather the information necessary to demonstrate illegal activity.

With approval secured, our compact group arranged a meeting with one of the organization's staff in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Pretending to be a member of the public aiming to get his mum out of her timeshare contract|holiday ownership agreement