Scammers are always looking for new ways to benefit from the momentum and COVID-19 has not been the exception. We dedicate this note to the latest scam trends to help our Members and friends to be one step ahead.

New trends on scam practices

• They offer the opportunity to rent or sell your membership, and the only action required is to pay applicable taxes —16% VAT and up to 35% of income tax.

• As you may not be able to travel at this moment, they introduce themselves as timeshare rental professionals and offer the opportunity to rent your unit; the only action you need to take is to pay your maintenance fees.

• In order to buy trust, they act as part of a lawyer firm, claiming they are setting a class action lawsuit against Solmar. The argument pretends to make you believe the company has taken the unilateral decision to rescind the Vacation Club program in order to become a private residence club. Then they wait a couple of months to call again and say that Solmar is willing to buy your unit back, you just have to pay the legal formalization of transmission of property, plus VAT and income taxes to give end to the process.

• As the scammers have records of all the transactions you have made, they can call again pretending to be an agent of the Procurator-General. Their argument this time inferes that they are following the traces of the scam you were victim of. They claim by paying a “recovery fee” of 10% you can reclaim the funds you were scammed out of.

Remember that scammers tend to look for economical or emotional instability to operate. And they are certainly taking advantage of these times of COVID-19, global economic imbalance and health issues to attain their goals. On top of this, they often search for any information available online to address their target.

So, what are our recommendations?

• Avoid sharing personal information on Social Media channels.

• Do not share membership details on timeshare rental forums or resale services websites.

• Set your Social Media privacy to “only friends” in order to restrain visibility of your posts and personal data to strangers.

• Please keep in mind that any official information regarding your membership can exclusively come from email addresses ending with @solmar.com domain.

We hope you find these tips useful to prevent any deceit.

Have you noticed any other way scammers operate? Please be sure to leave your comments or write to us at: memberservices@solmar.com.