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It has been described as among the biggest scams of its nature in the United Kingdom.

Altogether 14 individuals have been sentenced for their involvement in a £28 million scheme to swindle more than 3,500 timeshare owners.

The targets were keen to exit long-standing timeshare contracts and sought out help.

A large number were aged between 60 and 80. More than 500 of them surrendered more than £10,000, and one individual transferred over £80,000.

Those victimized were subjected to high-pressure consultations lasting up to six hours. They were out of money, owning worthless fake "credits" and still bound by expensive timeshare contracts they often use.

The Business Behind the Deception

The business at the heart of the scam was Sell My Timeshare (SMT). They collected customers' funds to finance the owners' lavish lifestyle of private schools, high-end properties and personal aircraft.

The man at the top of the company, Mark Rowe, was given a seven and a half year prison term in January for deceptive scheme.

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

She was handed a 24-month suspended prison term at the London court after pleading guilty to illegal fund handling.

The outcome represents a long time coming and marks a huge win for the individuals who testified, the police and prosecutors.

How the Inquiry Started

I first heard about the firm emerged during the summer of 2016. I was working in the research department of a media outlet, making documentary shows.

A colleague mentioned that his parent had inherited the use of a vacation unit in the Spanish coast and, after long-term use, had started seeking to terminate the contract.

It is important to recall how popular holiday ownership had become with British holidaymakers in the 1980s and 1990s.

Holiday ownership allowed families to access the same accommodation annually, or trade their weeks with fellow investors who had units in other resorts. Roughly 600,000 vacation seekers seized that chance.

The first timeshare rush was accompanied by a numerous accounts about dishonest operators deceptively promoting investments. They became a staple on consumer TV programmes.

The common timeshare contract bound owners for many years.

By 2016, those owners who had used their regular accommodation in the sun for a long time were ageing, and a large proportion were hoping to say farewell to their timeshares.

Several had reduced ability to travel and found it difficult to access their properties. Some just felt they'd enjoyed sufficient use from them. And others had died, in many cases leaving their family members to take over the agreements - plus their annual payments and maintenance fees.

The Undercover Operation Unfolds

This was the situation the relative had found herself. She looked online for solutions and came across the company, a enterprise whose website promised to terminate her contract.

But, having submitted funds and booked a meeting with them, her loved ones smelled a rat.

Additional investigation showed many victims saying they had handed over cash and received no benefit from the service. Indeed, they had lost money. Substantial amounts.

The investigative unit commenced probing what was happening. It soon emerged that there were some shady characters working within the vacation property industry.

One lawyer had hundreds of individual complaints waiting to sue SMT.

Reporters contacted clients who had engaged the company and they all told the same story. They assumed the business would acquire their investment off them but when they attended a meeting (for which they paid up front) they were informed there was no re-sale value.

Rather, they were encouraged - indeed pressured - to spend more money investing in "Monster Rewards", associated with the outfit's parent company, the overarching entity.

The precise definition was rather ambiguous. They seemed similar to a form of credit, providing reduced-price holidays and benefits and shopping deals.

And they were reportedly "exchangeable with additional holders, at a future date.

Committing funds immediately would lead to an long-term benefit that would offset the firm's costs and allow the investor with a gain, freed at last from their burdensome contract.

An unrealistic promise? Certainly, that proved correct.

A 'Bait-and-Switch Tactic'

Based on these descriptions were accurate, this was a large-scale fraud.

It's what is called a "bait-and-switch."

Someone - in this case the company - "attracts the customer by advertising a particular product but then to claim it is unavailable, pushing the customer to a different, lower-quality product or service.

This is against the law. Possessing all the testimony we had gathered, we made the case to secretly film one of the company's meetings.

Such an operation demands dedication, work, and clear arguments for why this is the exclusive approach to obtain the data required to prove wrongdoing.

Once authorized, our small team set up a appointment with one of the company's representatives in the English town.

Posing as a potential client hoping to get his mum out of her timeshare contract|holiday ownership agreement