Pensioners Brian and Winifred Tillotson, from Wortley near Leeds, have been conned out of £3,000 in a timeshare scam and they want to ensure it does not happen to anyone else.

Like millions of other holidaymakers, Brian and Winifred Tillotson invested in a timeshare plan. It was 1992, and they paid £2,000 for the exclusive right to use a brand new one-bed studio flat at the Sunny Coast complex in Malta for seven days each March, or week 11.

They stayed at the property once or twice and even exchanged it for holidays in Portugal, but recently their share has gone unused.

So when the couple, aged 73 and 70 respectively, received a cold call from a person claiming that they could sell the week for £5,500, they leapt at the chance.

What they did not realise was that the figure was wildly unrealistic. The timeshare resale industry has taken a major nose-dive in recent years, and today the week is worth £500 at best, according to Jane Attwell of Aberfoyle Holidays, a firm recommended by the UK’s independent Timeshare Consumers Association (TCA).

Yet, within a period of 18 months, the Tillotsons were contacted by salesmen working for World Networking Sales (WNS), Secure Leisure and Montemar Estates – all based on the Costa del Sol, Spain – who all claimed they could make the pair thousands of pounds, the Yorkshire Evening Post reported.

The trusting Leeds pensioners parted with almost £3,000 in ‘fees’ in order to market their week. Yet the week never did sell.

Today, the Tillotsons are still stuck with the week’s timeshare that continues to cost around £200 a year to maintain.

According to Sandy Grey, founder of TCA, this is a perfect example of the ‘resale scam’ that has already netted crooks £500m.

The Tillotsons want to stop other timeshare holders falling for the scam.

Mr Tillotson said: “I am not bothered about compensation, I just want my £3,000 back and to put other people off from getting involved. It’s that convincing: They always have answers for you.”

Mrs Tillotson added: “One time I said I didn’t have any money but they told me to send it now, as they could sell our week immediately, and that even if I did go overdrawn I would have the cash from the sale before I ended up in the red.

“We were on first name terms with them. They were ever so friendly, showed lots of interest in us and were very pressing.”

These are classic examples of the convincing tactics used by tricky salesmen, says timeshare scam battler Sandy Grey.

Hang up if a cold-caller rings about a timeshare, he advised. “The big lie that you are going to hear is that your timeshare is worth X thousand pounds, when in reality it is probably worth only a fraction of that,” he said.

“This is fraudulent misconception, inflating the value by anything from 100 to 1,000 per cent. Most timeshare weeks or points are worthless in the open market and all holiday club memberships are totally worthless.

“Don’t even speak to these people. Hang up before they dupe you with their lies.”

Genuine holiday companies would never ask for fees upfront, and are far too busy to tout for business, according to Ms Attwell, who suggests that anyone thinking of selling a timeshare should call a trusted holiday company for a valuation, and never trust a cold-caller.

Most timeshare resale scams operate out of Spain – even many of the ones offering UK- or even US-based phone numbers, said Mr Grey, who receives up to 40 calls and 15 emails a day from consumers concerned about timeshare scams.

He has compiled a black list of more than 1,700 fake companies that have been targeting unsuspecting owners in the UK and the good news is that more people then ever are reporting the cold-caller before parting with their money.

The biggest problem facing those trying to stop the crooks is that the companies share information and change their names frequently, he said.

Consumers are often called by the same people pretending to work for different firms, he added, and the con roughly follows the same pattern, although the technique had become “pushier” as salesmen became more desperate.

“The salesman softens up the potential customer, telling them that they can sell their timeshare for a good price,” said Mr Grey. “They will leave it for two or three weeks, then call back with news of a potential buyer, even asking if they would like to talk to him, but in reality they are just passed to someone else in the office.

“Consumers are told the money is there but a payment to secure the deal is needed. The deal invariably falls through.”

The crooks are driven by the fact that the scam works, but also because of the decline in popularity of timeshares, said Mr Grey. “Years ago, timeshares were seen as a good investment and became people’s savings. Now, many of these same salesmen are out of work but still have access to customer details. That is when the cold-calling starts.”

In the case of the Tillotsons, the trouble started in June 2008 with an unexpected call from a salesman from WNS in Malaga, Spain.

They were told they could pay a e1,000 fee (£800 at the time) to market their week, with a good chance of selling for more than £5,000.

The contract arrived with details of a potential buyer, but the sale later fell through.

Within weeks of the Tillotsons parting with the cash, Secure Leisure got in touch to tell them that WNS was a scam. This time, the salesman said he could get them their money back from the previous firm, and sell the timeshare for several thousand pounds.

The ‘service’ cost them e895 (£700 at the time), but they heard nothing more and were too scared to call in case it cost them even more money.

Then, in early 2009, a salesman from Montemar Estates got in touch and on 10 January the Leeds couple spent almost e1,000 (£995) on a ‘retainer’ for the sale of their timeshare.

A contract was sent out, with the firm promising to market the week for 12 months.

In early February, the terms and conditions arrived with a request for the pensioners’ passport details. The Tillotsons did not reply, and they have never heard from Montemar again.

The final crunch came in December, when First Legal Services called to say they were investigating a timeshare scam.

Roberto Herrero, senior partner of the Malaga-based company, followed up with a letter requesting a one-off payment of around e995 (£900).

The Tillotsons smelled a rat and this time did not pay.

David Howard, managing director of MonteMarEstates.com, emailed to say that his company did not deal with timeshares. He said he had had lots of calls about a timeshare scam, but this related to MonteMarEstates.net.

The ‘London’ number supplied by Secure Leisure was diverted to a recorded message left in Spanish. No one ever returned calls, or replied to emails asking how they had obtained the Tilllotsons’ details.

WNS simply ignored an email sent to them – and there was no telephone number provided.

First Legal Services is understood to have been disconnected, while an email asking how they knew about the plight of the Tillotsons went unanswered.

Many other people have reported similar complaints about Spain-based WNS, Secure Leisure, MonteMarEstates and First Legal Services on various online consumer forums, including timesharetalk.