In Nerja, beautiful little picturesque village on Spanish South Coast seems to be more than one discount travel membership club active.
Nerja famous for its “Balcon de Europa” is the center for OPC and scratch card representatives that seem to give away the main price to each one of their customers.
These OPCs claim that they are promoting tourism in the area on behalf of tour companies, and airlines, concerned with a drop in the number of tourists visiting the area, and ask tourist couples, if they can answer a few questions about their holidays, and later they are given scratch cards with prizes. Then the tourist couples are asked to attend a meeting to collect the prizes, where they suffer a major hard sale of a holiday club membership, costing thousands of pounds.
Giving it a closer look, and adding up the names of the companies involved, it crosses our mind that we are dealing with a very extensive group of bogus companies with different names, different products but main addresses and telephone numbers the same or almost the same.
Main Company name and address seems to be the one from Euromarketing Group Spain SL, Euromarketing Emporium SL, Capital Marketing SL & Xtreme Living SL. Address: Edificio Flores 1B, Calle del Mar 32, Torre del Mar,Malaga 29740
Names of companies involved:
The Essential Group – Essential Travel Club – www.essentialtravelclub.com 0871 244 51 71 or 0034 952 544 773
Essential Concierge – www.essentialconciergeservices.com No phone on web
Essential Travel UK – www.essentialtraveluk.com 0871 244 51 70
Essential Properties – www.essential-properties.com 01246 269 729 and Mobile 0034 672 762 044
Compass Leisure – www.compassleisure.com
Viajes Esencial – www.esencial.grupoeuropa.com 0034 952 544 773
Essential Development & Properties – www.edproperties.net 0871 244 51 95 or 01246 269 729
The Essential Collection –http://www.theessentialonline.com No phone on web
Principle Travel – www.principletravel.net 0871 244 51 81
Forces Vacation Club – www.forcesvacationclub.com 0034 952 544 773
Pioneer Travel – www.pioneertravel.eu 0871 244 51 81
Elite Travel – www.elitravel.net 0871 244 51 70
Elite World Travel 0871 244 51 72
The Ultimate Finding Company (SL) – http://www.ulfc.net/ 0871 244 51 78 & 0871 244 51 77
Kudos Consultancy – http://www.kudosconsultancy.com 0871 244 51 94
S & H Marketing – www.s-hmarketing.com 0871 244 51 94
Amazing how so many companies apparently completely separated from each other; attend their clients on the same or similar phone numbers…
Are you visiting Nerja this summer or have you been there already? Please be careful with the prices you win on the street with scratch cards, you might end up paying a lot of money for “hot air”.
If you already have a membership with the above and would like our advice, please contact us and we will get back to you straight away.
Mindtimeshare 
I am not totally sure what you are saying here. Are the companies listed here bogus – take your money and do not provide a service, or are you concerned about the way they sell, or are you concerned that they are not value for money?
Its like you learn my thoughts! You seem to know so much approximately this, like you wrote the ebook in it or something. I believe that you simply could do with a few p.c. to force the message home a little bit, however instead of that, that is excellent blog. A fantastic read. I will certainly be back.
This morning I had my fifth call in two months from yet another Malaga based company wanting to purchase my DWVC membership on behalf of a customer who had been in ‘that morning’. The twist this time is they are acting on behalf of the Receiver following DWVC’s collapse in January. I thought Data Protection prevents this sort of dissemination of names, numbers and personal information – does it not apply in Spain? How long does it take to track them down and bring them to some sort of justice?
Dear Tony,
Many thanks for your message on the blog.
I can surely believ you must be fed up with these calls!
Of course there is something like Data Protection in Spain, and probably as strong as the law in the UK. Main problem here though is that your name is on a list of leads which is sold on between these bogus companies in an illegal way. They don’t get your name from the resort or exchange company that is a lie! They get your name because somebody at some point has stolen this information and made money out of this.
My advice would be to report them to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – http://www.ico.gov.uk – which is now the watchdog responsible for guarding British nationals personal information, and which it has been granted new powers to hunt down bogus firms and fine them up to £500,000, and able to force telecoms, and internet providers, to reveal the details of any firm cold calling, as unsolicited phone calls, texts and emails are forbidden under UK Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations.
Thanks again!