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This has given rise to many companies who claim they can help; one such company is Personal Travel Group Limited (PTG) which is linked to Pro Travel Solutions PLC and shares directors with Incentive Leisure Group (UK) Limited.

Jill, a 69-year-old timeshare owner from Surrey had been trying to get rid of her timeshare for the past 8 years. As a pensioner, she could no longer afford the increasing maintenance costs that come with every timeshare. Earlier this year, Jill received a phone call from a marketing company asking for her thoughts on timeshare. She was told if she answered them she would be included in a £100 prize draw. A few weeks later, she was notified that she had in fact won £100 and all she had to do was come to an office to collect it, but to bring her timeshare deeds as proof of her identity.

Only when Jill got the office did she realise she was dealing with a company called Personal Travel Group and the £100 prize was just a lure to get her to come to this meeting. What followed was an intense 3 hour sales pitch; one that started with scare stories about the burden of timeshare. Jill was told that when she died her children would inherit the financial burden of her timeshare. The pressure selling continued when she was told the only 'legal' way to avoid this was to join the PTG scheme which would cost her £4,750. But the news wasn't all bad, in exchange she would receive a travel agency franchise which could end up making her money and a Reclaim cash back certificate which the sales person implied would get her the £4,750 back if she claimed it in 51 months time. Jill thought this was her only option to rid herself of the timeshare. She wasn't given any time to think about it, she had to sign up on the day and hand over her timeshare deeds.

When she received her Reclaim certificate in the post, following the pitch, she noticed that the terms and conditions state that she is only guaranteed a minimum of 5.7% of the £4,750. In July Jill received a bill for her timeshare maintenance which she promptly sent to PTG as instructed. Come October PTG had still not paid the bill and then claimed they lost it, leaving Jill with a third of her savings gone and the continuing financial burden of her timeshare, also, she has made no money from the travel franchise.

We decided we had to see this sales pitch for ourselves. All we needed to do was find someone who owned timeshare and would be willing to go undercover for us. We looked no further than the House of Commons where we found Huw Irranca-Davies MP. He owned a timeshare week in Portugal and had been previously contacted by Incentive Leisure Group (ILG) which operated in the similar way to PTG (selling holiday club membership instead of a travel agency franchise).

Huw rang the number on an ad (found in an in-flight magazine) titled 'I want to sell my timeshare'. The woman on the end of the line suggested to him he could get an allowance of between £3000 and £7000 for his timeshare and there was no cost to Huw to get rid of his timeshare, all he had to do was attended a meeting at their Walton-on-Thames office. Accompanied by his wife Joanna, Huw made his way down to the PTG office where he was met by sales person Dee and her manager David.

For the next 3 hours, Huw and Joanna were subjected to a very clever, psychological, pressure sale so complicated, we got 3 different lawyers to assist us.

It began with a simple admission when Dee told Huw,

"I haven't got a great big bag of money under this table to give you." She later added, "I know you don't want to part with any money but we don't actually do it for nothing."

According to one of our expert lawyers, Mark Weston, this is already a clear breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, as the advertisement and the initial call Huw made are both very misleading.

Huw and Joanna were told that even though they wouldn't get any money for their timeshare and would even have to pay to get rid of it, signing up to the PTG scheme was their best option. An option they would have to sign up to on the day as Dee stated, "If it suits, fantastic, if it doesn't we will just say that you've been here, if it doesn't suit you, and we won't be inviting you back."

Both Alan Bowen, our travel expert and lawyer, and Ingrid Gubbay, our consumer lawyer agreed that this was clear pressure selling. Alan Bowen believes,

"...it is a ploy to get people to sign up at this moment,"

And Ingrid Gubbay went on further to say,

"Under the unfair contracts and also unfair commercial practices regulations that would probably come under aggressive practices."

So, after all this bad news and pressure, what would convince Huw to sign up on the day? Enter Manager David, who painted Huw and Joanna a frightening picture of the future with spiralling maintenance costs:

"...probably next year and the year after, you'll see dramatic increases",

and

"You'll be going up to 18 to 22 percent which is in line with pretty much every other timeshare company in Europe."

Not only does the future look bleak for Huw and Joanna, David thinks their kids should be worried too,

"Your timeshare is a life-long bill that will increase every single year as long as you're alive and then it'll get passed on to your kids, yeah?"

So what would Huw and Joanna get in exchange for this toxic asset and the yet undisclosed fee? David explains:

"We supply 96% of [internet] travel agencies. We also supply 54, 55% of the high street travel agencies."

Which means that David and PTG will,

"build you a travel agency that's launched on the internet... and every visit is registered and recorded and every booking is registered and recorded through your travel agency, you don't have to do a thing, we do it all. The only thing you have to do is pick your colours, pick your design and name the travel agency."

Our travel expert, Alan Bowen, quickly dished out some home truths about PTG:

"The realities are no one has heard of this company in the travel industry."

To Ingrid Gubbay this was beginning to look like a pyramid selling scheme:

"The first part is; what is the product and what is the demand and I think we can safely say there is no demand for this product really. The second part, we're now starting to see, bringing in your friends and family, we are starting to see that moving into the domain of pyramid selling."

Ingrid Gubbay's hunch was confirmed when Dee and David tell Huw that he will get £3000 pounds for every person he successfully refers to PTG. For her it's very clear that this is a pyramid selling scheme and therefore clearly illegal.

But it doesn't stop there, Dee and David have another 'incentive' up their sleeves. The Reclaim cash back scheme. The same one Jill was offered. David and Dee suggested Huw will receive back more than two thirds of their cash in just over four years time (51 months to be precise). The salespeople suggested this is a guaranteed windfall which it isn't. We know the amount they told Huw the cashback company is currently paying out (68.33%) is almost double what it is actually paying out (35%).

To top it all off, Incentive Leisure Group (who have the same directors of PTG) was convicted of fraud for making misleading cash back claims in 2009. And guess who ILG is run by? The same people as PTG. Ingrid Gubbay felt,

"That could well be a fraudulent misrepresentation, and definitely illegal."

It cost Jill £4,750 to sign up to PTG, how much did Dee and David want from Huw? £14,500!

So, in summary what do our experts think? Alan Bowen:

"The company is persuading people to put hard cash down now, for something that is of no value whatsoever."

Ingrid Gubbay also felt this was not something anyone should sign up to, but also understood why so many people have,

"It's a very clever psychological sales pitch which exploits these people's deepest fears, transgresses quite a number of consumer laws, possibly criminal laws, I believe there is enough here for possible fraud."

So, who is behind PTG, Reclaim and ILG? Garry Leigh and Keith Barker are listed as directors. We also understand a man called Martin White is in a very senior role. Although Leigh died earlier this year, Keith Barker and colleague Martin White are still firmly in charge.

It's time for Matt to pay them a visit, but where to go? PTG has sales offices all over the UK but are registered in Gibraltar. A check on the registered Gibraltar address reveals that there is no sign of them there; the real headquarters appear to be in Fuengirola, Malaga, in Spain.

We sent a list of our allegations to Keith Barker offering an interview with Matt to explain the sales techniques of his staff. After Keith showed no willingness to commit to such an interview, Matt decided to hop on a plane and give him a visit in Spain. Neither Keith Barker nor Martin White were there...