I received a call from Richard Crawford. He identified himself as the Senior Staff, file closing manager, for Acess Travel Legal Offices. His phone number is 407-288-7438. He stated that our timeshare property has been rented. We could either receive the $24,000 check and a check for $1,788 in the mail (through UPS) or do everything over the phone (because it was quicker). All we needed was a Tax Exemption form, and a Bill of Rental (similar to a Bill of Sales). What was required from us was a withdrawal form (voided deposit slip) made out to Holding Trust for the amount of $4,244.16. This money was for the Documentary Stamp Tax, which is an amount based on the money that we received. He gave us a corporate account number of 8980-4919-7047. The account was set up through a holding account with a routing number (026009593) from Bank of America.
We had been previously contacted by Access Travel and were scammed for the original amount of $1,788. We were told we had extra weeks through RCI, a timeshare broker, and would be receiving checks in the mail for the amount of $24,000. Those checks were never received, needless to say.
Throughout the conversation the topic of the previous scam was never discussed and was avoided by Richard Crawford. After receiving the information (phone number, address, etc). I told him to go ahead and send it in the mail and that I had contacted my bank (Washington State Employees Credit Union) and Bank of America and gave them all of this information. The entire tone of the phone call changed and Richard Crawford became very upset and began using a very agressive and accusatory tone. He wanted to know why I had contacted the banks and what they told me (about the possibility of this being another scam) was completely illegal and that his company's attorneys were going to become involved.
I told Richard that was fine because I had been recording this conversation. After a good 30 minutes, Richard hung up abruptly after hearing that I was recording the conversation.
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