KBS Overseas Property Khes Smedley; Portugal property; Spain; Cyprus; Turkey; Rip off; kept holding deposit; complaints; scam; MRI; marketing look KBS and the owner, to our knowledge, Khes Smedley have stolen 12,000 euros from us. Please be aware of the scam these people are involved in. Vilamoura, Internet

RIP OFF, WE HAVE LOST 12,OOO EUROS TO THIS SCAM:

We write in distress to the fact we have lost 12,000 euros that Khes Smedley and his company will not return to us. We came across this man at a property show in Manchester and ever since have regreted to the full that we did. He at first appeared to be a well trained professional albeit his appearence at first scared us due to his over bearing stance.

For weeks we were hounded with phone calls as he tried to convince my husband and I that our dream of owning 1 property in Portugal could be realised through his company, that they were totally different to the other agents in Portugal and would never have to worry about the security of our money. We finally gave in, which looking back was a very stupid move, and decided to take a trip to Portugal to look at properties, that 5 days has now cost us nearly 13,000 euros including the money we spent on 'reserving' 2 properties and the expenses of the trip.

Khes and his people come across like the nicest people in the world at first, of course, they wanted our money and would do anything to get it. We dreamed of owning a property in Portugal for our own use and if the investment was solid over the next 15 years or so then that would be an added bonus, it was not our priority.

Throughout our time there and looking back there agenda was simply to extort as much money from us as possible. We were pushed into a corner to buy 2 properties because the 'investment' was a 'no brainer', deals of the century we were told. The lawyers we were introduced to by Khes were obviously working in his pocket. They are not responding to our calls now as they say our reservation fee was never given to them although we signed the paperwork in their presence but the money went straight to KBS.

Upon having the contracts read by our lawyer in the UK she spotted huge flaws, contradictions and a complete lack of security for us. The fact that the translations from portugese to english was massiveley incorrect did not help our cause.

Khes Smedley and his team now refuse to take our calls and do not reply to our emails. They say we back out and so they are within their rights to keep our money. Would they do not admit is that the contracts are not what they said they were. Upon ionvestigation the rental they promised we would get is not even 30% of what we would actually get. The finance options are not there from the banks like they guaranteed they were. All in all they make money from people who, stupidly, have not done enough research.

To make things worse we have now done further research into Khes Smedley and our shocked to see he used to work with Darragh Macanthony, of MRI property. You only have to google search these names and you will see what seems to be thousands of people have lost life savings and are involved in trying to form a class action against the company and lawyers in question.

All we can say is that we admit our stupidity in this matter, are thankful that we have only lost 12,000 as opposed to 120,000, and advise anybody considering buying an overseas property to spend hours investigating who they are dealing with, take time to look at properties yourself rather than with an agent and NEVER use the lawyer that an agent says for you to use.

BUYER BEWARE KHES SMEDLEY & KBS OVERSEAS PROPERTY

Debbie