KiasuParents - Parenting in Singapore

Beware of time sharing companies which are very active recently again!

Look after vulnerable people around you.

One of them is the infamous Cours Montreux International Pte Limited, previously known as Discovery VIII and i-Discover. Many people have been conned again in recent months. They will call you to collect some gifts, a handphone, $500 voucher etc...They will only give the direction of the location you should go but will not reveal the address of the company. The company is in Regency House at Penang road.

A good site describing them is
http://justinlee.sg/2010/04/20/airplane ... otel-scam/

A story of how a civil servant was conned into the scam again and again can be read from the article. All company has the same director. You can find their name in the article. A very evil person, I will say.

http://www.asiaone.com/News/The%2BNew%2 ... 03440.html

Oh dear, how come they are still around conning people's hard earned money!

The same people just change the company name or open a new company and run the scam all over again. And our police is doing nothing?

Another wonderful piece written on the same scam company.

http://avoiding-scammers.blogspot.com/

From reading by a very senior lawyer, the agreement they drafted showed that it is lawyer that wrote it. Sign also pointed to high profile auditor assisting them with the scheme. All the more reasons for the authority to step in.

Now, after there are storm of forumners coming to the internet to expose them, they start creating spam websites that carries their company names to divert attention. Read this article.

http://avoiding-scammers.blogspot.com/

The latest development is that they set up a new company called The Discovery Group and hoax victims members from i-Discover to switch over to the newly formed group with an ADDITIONAL fees (that means additional scamming). CASE has received many complaints such that a warning is issued immediately

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNew ... 09003.html

The director fro i-Discover, discovery III, Cours Montreux, Crown Holiday Exchange, Pacific Lifestyle etc... are all Jerry Tan Kim Huat while the director for The Discovery Group is Jeff Chow who was/is the general manager for Jerry Tan for the above mentioned companies. We got some clue that they maybe foraying into scam scheme related to gold.

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Case issues alert about firm with timeshare links
11 complaints against The Discovery Group since it was set up in February

Published on Jun 9, 2012

By Jessica Lim
Yet another timeshare-related company - The Discovery Group - has drawn the ire of consumers.

The Consumers Association of Singapore (Case), which has received 11 complaints since the company was set up in February, issued an alert about its practices on Friday.

Customers had asked Case to help them cancel their contracts with the company. Each had paid fees from $200 to $7,000.

They claimed The Discovery Group had told them it could help them get out of deals signed with errant timeshare companies, and could also arrange for a waiver of remaining payments, or even termination of agreements to recover monies.
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why still entertain the caller?

The first question being asked is 'are you married or single?' straight away answered them 'Single'. Then they will put down the phone.

Credit card call? straight away tell them 'jobless', they will put down the phone.

Be very careful about the company called Gold Guarantee that sell gold at a 30% premium.

The boss Lee Song Teck is involved with those time-share scam companies I mentioned. If you want to buy gold, just go to UOB bank and buy, don't need to take risk in all these shady businessmen. apparently, LST has bought over some of those scam companies and involved in coercing the existing members into paying more money into their scam. The Discovery Group is in CASE alert recently.


Read the first comment.
http://www.martinlee.sg/the-gold-guaran ... com=132786

One of the comment in the article
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Gents and ladies,

Pls pardon me as I am hijacking this thread to discuss abt The Gold Guarantee (GG) and its founder Lee Song Teck (LST).

Once I reached home after GG’s seminar on Thursday night , I googled GG and LST to know more abt their business.

At Hardware Zone forum under thread “Must read : Time Share Scam Awareness! Don’t be the next victim! ” there were complaints abt LST.

The relates to timeshare which is another type of scam.

Many people got scammed by this company selling timeshare packages called iDiscover / DiscoveryGroup. They bought the packages after attending sales seminars which offered freebies like IPads and travel vouchers just to attend a 2 hours sales talk. But they never got to use to their satisfaction any of the tour packages/hotel stay/cheap flights etc promised in the timeshare package.

Many people sort refunds but to their horror the owner of the iDiscover / DiscoveryGroup has taken all their money and sold the company to Lee Song Teck .

LST himself then was looking to recover his cost paid to the previous owner by getting those who wanted refunds to pay up the remaining unpaid membership fees owed or alternatively, change their so-called travel service into some kind of “consolidated investment” with unbelievable compounded returns of 23% over 15 years ($73,000 returns for $26,000 investment).

What is this consolidated investment? Buying Gold from GG !!

When asked what backs up such a ridiculous claim or “promise” of 23% returns, they were shown a sample of the 3 “gold warrant” certificates signed for by a certain unheard of “Gold Guarantee Pte Ltd” (which itself is not being monitored by MAS), probably some commodity derivative of gold (which is sky-high at the moment), provided the gold does exists and the warrant or underwriting company are real and does not “default”.

What they asked why would LST want to buy such a scam company like iDiscover, which already has so many complains and has very poor after-sales/mediocre product-line. The answer very much surprised them – aside from Mr Lee being very rich (net-worth 20 million and can spent millions easily), the new owner want to change the direction of the company, such that the existing 5000 members can take their minds off travel (meaning no longer interested in providing this service) and instead wait every 5 years for the pay-out return of $23,000 each time.

The smarter ones then went back to do backgound checks on GG. The so called “trustee” company is call The Gold Guarantee, it is ALSO owned by the new boss of The Discovery Group Mr Lee Song Teck.

How can the same owner be both the issuer of the so called “warrant”, that guarantees the payout, and at the same time be the trustee?

It’s like saying give me cash to buy gold from me, I will keep the gold in trust for you and guarantee return it to you in 15 years time plus interest.

LST now owns all the shares of iDiscover, with the “old” boss Jerry Tan still listed a director.

I hope you can understand so far the story of LST’s involvement in timeshare and GG.

Many things like this goes behind the curtains of Goldcos, with one intention in mind – to suck more and more people into their scam !
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I would like to escalate this up to the authorities and I hope someone from the anti-scam authority happens to read this. We regretted signning with them (I-discover group) and it seems now it is too difficult to get off their hook. They are chasing and demanding money from us like loan sharks.Recently I received a letter from I-Discover demanding us to settle the money owing to them within 5 working from the date of the letter sent to us on 1-Sept 2012.

My wife and I do not want to pay ANY more money to them to feed these swindlers. We have already all in all paid almost 10K to them in the first installment using credit card installment monthly payment. I struggle to pay off the first installment through my hard earn money. My wife is not working and I am the supporting bread winner, I-Discover has made us almost broke and drained dry of our hard earned money. Life in Singapore is already so tough and now I-discover is making our lives even more tougher and very miserable.

I am very sick and tire of their dirty tricks and games they are playing on cheating people of their hard earn money.

But I am in a delimma, anxiety and worries is running through my mind, what is the best course of action should I take to get myself out of this hook.