Libel and malicious slander

[Fire starter]

 Sparky , you sound like you were one of guys who bought into the Shelter stuff .I have no sympathy for Quill or the people that went in eyes closed with a magic way to dodge tax  ..

I hope quill get whats coming their way .

Basic stuff,  if it seems to good to be true it probably is ......

nuff said .

[angry]

well said sparky, we do all make mistakes thats what makes us the people we are today.  We did not wish to dodge tax as we are fully paid up tax payers, we merely wanted to reduce the tax burden on our families.

Many thanks for the information on iliveinlanzarote e-mail accounts.  I have passed the said information over to the relevant people I have personally reported Quill to: Companies House UK, MP, Trading Standards, MEP, European Equivalent to Trading Standards.  I know others have also reported Quill.  I would not concern yourself too much with threats of libel or slander, SH wont take anyone of us to court, he could not afford the court costs.  I have had numerous empty threats from him myself.  He writes so many reams of twaddle and rubbish one can pick holes in every sentence.  He may have been very clever in one apsect conning very intelligent people, preying on in-experience but this was only ever going to be short term, his big mistake was filing accounts, and when he puts pen to paper he leaves himself wide open, and one realises he is not the clever person we thought he was.

Everyones attention is firmly on Mr Simon Harris, but lets not forget his charming middle aged lady wife, Jenny, as in many cases he sends her in first to do the sweet talking, butter would not melt hard sell, someone many of us would feel quite comfortable and at ease with, hence how so many of us got hooked. 

Message to the Harris's you can run but you cannot hide forever.   

[sparky]

Fire Starter,
Dont want to keep going on about this,but we need to come to some sort of understanding.
The answer is no, I haven't had a shelter with Quill or anyone else (haven't got that sort
of money), but did take out a will with them three years ago, I consider myself very lucky
to have lost such a small amount of money. This has nothing to do with my way of thinking.
The idea of having accountants is to try and limit the amount of tax you have to pay, (even
the Prime Minister Does this ). Of course this is called tax avoidence by some people,although,
I will never understand why, when these same people try to do the same thing. No one
willingly wants to pay tax without question, It is human instinct to try and hang on to as
much of your hard earned cash as you can. Most of the the victims on this thred thought
they were doing just that, they trusted Quill because, not to long ago this was seen to be a reputable company,same way as people trusted XL to fly them to their holiday destination
and back home again, they were taking bookings up to the last minute, knowing they
were going under. Fraud is fraud no matter how you dress it up. These people were
victims, ok they might have misguidedly trusted Quill, but they are still victims and were
deliberately dupped. Judge them as you will, but lets hope that one day your not on
the reseiving end of a scam.. Would  you then portion part of the blame on yourself
or totaly blame the scammer?, You can't take a portion of blame from the guilty and
place it on the shoulders of the inocent! that sort of thinking is totaly unjust!!

[cabbage]

Decent reply Sparky.If you are blatantly sold a dummy that doesnt make you a dummy does it.

[angry]

Totally agree with the above replies. 

We dont blame anyone but ourselves for the mess we got into, and we have paid to get out of.  Our intentions were to reduce the burden of tax on our families not dodge any of it.  We have just spent 7 months dealing with UK Inland Revenue explaining ourselves thanks to Quill filing 4 noughts on tax returns they filed for on our behalf last year, when they were given a set of audited accounts to work with.  Its not very pleasant being advised we had filed fraudulent accounts, and the seriousness of filing those accounts, which we knew nothing about it, becasue as I said we handed over a set of audited accounts expecting those to be used.  As we were advised we are ultimately responsible for what was filed with the Inland Revenue, but explain please how you can be responsible when you never see the documents they are filing on your behalf. 

We received the Spanish tax return Quill filed 2007 in August 2008, sent via Ceri Thomas, some 12 months later.

Quill filed incorrect accounts in UK and in Lanzarote, and to our knowledge not one person ever saw a set of accounts directly after or before they were filed.

Did anyone else get advised Ruth Sprigg an experienced accountant in UK and Spain had joined Quill December 2006 and would be filing our accounts?  Had 1 letter from her, never replied to any e-mails we sent, and disappeared almost as soon as she started, or was she ever a real person?  Then we come to a Linda May also supposed to be a Quill book-keeper.  Are any of these people real or merely alias's of the Harris's.

Then we have a young girl called Jenica who was supposed to be fluent in Spanish, an asset to his company and allegedly according to Harris lost our documents, went missing in July 2007, and whom Harris also allegedly took to court, and involved the police.  Not once have we spoken dorectly to any of the above people and for all we know they are merely Harris's alias's.

[StarForce]

I know that Ruth and Linda did both work for Harris and were just employees of his "for a short period" who i know for sure new nothing about his doggy dealing as you would know if u met Simon he does come accross a very repectable man with good intentions but arnt looks deceiving!!
Jenica did also work for Simon she was English and spanish speaking and I did hear that she ran with some of his money but how true this is we will prob never know???

I know from people who have worked for him in the past that he was quick to get in the business and any follow up calls he left his poor inocent staff to deal with/answer the calls and was forever changing his mobile phone number to dodge these poor people. The name Melanie Ross in a previous page mentioned she moved back to uk about a year ago not sure if she still works for him from there as she did say she was going to but who knows?? As what business has he got left to run now

Derek Mc Call was his personal PA who worked for him in uk before they moved out here and still ran the uk end in the uk - again not sure if he still works for him now??

[angry]

Hi starforce, yes we have met Jenny and Simon Harris and yes both come across as very respectable people, hence why so many of us got hooked.  When you meet them you would not think they are con artists, and the paperwork they produce especially for Wills is very good, and very convincing.

I heard from Nichole in January 2008 that Jenica had allegedly embessled money from Harris, and also lost many clients documents (ours being one) or either had the money to go to the relevant authorities to obtain the documents and never did, hence we had missing documents because they were never paid for, or even applied for, and money was possibly being pocketed.  Its ironic if its true someone actually managed to rip off the Harris's!!!! .  Nichole also said that Harris had involved the Police and Jenica had allegedly been taken to court for this.  We also have letters from Derek McCall/Harris stating this was the case.

Janet Harper was introduced to us as the book-keeper who would be looking after our accounts in June 2006, she disappeared in December 2006, and Ruth Sprigg and Linda May came on the scene.  The next time we saw Janet Harpers name in lights and connected to Harris was on the Explaining Spain website.  This summer we see she is now employed as the representative for sales in Playa Blanca area for Buzz Magazine.  This is the same person as we met her personally and we have seen her picture in the magazine.

Melanie Ross took a sabatical around November/December time 2007 due to personal problems and left Lanzarote in March/April 2008 to return to UK.  Melanie was the person responsible for Bi-Cell, and this also involved buying franchises of some sort.  Melanie was also very defensive of the Harris's because I was always complaining to her about them. 

I noticed from the information posted by BusyBird that contact details for iliveinlanzarote account which is the e-mail address I had for contacting Melanie also has a UK telephone number if I am not mistaken.

I think we are maybe starting to piece the puzzle together a little bit now, thanks to the help of this forum.

[angry]

Another question for anyone who may be able to help.  Does anyone know what happened to Dee Gillon, Harris's PA in Lanzarote???   Did she also get fed up with the endless complaints and call it a day or has she re-invented herself somewhere else???

[Seabreeze]

thought u might find this interesting.....have quills set up in mainland?? beware all

http://www.spainexpat.com/spain/forum/viewthread/2814/

[Conned]

Seabreeze
The setup talked about on that forum is totally legitimate and is the way that the people like myself who have been conned by Quill should have gone in the first place. The system of owning a Spanish property through a UK Ltd company is a great idea as it is a way of saving IHT tax, and other taxes, that is not only legal but one that every UK tax advisor and accountant should be able to understand and deal with without any complications and one that does not leave any ownership issues.

The 'Shelter' system produced by Quill is a complete shambles, nobody understands it, it costs a fortune to dismantle, costs a lot more money to run and you do not know if you even own your property as you have given Quill power to do what the hell they want.

i have now set up ownership of my properties through a UK Ltd Company and, whilst i am very much out of pocket, i am safe in the knowledge that i am the only person who has control, that i can use any accountant to sort out the companies affairs and that my children's future is protected.

[angry]

Agree with Conned, however we have successfully managed to remove Quill from both our LLP and SL and have kept them both as this was for us the cheaper option.  They can now run pretty much the same as the company Conned has set up, the only difference being the LLP UK is the administrator of the SL.   The SL holds the spanish villa and any other properties you wish to include as its assets, and having asked the questions is simple to run and also easy enough to sell the assets should there be the need. Having Quill named in the LLP and SL meant you could not sell your properties without Simon Harris's permission and Harris also as a shareholder was entitled to a share in the proceeds of the sale.  In our case he kept our mortgage in our individual names, only placing the property in the SL name.  Thus if we decided to sell we incurred all the costs and he took a slice of the profits of the sale as a shareholder.  This is why its imperative to remove Quill from your shelters, or to go the way Conned has gone.  Lets not forget these people also trade in Wills and Harris was 60 in May 2008, who benefits on his death as regards the shares he holds in your shelters - the charming lady wife Jenny or Ceri - his alleged daughter???  This could also throw up further problems for the Quill victims that none of us are aware of.

Filing your Self Assessments is not as hard as Quill make out.  You merely file a self assessment in UK and file a set of accounts at Companies House, and then file the same set of accounts in Spain, and using bonafide accountants there should be no problems.  We used a UK accountant - family member and filed the same accounts using a Spanish Accountant. Using Harris last year to file accounts in our case exposed us to fraud.  He charges the same fees as you would pay for using the professionals, and if you go directly to the professionals yourself you know who you are dealing with.

Oh and by the way Harris is claiming Conned and I are spooking people now with our claims.  We can prove we are telling the truth and we dont have to hide.  I challenge Harris and his charming lady wife on this forum if they are as innocent as they make out then prove it.

[Londonaccountant]

PS doing UK self assessment is an absolute piece of p*ss!! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise (unless you have vastly complex arrangements obviously)

But if you are employed and have just one property as many do you can do it yourself - its common sense.

[cazza]

after much soul searching and realising we had done the wrong thing by letting quills set us a shelter up,we have been trying to find ways out of it I thought you on here would be interested in the reply I got from quills I might add it took them 8 months to send this.
 re – DISSOLUTION OF YOUR SHELTER.
 I have been asked by Gabriella to answer a specific question - which it seems has not been addressed in any of our previous emails to you - which is - ‘what does it cost to dissolve your shelter’ ?We are of course in the business of creating shelter structures to place English speaking people who have assets in Spain into a more advantageous position eliminating all UK and Spanish taxes.I do not think that we have ever actually therefore dissolved a shelter !The answer however must simply to be that - if you wish to return to the state you were in before your property was in the shelter - you would require to ‘sell’ or ‘transfer’ the property from the shelter back to yourselves.The costs involved would be around 8% of the value of the property as declared to the notary, which might be the escritura value or the escritura value plus a small percentage covering inflation.
This is around €8,000 per €100,000 of value of property.   One of the reasons that shelter structures are attractive is that anyone purchasing the property from you inside a shelter structure does not pay those taxes and costs.It is something that would take no time at all – and we probably would suggest that we acted for the shelter in transferring the property to you (because you would not be able to act for both sides), which could be done at a drop of a hat.BUY – WHY ?Having said all of the above, we do nevertheless have to question why you would want to do that.I can only believe that it is something that you are misunderstanding about the shelter.Having your property in a shelter in Spain does, has and will eliminate many taxes.   Some of those taxes are quite serious.The cost is around €500 per year – which is little different - if not possibly less - than the cost of doing your own accounts as an individual as a property owner in Spain.I shall be more than happy – if you would like to organise it with Gabriella - to speak to you about why you would think that dissolving your shelter would be advisable - and to step through why we would say that it is not.Nevertheless if it is what you want to do, that is how it is done - and the cost of doing it.

my spanish solicitor after reading this said one word 'rubbish'

[wilyfox]

After reading all of the threads it leaves again a bad taste in the mouth.This quills wills advertising and the decade of advertising the beach club con job and the numerous unchecked mini ads leads to one course of action and that is that the gazette should introduce a vetting system to allow readers to be able to judge the advert knowing all research done by the gazette.This would then in turn allow the forum to discuss basket weaving and other fine artesanal pastimes

[Londonaccountant]

Wilyfox - or whatever you are calling yourself today..........

Why should the gazette have to abide by stricter advertising rules than any other publication in the world?!

How was the Madof guy allowed to advertise his pyramid hedge fund scheme yet you are whining about a small time crook - who hopefully is out of business - and yet more unfounded allegations about a b**dy dog.

Priorities surely (and am sure the dog is in a better place - I hope the opposite is true for Harris)