Avoid being ripped off
This page is not so much about naming and shaming as warning others of the pitfalls you are likely to find when dealing with certain individuals and organisations: Everything I've written here is true:
Lets begin with the property industry.
UNWIN ESTATES & Uz Bay Investments consisting of ALPAN UZ the property developer and the local man that owned the land contracted with buyers to build 21 three bedroom villas with private pools, taking almost £1millionand delivered none. 
Back in July 2005 (and I'm writing this in October 2010) along with 20 other buyers I paid a deposit of apx' £20,000 for a villa in Cyprus. The 21 villa walled complex was due for completion in July 2006 and contractually buyers would be paid £500 for every month of lateness after the first three months of lateness. Here were are 51 months after the completion date and my villa is still a patch of dirt with not so much as a spade having been in it while 19 others are in various stages of build but none are anywhere near completed. I am owed a £20,000 refund plus compensation for breach of contract or a villa discounted by £25,500 in lateness penalties. MARK UNWIN the owner of UNWIN ESTATES who refuses to communicate with me approached at least one other buyer for further stage 
payments so they paid believing the site was developing nicely. Buyers (who shall remain nameless) then found out that the properties were not at that stage and payments were not due so MARK UNWIN personally faces accusations of fraud. The dispute between ALPAN UZ and his land owner partner was about payments received by MARK UNWIN and paid to ALPAN UZ with none or little of that money being paid to
the land owner partner. ALPAN UZ during the lengthy sequence of court hearings moved his assets in to his mother's name to avod claims by the partner and / or the buyers but built a large expensive villa for himself whilst claiming he could not or would not refund money to buyers. I understand that there are a number of failed developments in Cyprus that include the names Alpan Uz and Mark Unwin not just my own so PLEASE beware of these people. I should also mention that UNWIN ESTATES made promises of 
regular progress reports and photographs but I haven't received anything in 5 years so I've actually been there twice to see for myself which are the pictures shown here. Nearing a final judgment on who should own the land and partially built villas many buyers recieved requests from Alpan Uz to pay more than the original price to help him with legal costs fighting his business partner. I understand the partner also approached some buyers with a similar request. I wasn't approached by either but it looks like neither now have the resources to complete the development regardless of who eventually owns it.
Warrant for the arrest of Mark Unwin owner or Unwin Estates
Read what others have to say about Alpan Uz and Mark Unwin.
http://latchfords.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!AED4FE7679CA3C33!981.entry
http://www.hbpg-trnc.net/documents/Minutes/Anne_Charlesworth_111208
http://www.hbpg-trnc.net/documents/sites_unfinished.html
http://www.cyprus44.com/forums/672.asp
http://www.glencoecyprus.com/glencoeforum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=118&start=10
Written for a Cyprus news paper . . . .
My personal experience in TRNC revolves around the names so commonly heard in property scams. Alpan Uz and Unwin Estates. Alpan Uz traded as Uz-Bay investments and NESA. There were five developments run by Alpan Uz and sold to unsuspecting buyers via Unwin Estates, all five were closed down after collecting millions in deposits and unjustified stage payments from unsuspecting buyers, mostly looking to retire in the sun, some who sold their homes to fund it and some that spent their life savings on a dream.
In 2005 I bought one of the last remaining villa plots on the development of my choice. All parties signed a contract and I paid Unwin Estates almost £20,000 to be followed by stage payments that Unwin Estates would confirm were due with progress reports and photographs. Completion and delivery should have been 12 months later. A contract clause promised £500 compensation for every month of lateness over three months. Construction began at the bottom of the hill side and stopped long before reaching my plot at the top of the hill. That kept my loss to one payment whereas other buyers whose villas had been started paid further payments some losing four times as much.
Progress reports and photographs never came and Unwin Estates, in particular Mark Unwin as well as Alpan Uz refused to answer my calls and e-mails. The delivery date had long since passed and eventually I made contact with Uz from an unrecognised phone number in the Middle East. He lied telling me there had been a slight delay but delivery would be in five months. The lawyer I used on the recommendation of Unwin Estates also didn’t volunteer information to me (or other buyers) about the seriousness of the problem until I bombarded him with precise questions in 2007. Although the sites were all closed down by Alpan Uz he and Mark Unwin continued to charge stage payments without telling people that work had had stopped, “fraud”. Unwin Estates tried to trick stages payments from at least one buyer by making false claims of progress and showing photographs of other buildings. Unwin distributed the money to Uz personally and not to Uz-Bay Investments which understandably worried the Bay part of the Uz-Bay partnership, Mustafa Baykan the land owner. Five years on and a number of court hearings to resolve the dispute Baykan was awarded his land back but Uz still has (or had) all or most of the money that should have funded the villas to a further stage of completion that they are. To avoid paying claims against him Uz moved his assets into the name of other family members and openly stated in media reports that he doesn’t owe anything to the ex-pat buyers. If he really thought that was true why would he need to hide assets?
Originally I knew only of the development I was a victim of because by then I was living in Dubai without contact with other victims but eventually I learned that all five sites run by Uz had been closed down and no-one had any money returned. The excuse of a dispute between land owner and developer doesn’t wash with at least one closed developments because Alpan Uz is the land owner and the developer, “fraud”. With his asserts protected in other names Uz built himself a luxury villa spending an alleged £100,000 on marble flooring alone.
Unknown to many Alpan Uz registered two companies in UK, one being North Cyprus Airlines Ltd, company registration No 07410901 with a registered office at 83 Kingsland High Street, Dalston, London E8 2PB in a solicitor’s office above a money exchange shop. Uz imported an expensive Porsche car and clearly his disregard for what he’s done isn’t going to stop there. Fraud in another disguise is highly likely to happen again. With this in mind I have lodged a complaint with company’s house stating that with a trading history like his Alpan Uz is unfit to be a company director. That isn’t going to recover any money but it might prevent Uz from defrauding more people.
Uz may try to stop local media from printed as he has tried with other reports but I’ll circulate a more detailed report globally and he will not able to hide in the security of none European TRNC. Uz ruined the reputable business he took over from his father so his short but profitable time in property development is over. Under UK law Uz would have gone to jail for what he’s done so he needs to tread carefully, running away to TRNC isn’t going to protect a UK registered company or its director/s.
Now lets move on to Banking
Being a customer of HSBC since the 70s, when I moved to live in Dubai I opened an account with HSBC thinking that transfers back to my UK account would be quick cheap and easy. How wrong I was. The account I was sold in 2007 carried a cost of about £15/month just for having the account but allowed me to avoid long bank queues, dealing with a separate counter, no charge for ATM withdrawals, cheque book and monthly statements. All the benefts we expect for nothing in UK but this was the Middle East. Transferring money to a nominated account was free according to the sales person and the tariff I still have today but transfers to irregular accounts were charged at £13 (in AED). Without notice that was increased to about £16 (AED 100) as was the charge for just having the account. My irregular transfers to family accounts were charged but not at the tariff rate. Charges were always 50% higher than the tariif stated. Transfers to my nominated account were also charged at the high rate plus 50% (AED150) (about £25) not free as it stated in the tariff. Many months went by with vastly different explanations from different HSBC Staff about why I was charged and all of my transfers continued to be changed at 150 regardless of my repeated requests for an explanation. Eventually some 8-12 transactions later HSBC staff told me they charged 100 for all transfers and the tariff (still being handed out to customers) was wrong. They aslo told me the extra 50 was a charge made by the receiving bank and not by HSBC. Yes of course I checked especially as my own bank was HSBC, the only other tranfer route was to my brother's bank in USA and he took that up with his bank. The results were - - there had been no charges made by any of the receiving banks and the entire 150 charge was made by HSBC MIddle East under false pretences. I closed my account and requested a final statement to see exactly how much I was charged for the final transfer but I was refused a statement
"because I had closed my account".
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Lets not forget internet trading. In this instance the culprit is OPODO the internet based flight sales business in UK.
I booked a European flight in early October 2010 then had cause to change that within hours of making the booking. The cost to change the £140 flight was £75 (hardly proportionate) or I had the option to cancel at £25 and rebook it. No contest really, I paid the additional £25 and awaited my refund as confirmed by OPODO sales staff. They did say it may take 3 weeks (Nov) which I con't understand because a refund can be made back to the credit card it came from there and then without delay. Late December, days before Christmas and there's still no refund. The e-mail reply to my request for payment said OPODO had checked and confirmed a refund was due but the process takes 3 months and I had to wait another few weeks. I responded to that load of codswollop, not very graciously with
"Payment must be recieved within 3 days or I'll issue and application for a CCJ and include interest on the debt"
Unflustered by my supposed empty threat OPODO didn't reply and didn't pay. My next contact was to tell OPODO the deadline was up and the attached application for a County Court Judgement would be submitted at the end of that day if evidence of the refundbeing paid was not supplied. That brought a bit of action from OPODO.
The next e-mail from OPODO told me they had paid and it could take 12 days to be shown on my credit card account. Obviously that was another load of codswollopso I gave them one more chance to show "documentry evidence" of the refund being made. That of course wasn't supplied (because it didn't exist) but their story did change. Now OPODO claimed that my refund was justifed and had been paid long ago and suggsted I checked with my bank. I checked with my credit card company and no payments had been made to my credit card whatsoever. My legal claim now included interest on the £140 refund an £30 court fees. OPODO then caled me for my credit card No so they could pay the refund . . . . confirming everything said so far had been deliberate time wasting to hold on to my money. .
Update: Two weeks after the supposed payment my bank ad credit card "fraud team" confirmed there was no payment and there was nothing waiting to be cleared. The refund had not been paid and thre "fraud tyeam" were investigating OPODO. I've invoiced OPODO for my time spent on this and issued a dead line before court action begins.
LATEST
We didn't get to court OPODO paid as required before then and I believe this to be normal practice for OPODO.
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