Catala-Reinon - Scammers!
Статья на русском языке по ссылке: https://astrei86.livejournal.com/4658.html
Catala-Reinon lawyer company - Scammers!
Dear friends, there will follow a long text describing the situation and leading a clear and irrefutable confirmation that this company, which calls itself lawyers, simply deceives people and extorts money from them, using a rather simple and widespread scheme in Spain.
Scheme of fraud: You come to the company and you are informed that the initial consultation with a lawyer is free. You agree and naturally communicate with their representative, to understand whether they can take your case or not. Most often, nothing important is discussed in the conversation itself, and they simply gather information and report on the approximate cost. Then there are 2 ways of developing the situation:
1. You give up their services. And after some time, you receive an invoice for this "free consultation" in the amount of 150 euros. It turns out that it is free only if you buy a package of services from them, but they forget to tell you about it.
2. You agree to services, pay them in advance, and then at all meetings, lawyers will simply pour water, talk about what they are doing, but in fact they will not do anything sensible. There are even testimonials from people who confirm that lawyers are starting to demand an additional fee later. No one will sign a contract with you, even if you require it. Will bring only a paper that you paid for the services, and when asked about the contract, they will say that this is a contract, or that it will be issued later.
NEVER contact them and warn all your friends if you find out that they turned to them or want to contact them.
We step by the second scheme, lost 1210 euros, and did not receive any documents at all. And we also, did not received payment of the promised compensation, in consequence of the refusal of their services in the amount of 638 euros. Then a detailed history of what happened will follow, which you can read, if interested.
We applied to the law firm Catala-Reinon in July 2017. Learning that they have an initial free consultation (as well as many lawyers, to whom I applied at the same time), we came to them with my wife, and asked the same questions as other lawyers. We always going to a consultation together, so that there cannot be a situation in which one person could easily be confused or report untrue information and then say that they did not say that.
We were looking for a way to register a residence permit without the right to work or through the opening a company directly from Spain, without the need to return to Russia and submit documents on a standard scheme from the consulate in Moscow. After 30 minutes of waiting and 20 minutes of conversation with a lawyer with terrible defects of speech and with his assistant "trainee", apparently. We received similar information, as in other agencies, that the filing of documents is coming from Moscow, and they can issue us all the documents necessary for filing. We thanked the lawyers and said that we need to think about it, but we do not need such a form.
A few days later, an assistant of lawyer called back to us, and I also told her that their services do not suit us, and that we don't want to make documents by this form. On that she asked me to come back to the office again, because the lawyer finds a way to do exactly as we want. (They called us, and we did not ask them for a second consultation)
We again came together with my wife, and for 40 minutes we listened again to the indecipherable speech of a lawyer who does not speak English and with vague defect of speech indistinctly speaks Spanish (it is almost impossible to understand him) and his assistant who speaks English well and perfectly understood everything when we talked, and also translated the lawyer. (My request to provide someone who speaks our language was never satisfied, although before each meeting I asked about this opportunity and I was informed that they have a lawyer who speaks Russian and they will call him to the meeting).
Throughout the conversation, the lawyer and assistant assured us that they can collect documents and submit them, on our behalf, right here in Spain, and help us in the end with obtaining a residence permit directly in Spain. Surprised at the sudden change of the decision, I asked this again 2 times, with the phrase "Do you confirm that you will be able to issue us all the documents right from here and we will not have to return to Russia to file an application?" To which he both received the answer: Yes, of course. We will arrange all for you here and you do not need to fly to Russia if you provide us with the necessary documents (which I already had). Nevertheless, my wife, not being sure of their answer and slightly less understanding of the Spanish, at the end of the conversation, asked the assistant to explain again to her in English how everything will happen and whether we will not have to fly to Russia to file documents from the embassy. In the explanation, it was said the same thing that they will issue all the documents and we will receive the documents right here in Barcelona, without the need to travel outside of Spain and at the same time they can fit into the validity of our visa + 1 month. For all the work, they wanted 1000 euros (1210 euros including taxes)
We reported that we liked their offer, but we need another 1 day to think it over. A day later they invited us to pay for services, if we agree. We decided to try, why not. Accordingly, the 3rd meeting was also initiated by lawyers, took 20 minutes, and during this time I only paid them and requested a contract, as we previously agreed, received only A4 sheet, in which the amount of payment was indicated and everything. The contract was promised to be prepared a little later.
A week later, when I contacted them to find out about the progress and asked if they needed from me the documents they requested in the beginning, they asked me to come to the office and the lawyer would tell me about the progress of the cases and would show some of the documents.
The lawyer appeared as always with 30 minutes delay. He had only copies of our passports with him, a piece of paper on which they schematically pictured to us at the first meeting what they needed were documents and a list of company names we wrote them for filing an application for the opening of a company (SL). That is, in the end, nothing was ready, and they have not done anything since our last visit (even the penultimate one, since we left this data on the penultimate visit)
The lawyer again ranted something about the documents that will be ready in about 2-3 weeks, and at the end of his monologue sounded the phrase that, having received them you can go to serve them in Moscow. I stopped him immediately and began to inquire what kind of trip to Moscow and why should I go there if we discussed a completely different scheme? To which he told me directly in the face that we did not discuss anything like this and maybe I misunderstood something. The assistant was gone, and she was not at the office at all (since that time we have not seen her in general). Naturally, I immediately reported that it does not suit us that they deceived us and I have at least a spouse as a witness who also attended and heard what they claimed. After that I asked to terminate the contract and return the money. We contacting them 3 days later and we had to take an interpreter with them and come to them to the office, so that there was no misunderstanding and language barrier (about which they spoke and not we) and we were already met by a company representative (and not by a lawyer), who was rude to us, claimed that they cannot return the money to us, only a part, minus 4 full-fledged consultations, which we allegedly passed (note the description of these "full-fledged consultations" above). They can’t return money immediately, only later transfer to a settlement account. After a long tirade with insults and the statement that it was not they who lied to us and that they are professionals, and we go here and distract them from important matters with their nonsense, they refused to give us the results of their work, gave only hard copies of our passports that I left before that. I did not trust these scammers and therefore decided to pick up copies of all the documents. No paper composed by the company among them was not. That is, nothing was done at all.
I left them my account details (full details) and duplicated them by e-mail.
After more than 1 month and after repeated calls to the company, they initiated a transfer, but instead of the details they used only the number of the correspondent account and wrote name of beneficiary with an error (judging by everything especially, because this is not a typo, and they take specified data from the requisites that I left, but only the account number from the requisites and the signature alias from my personal e-mail. I note that my passport data was there and they could not be mistaken in the name if they wanted to list correctly). Naturally, the money did not come and returned to the sender.
After that the company completely stopped responding to e-mails, and calls to the company by my friends in Spain resulted in the fact that they promised to transfer everything again soon, but not a single payment was made.
Hence the conclusion that all this was planned from the very beginning, and that the company did not even plan to return money for services not rendered to me, even partially. So, they are scammers and thieves.
Never refer to them and their like. Always ask for a full contract with all services and their cost, including the duration and indication of the availability of a free consultation, or come with your standard contract.
I hope this helps others not to be mistaken.