Almeria university students swindled out of 14,000 euros for trip to Malta the travel agent never booked

The ruling also requires him to pay compensation of exactly 14,000 euros as well as legal costs.

Furthermore, the company Viajes University S.L. has been held subsidiarily liable for a maximum amount of 4,000 euros.

The court has decided to suspend the prison sentence for a period of three years on the condition that the defendant "does not reoffend" during that time. He also has to pay a ten-month fine at three euros per day, that is, 900 euros in total.

The events date back to before May 2019, when several fourth-year Physiotherapy students from Almeria contacted the defendant via WhatsApp to ask him to organise their end-of-year trip to Malta, which was due to take place between 27 May and 3 June 2019.

After sending them an information leaflet, he informed them that they had to fill in some contracts, which he sent via the same app, and pay him a total of 544 euros for the "platinum package", which included "all-inclusive" accommodation and return tickets.

A total of 26 students complied with the requirements. They signed the contracts and transferred the sum of 544 euros (21 of them) and 659 euros (five of them) to the bank accounts the agency's manager had provided. In total, he received 14,719 euros.

Although the defendant had promised the students that he would book the flights and hotels, with just one week to go before their holiday they had still not heard anything from him and only had the PDF documents he had sent them via WhatsApp showing the outgoing flight bookings.

The graduates contacted the hotels where they were supposed to be staying and found that the defendant had not made any booking arrangements. He stopped answering their calls. When they tried to reach him at the agency, they discovered that he had permanently closed the premises.

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