In a faxed response to this newspaper, Prestige Holidays said they are even seeking legal advice over a criminal complaint against CTM which has now disappeared. ``Prestige Holidays is as alarmed and dismayed at CTM's disappearance as are its customers,'' it said.

CTM, promoted by some Guacetta brothers, sold 1943 weeks of Prestige Holidays to gullible investors on instalment basis with many customers paying as high as Rs 100,000. After collecting all the instalments, CTM representatives stopped contacting customers since last month. On telephoning CTM offices, customers were told that CTM is no longer operating from there.

Onvisiting the CTM office, customers encountered a notice stating they should contact Prestige Holiday Resorts at Khar, Mumbai. Subsequently, customers contacted Prestige Holiday Resorts, but the latter said they had terminated CTM's contract way back in May 1998 and CTM has not deposited anything to Prestige which they had been collecting all these months.

Prestige Holidays clarified that CTM is an entirely independent company over which they had no managerial or proprietary interest. ``Immediately, we became aware of the company's closure we have taken possession of a significant number of client files. We propose to write to CTM customers in the coming days with a proposal which reflects our concern,'' Thomas Bothelho, Director of Prestige Holidays said.

One of the CTM customers, Prachi Satoskar said Prestige Holidays has not replied to their queries despite being a signatory to legal document signed amongst the customer, CTM and Prestige. Prestige Holidays, on the other hand, says they had terminatedtheir contract with CTM on May 1998 as published in a newspaper insertion.

Promoters of CTM, Herman and Rommel Guacetta contacted Prestige Holidays on a recommendation from RCI, the international timeshare exchange company. The Guacetta brothers even developed three of their own resorts in Gran Canaria Spain, Prestige said. CTM bought timeshare weeks from the Prestige Holidays and sold it to its customers. But the company even after terminating its contract with Prestige continued to take money from its customers and suddenly vanished into thin air.

Customers told this newspaper that the attitude of Prestige Holiday Resorts officials was unhelpful and were not willing to provide them with the list of affected members so that they can organise themselves and file a criminal complaint. When contacted, the economic offences wing of Mumbai police said they are awaiting a formal complaint from any customer to begin investigations. ``We will certainly look into it and book the culprits,'' said an official.