A timeshare fraudster who swindled millions out of unwitting victims was today challenging an order to pay £2.3 million compensation to his victims.

Lawyers for John ''Goldfinger'' Palmer were expected to claim in the Court of Appeal in London that some of the people he defrauded had already been compensated or were overstating their claims.

Palmer, in his 50s, from Battlefields, Bath, was jailed for eight years at the Old Bailey in May 2001 for conspiracy to defraud.

His estimated 17,000 victims, many of them pensioners, were said to have handed over millions of pounds to buy shares in Tenerife apartments which in may cases did not even exist.

Palmer's appeal against his eight-year jail term was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in November 2002.

But the following year, due to a legal blunder, he succeeded in overturning an order for confiscation of £33 million of his reputed £270 million assets. His victims, who had expected to benefit from the confiscation, were dismayed.

Now, Palmer is claiming that a £2.3 million compensation order, made in addition to the confiscation order, should be reduced by between £600,000 and £800,000.

York pensioner John Davidson and his wife, Vera, paid a deposit of £4,200 in monthly instalments for a timeshare through Palmer, after they were offered £19,500 for their existing one.

However, the original two-week timeshare was never sold, and when they stopped paying the instalments the new apartment was taken away.

Mr Davidson, 79, said: "It is wrong if he gets away with not losing his money. We all lost a lot of money and he just marches away."

Palmer was dubbed ''Goldfinger'' after being acquitted of handling gold from the 1983 Brinks-Mat robbery.