Suspicious phonecall from 001 81 35 79 49 63

Post scam emails to warn other rental owners, or if you are not sure if an enquiry is genuine, put it up here and see what others think.
kdavid
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Suspicious phonecall from 001 81 35 79 49 63

Post by kdavid »

Today I received a suspicious phonecall from the number above (appeared as entering number on my phone). The guy claimed to call from Florida, but had an African accent.

He said he wanted to come into the area in France with some friends in September/ october and was looking for a B&B. As this sounds a lot like the spam mails, I cut it short by saying that exceptionnally I wasn't going to be open during those months this year.

Has anybody had a similar experience?

Regards,
Kdavid
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Casscat
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Post by Casscat »

Sometimes these calls start off like personal enquiries but pretty quickly morph into sales calls for never-heard-of-you listing sites. The suggestion of a new enquiry is just a hook to get your interest and hopefully get you to admit that you have availability. If I received such a call I would simply say "please make the enquiry in writing via the site where you saw the property" and leave it there.
Ecosse
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Post by Ecosse »

As a fellow B&B owner, I would find it difficult to say, 'enquire in writing to the listing site you saw us on' simply because we have many genuine phone enquiries... some of which do sound weird initially (e.g. the American calling from Montreal who refused to speak anything other than bad French to us, despite knowing from the offset that we weren't native speakers, either :roll:) but turn into bookings.

I think, therefore, that you did the right thing - once you got a genuinely bad feeling about the call, you cut it short with a plausible excuse.

Here's hoping he's not doing the rounds...
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Cassis
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Post by Cassis »

It does appear to be a Florida number. But that doesn't mean it's not some sort of scheme.

http://www.check-caller.com/landline-813-579

I probably would have given our website address "so they can check out if we meet their needs" and to enquire through there to avoid misunderstandings.
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