Fraud:- anyone else had this one?

[Caroline]

We got this enquiry last night in both Italian & then below in this English & had just finished replying, in Italian too, when the second email below came in!

"Hello,
we are an italian family composed by 2 adults and 2 children (7 and 8 years old).
We are plannig our holiday in the south of France.
We will stay in your neighbourhood for 2 or 3 nights.
May you please give us your disponibility of lodgings in August, preferably in the first half?
May you give us the prices too?

Thank you in advance
best regards
Chiara Giacomazzi"

So then we got this!

Cette alerte est générée par le système anti-fraude de France-Voyage.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
La personne qui vous a envoyé un message pour votre annonce sous le
nom de chiara giacomazzi (chiarajaco@libero.it) a été identifiée comme
ayant un comportement suspect sur France-Voyage.com.

Il vous est recommandé d'user de prudence et de demander des garanties
si vous décidez d'effectuer une transaction avec cette personne. Le service
fourni par France-Voyage.com se limite à la publication d'annonces et toute
transaction proprement dite se fait directement entre le propriétaire et
l'intéressé.


Anyone else had this family try to book? I think we have decided we are full during this period if they get back to us. We had one bounced cheque last summer, from a French couple the tourist office sent on to us! It took 2 months to get that sorted out!

This enquiry looks far more normal & genuine than the usual hoax emails that I assume come from west Africa & always want to pay you in advance by credit card & get you to give them some cash back which is why I didn't stop to consider it as anything other than cosha, but maybe the bit about 'your neighbourhood' should have warned me!