Warning: new Rental scam in France

[shenandoah]

Hello everybody! Am new here but know this phantastic website since its beginnings... Thanks to Paolo for his wonderful work!
Please excuse my English - it is far from being perfect, but over the years I lost a lot of vocabulary which is now coming back step by step, as we are renting a villa in Southern France and get more and more English-speaking people.

Well, a few days ago I got an English written message from a Yahoo email address in Italy, here it is:
*******************

planet-habitat.com
Toutes les annonces de locations en France.
...à la mer, à la montagne,...en studio, appartement, ...

Bonjour Mme/Mr MIE,
Vous publiez l'annonce n° AN361874 sur www.planet-habitat.com

Un message vous a été envoyé concernant votre annonce (voir détail ci-dessous).
Nom janet
Email janet_williamsfamily@yahoo.it
Telephone 44703
Nombre ..personnes.
Message
Hello Mr /Mrs , My Name Is janet so my client want to rent your Villa Cottage HouseAptmentFor 4 Months Rent So i want you to give all the Information About the House so that my client can have the Detail about the Houes Before she ArriveOk. God Bless janet & Williams

Il vous suffit de faire 'Répondre' sur ce mail, pour renvoyer votre message à la personne interessée.

COMMENT : At this time, I did not know anything about rental scams… and treatet this request like all others I get.


-----Message d'origine-----
De : Gabriele Mie [mailto:lou_cigaloun@club-internet.fr]
Envoyé : vendredi 16 septembre 2005 10:22
À : janet_williamsfamily@yahoo.it
Objet : Villa Lou Cigaloun, Salon de Provence - Your information request via planet-habitat.com
Importance : Haute

Hello !
We thank you for the interest in our holiday property Villa Lou Cigaloun which has been recently classified by the Prefecture of the department "Bouches du Rhône" with 3 stars (which means "very comfortable holiday property") and with 3 "keys" by Clévacances .

We are pleased to confirm that our holiday property is available for renting monthly from October 2005 until the end of March 2006.

The monthly rate should be about 1.600€ + électricity. No other extra charge, besides wood for the fire place in the house if needed (electrical heat).

Security deposit: 2000€ which will be given back at the end of the rental period, if no damage is registered.

The villa is fully equipped with everything people need (our guests always appreciate the complete equipment of the kitchen, there is nothing missing).

The access to the property is also securised by a big electric door (digicode). Intrusion is not possible. Parking places available for several cars. I am always available for our clients, if ever they need help.

I invite you and your client to visit our website where you can get many more informations, as well as a lot of photos.

If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me.

As we get the first requests for renting in November and for Xmas, please be aware that we will give you an option of 1 week to be able to reply and tell us if yes or no your client is ok for renting. By the 24th of September I will dispose again of the villa for renting it to requesting clients.

We invite you to visit our personal website for more information and more photos. You will learn there more about the property itself, the town, the region, Provence, festivals, markets, and so on, and not least: about ourselves): http://www.lou-cigaloun.com

Please feel free to contact me for any more information you would like to obtain!

Hope to hear from you soon,

Take care,

Best regards,

Gabriele Mie

COMMENT : I did not really think about that the person accepts my offer, but was – bien sûr – waiting for an answer which I got rapidly.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : janet William [mailto:janet_williamsfamily@yahoo.it]
Envoyé : vendredi 16 septembre 2005 16:26
À : Gabriele Mie
Objet : More Information Needed ::::::

Good Day Gabriele & Jean-Pierre Mie,
Am very glad to have your mail,well regarding all that you said concering the aprt my client that needed the aprt said that she will like to start the rent from 20 jan 2006 and as well she is willing to rents the aprt for 4 Month rents so i dont know if you will lether rents the aprt from that 20 jan 2006 until ,well i will be willingto have your mail over all that and as well she said thatshe will like to have the full amount that the rents from 20 jan 2006 will cost so that she wll be able to send the payment of the rents i hope that you do understand what am trying tosay you can as well send the pics of the aprt and as well if you dont have the pics you can just give me some info about the aprt so that she will be able to know and have some ideal about what she will be paying for okay.And the number of people that will be staying in the aprt is 1 mother and son .he said that she will like to make uses of bike i mean fitenes bike in the aprt i hopethat it will be allowed inthe aprt as well so.Looking forward to hear from you with the cost of 4 Month Rental Detail.
God Bless
Thanks Alot
Janet & Williams Family

COMMENT : Hm… This looks a bit strange now , as « Janet » should have been made the calculation herselve, unless she is not able to do calculations??? And then the always talks about an “apartment�, although this is a villa. She asks for pictures, although I invited her to check out my website where she could find many pictures and information, and at least, she talks about that “son� of the client who said that “she will make use of a fitness bike in the apartment if allowed� although there are 8 mountain bikes at free disposal…
Very strange…
Well, I decide to reply normally, but to square up…



-----Message d'origine-----
De : Gabriele Mie [mailto:lou_cigaloun@club-internet.fr]
Envoyé : vendredi 16 septembre 2005 18:39
À : janet William
Objet : RE: More Information Needed ::::::
Importance : Haute

Hello Janet,

Glad to hear from you!

We just verified the availability from 20th january to 20th may 2006 and my husband and I are OK to rent it until this date to your customer (normally we rent the house monthly only until the end of march...).

We precise that there are some mountain bikes at her disposal. If ever they would like to bring their home-trainer, there is no problem for that.

If I understood right, you would like to know the total amount for these 4 months renting in order to send the full payment in one time in advance (?).

In clear, the cost will be as follows:

6.400€ for the 4 months (4 x 1600€ )

+ 2000€ security deposit which will be restored on leaving by the 20th of may.

I join some photos of the villa and hope that your customer is approving this offer.

I hope that you understand my email and invite you to contact me if ever you feel that you have some questions! Don't hesitate if ever something appears not clear enough.

Hoping to hear from you soon,

Take care,
Best regards,
Gabriele Mie 

COMMENT : I begin to wonder seriously, as all that seems not clear to me. Something tells me that there is a problem…

-----Message d'origine-----
De : janet William [mailto:janet_williamsfamily@yahoo.it]
Envoyé : samedi 17 septembre 2005 12:40
À : Gabriele Mie
Objet : Name And Addresss Needed ....::::::::

Good to hear from you soon with the Cost of 4 Month rent Ok so i'm tell you that i have Messagemy client about the mail you sent me and my client said No problem about the Cost of 4 Month rent so i want you to Give the Information below so that my client can send the Payment of the rent too you ,

Mrs Houstine will arrvies tn the Aprtment House on the 20 jan 2006 , by 10:00pm , Well in respect to the Cont ract i mean the Rentel form i will provides you some info about me and my family Member My Client and age stated below.
Mrs Houstine Roses : : 36
Address: 7700 Willowfield Drive Richmond, BC V7C 4S7 Canada .
For me to be able to send you the payment i will needed to have some info in the manner below
Name that will be on the payment Bank Draft or Cheque.
Address:
City:
Zip Code :
State :
Country :
Contact Number:
And Please bear this in mind that you might wanted to contact the person selling the Bike here is the contact Email form him john_bikeseller@fastermail.com i was ab le to see the items and i love the properties much they looks nice,so much i just Pray that a problem that will be more than one can handle that God should keep them away from ones way,I will be willing and hoping to have
your mail with the info asked for so that we can round up the whole of the rentel proceedure.
Thank Alot..
God Bless

COMMENT : Hm, hm,… now, it makes ding ding ding in my head.
The content of this, for the moment last mail from “Janet�, very strange now. Her English is even worse than mine (;-), she is implicating family, puts in an address of a woman in Canada (although the mail came from Italy…), she does not claim a rental agreement at all but proposes to pay the whole amount very quickly without having seen the villa or asked for more details about location (I thought that the renter will be someone working for 4 months in one of the big companies around – technician or similar), and talks then about somebody who is “selling the bike� – and this last point made me really wonder now about the serious of this rental request. As the email provider “fastermail.com� was looking strange to me, I type this in google and find some articles about rental scam and how they proceed, and find out that “fastermail.com� is a provider which is often used by scammers.

Well, if right from the beginning I had a strange feeling with that affair, I discovered now that my strange feeling was right.

======================================

I also found out the following website, very instructive:
http://www.binary.co.uk/chequescam/

Well, what to say?
Please be aware of such emails!!! And let your first intuition talk- I guess that the first intuition is always the best one! [/b]


==================================
WE NEVER WILL HAVE TIME NOR MONEY TO TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD AND MEET ALL CULTURES - SO WE BRING THE WORLD TO US: http://www.lou-cigaloun.com

[Alan Knighting]

I have had a number of enquiries very similar to yours. They all have a basic style about them. They are all in the same poor English. They often start with "Hi, how are you?". They're sprinkled with "OK". They talk about villas as appartments. They want bikes. They want information they already have. They can't count.

I ignore those which are obviously scams but, if there is any thought in my mind that they could be real I do respond. However, I always point out that I can only accept payment in cash, Euros or £'s Stirling, and I have never had a follow up. I feel sure a real enquirer who ask "why not accept a cheque".

I may have lost one or two bookings doing this although I doubt it but I would rather be safe than sorry.

Alan

[paolo]

Welcome to the forum, Shenandoah.

I think your English is wonderful!

[shenandoah]

I can't believe it! They still go on, although I claimed cash payment only! It is just incredible. Today I just replied "forget it and don't bother me again!"
Well, if I knew right on the first request that it is scam, I probably won't have got any further mail.
I will try to do it better next time

[7 driver]

I too have had a number of these. The danger is you can get lured into them as they ask for 4 weeks or more out of season which is very tempting. I even have a nice forged cheque for €4,500 which was supposedly from a South African, but the cheque was drawn on an Irish Bank and was posted in Wales.

The way I check is to view the full headers of the email (normally under options) which gives me the IP address. Once I have this I use a site called Sam Spade - www.SamSpade.org and enter in the IP address. Quite often you will find that Mr. X from Canada is registered at an IP address in a different country. After I forward the email (still with full headers) to abuse@ (email provider) and ask them their account to be suspended.

This week I am receiving 13 emails a day (one for each of my properties) from Mr Piet Anthoney who is supposedly from New York - IP address tells me Yorkshire. I have just reported him as abuse so maybe he will be stopped soon.

On the positive side, at least we are only losing time, answering these people. I know of people who have gone out of business.

The way they work is to send a cheque much greater than the amount due. They then say that their secretary/client has made a mistake so please bank the cheque and forward a cheque for the balance by DHL. Normally the cheque is a forged bank cheque, which initially shows as cleared in your bank, then of course you forward the balance only to find that the bank rejects the cheque several days later, and charges you for presenting the forgery. If you are selling a product, you end up normally losing the product, the money that you have sent back, and end up with costs from your bank for presenting the forged cheque, and possibly for going into the red.

My way around it is to only accept payments through Paypal, unless the person is known to me.

The forged cheque is framed on my wall - I am starting a collection. It was the aluminium foil patch made to look like a hologram that gave it away for me!

Hope this helps.

[mpprh]

Hi

And this might be an idea : http://fightback.netfirms.com

Peter

[Alan Knighting]

Shenandoah,

I have just been reminded of your posting of the 18th September.

In May I got an enquiry from your "friend" Janet on behalf of a Mrs Houstine Roses which I treated as a scam and ignored. That enquiry came through the Vacation France Website.

On the 22nd September I got an enquiry through the French Connections Website from someone called Sandrine Meyer, signing herself as melle Meyer. The text added to the enquiry said:-

"I write to you to know if you had taken any action on the request which you had received from Mrs Houstine Roses, which I saw on another site."

We all know, don't we, that enquiries made through Rental Websites are totally confidential and are only ever seen by the sender and the receiver.

In my opinion Janet, Mrs Houstine Roses and Sandrine Meyer are one and the same person and that person is obviously a totally blatent and incredibly stupid scammer. I don't believe anyone could possibly fall for what she is doing.

For the record, Janet gave her e-mail address as Ncvacationrental1000 at yahoo.fr and Sandrine Meyer gave her e-mail address as leacolmar at yahoo.fr.

Alan