Lay My Hat

We have just received this email below (received straight to our email address and not via any site system). Has anyone else received something similar recently?:

Hello, I just seen your advert. Do you have available last week from June or July? I will wait your email in order to proceed with the reservation.Phone Number? Thanks Katherine

The email address seems to fit with our idea of a scam:

katherine.fernandez212@hotmail.com

I have decided to answer and have given our office number which is run through a call blocker. If someone calls and it turns out to be a scam or Indian-based website for example, then we can just block the call.

We once received a very simple email like this and it turned out to be genuine. But these kind of emails make us nervous - are they harvesting phone numbers? Because of course you can do that by clicking on the drop down on many listing sites (they know we have a holiday home).

Well, we'll see what kind of reaction we get from 'Katherine' (if any!)

Yep, got exactly the same this morning.
Bit primitive at the moment, hope it gets better

Me too!!! Received this afternoon and was also immediately suspicious as it was direct to our email address, which is not on any of our ads.

Katherine does seem very flexible as she is interested in The Netherlands, France and Spain for her holidays!!

I did reply asking where she saw our advert 'as it’s always helpful to know', and asking her to send her full contact details if she'd like to book. Oops, I conveniently forgot to give her my telephone number.....

I will eat my (Lay My) Hat if she replies!

Thanks for confirming our suspicions. So, another scammer - will see what kind of phone calls we get now!

'Katherine' has now answered:

Hi,

I am happy to advise that we successfully decided to book your property.
Please see in the attached reservation request the dates,copy of passport,names and phone numbers of our family members so you can edit the booking confirmation properly.
If the dates are booked already please let me know so we can work something out. If something else is needed please advise.

Regards
Katherine

Sent from my iPhone


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Download

There was no separate attachment and Outlook has blocked the picture downloads. It looks like the virus or whatever is embedded at the bottom of the email under 'view download'.