Woke up this morning to the following 'enquiry' through Clickstay/Villarenters:
Hello
my name is mariam, I would love to share a very important proposal to You
will you be interested , please contact me on
mariam4debbie at hot mail . com
for more information
thanks and remain bless
mariam
It would be nice to receive a real enquiry for a change from CS...
Casscat wrote:An important proposal? An offer of marriage!
It always amazes me, Casscat that these people go to so much trouble to harvest all our email addresses yet write in the most stilted English possible.
AngloDutch wrote:... yet write in the most stilted English possible.
I was going to suggest that these people who send this muck probably did not know it was poor English, but then I realised that actually those who fall for the scams are the people who do not know any better, and they need help.
I think 'new to this' advertisers do need help, and this should come from the rental sites. Would it be so hard for OD, HA and the like to send a series of welcome emails to new advertisers covering subjects which will enhance their experience as a holiday home owner, including how to recognise a scam email? The rental sites pass the buck by saying that there are articles on their web sites about this, but they do not actually point people in the right direction. This is such an important aspect of being a novice owner, and it's actually very easy to be caught up in the moment and not spot the bleedin' obvious.
Casscat wrote:I think 'new to this' advertisers do need help, and this should come from the rental sites. Would it be so hard for OD, HA and the like to send a series of welcome emails to new advertisers covering subjects which will enhance their experience as a holiday home owner, including how to recognise a scam email? The rental sites pass the buck by saying that there are articles on their web sites about this, but they do not actually point people in the right direction. This is such an important aspect of being a novice owner, and it's actually very easy to be caught up in the moment and not spot the bleedin' obvious.
+1 from me - I remember all too well when we were setting out our first ever contact was a scam attempt but we were pretty green then we tried hard to see how we could arrange some of the odd things the enquirer was asking for. It eventually dawned that this was could not be real. Soon afterwards we discovered LMH and of course were then quickly awakened to the wonderful world of the scammers
I don't profess to own anything here apart from my own opinion.
Joddle this is why I have no qualms about quoting the name the scammer posts with, and the email address they attempt to direct you towards, as many people find LMH via a Google search when they have that uneasy feeling that something about their enquiry may not be legit. If the listing sites won't help then maybe we can