Seventh Farm

[Casscat]

I'm feeling a bit paranoid after my Airbnb cloning experience (see post in Members section) so I had a potter around the internet to see where else my property might surface. Mostly the links were in the expected places, and in a couple of instances on the sort of search engines designed to look like rental sites but which are actually trawlers and direct you to a legitimate page when you click on a property. However one site is perplexing. My place turns up on seventhfarm dot com, a US site claiming to be based in New York. It is not a secure site, plus they have sited my property in Marbella which it clearly isn't. All my photos are there plus the narrative from my own web site or OD (both are pretty similar). They claim to require a €1,500 security deposit whereas I have never taken a security deposit. Looks fishy, so I have sent a booking enquiry and await a response. You might want to check for your own property on there and if anyone has come across this outfit before it will be interesting to hear your experiences.

[Casscat]

Very odd. When you go to seventhfarm dot com it is a riding stables, but the link to my property starts seventhfarm dot com/rotation/rental and that takes you to the property rental site. Has Seventh Farm's own legitimate web site been hijacked??

[RichardHenshall]

Puzzling! You should be flattered that they think your place is worth €1,500 per night!

[Casscat]

Richard I think they pulled that rate from OD/HA. My place is no longer on the rentals market but instead of deleting I switched my listing to commission and blocked out the entire calendar in order to have the option to reverse my decision and keep my great reviews on stream. I was required to quote a rate so I put a crazy one in there to avoid the risk of generating any enquiries!

[bornintheuk]

Weird hack really as I cannot see how anyone would find the site.
Anyway if my memory of old US TV series is correct the area code 555 as their contact does not exist unless your Perry mason on the trail !

[AndrewH]

Casscat, this looks suspiciously like one of those rogue sites, which looks very professional, but all they do is clone a number of the most expensive properties they can find on other websites and put it on theirs. At €1500 a night, yours is a winner in their eyes! People book and they take the money in some weird bank account and run. The site itself is likely to disappear inside 3 months before the scammers get caught.

What is the site called? You can't tell, because the logo has been deliberately blurred. But it doesn't say "Seventhfarm"

It doesn't give a name for your finca, and maybe you named it on OD/HA , sometimes these scammers rename the villa they are putting up there.

They put a telephone number and a New York address, but both of these can be "arranged".

Another giveaway is under the heading "RECENT NEWS" in the footer. Every topic there has the same wording starting: We went down the lane, by the body of the man in black, sodden now from the overnight hail... Yes, I know that this is what programmers will put in to fill a space with text, but you don't leave it there when your site goes live. Particularly so when they have claimed copyright in the site since 2012 (so they say!).

Would be interested to hear how your "booking" progresses.

[RichardHenshall]

... They put a telephone number and a New York address, but both of these can be "arranged". ...

The address is that of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.

[Casscat]

No response to the booking request. I wonder if the real Seventh Farm know their site has been compromised. Very, very odd.

[Giraffe]

Stayed at the Waldorf for a week in 2004. Quite an experience!

Not an hotel any more - it's been sold for conversion into flats.

[AndrewH]

... They put a telephone number and a New York address, but both of these can be "arranged". ...

The address is that of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.

Now a block of flats! But the final giveaway that these are criminal scammers is their contact email. The extension ".tld" does not exist!

[sallyandalan]

It's possible that they are just using this site to practice or showcase their webpage development skills. They shouldn't be using images of real apartments though without permission.

[AndrewH]

It's possible that they are just using this site to practice or showcase their webpage development skills. They shouldn't be using images of real apartments though without permission.

I think it is more their scamming skills they are practising.