French Entree - I was livid, but now I'm ZEN...

[Normandy Cow]

I've just had an email about this website, offering me a year's free advertising in 2007.

I had a look (frenchentree.com) and it looked very promising. I then clicked on properties in Seine Maritime and there were just two - one of which was mine!!!
They seem to have pinched the text from my holiday-rentals ad
frenchentree.com/france-normandy-holiday-accommodation/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=19249

It gets worse...

It then says
Contact : François DECLERCQ
Tel : +33 (0)235830425

I couldn't believe my eyes!!!!! So I phoned the number (in France!) and some woman answered with a brusque "Oui?". When I asked to speak to Mr Declerq, she just said "Il sont pas la". That was it. No, thanks for enquiring, no attempt to speak english. Nothing.

I AM SO ANGRY!!!!!

Anyone have any idea what is going on here????

EDIT: (Removed links as suggested by Brooke in a response further down).
EDI2: See my reponse, number 15 on this thread, for more info...

[Garri]

Interesting site.

Just an idle question, if they're marketing your rental for free then what's the problem?

You should be relieved they haven't featured you in their property for sale section

[enid]

I am SOOOOO ANGRY on your behalf. The problem is that they are not marketing her property for free Garri - if they were it would have her contact details. They have stolen her details to make their site look good

[Mouse]

Catherine I can imagine how livid you feel...what a cheek!

How have they explained themselves?

Now - was it a ploy to get you to say 'oh well - just change the name & tel. no. and be done with it - its free' do you think?

Very naughty tatics IMO

My friend had this happen to him last summer...and that was a paid for site - so we thought a scam might be at work (as a weeks rental was over €4000 - so a nice little earner)

I also remember last summer clicking into OD and finding that a new villa on the site had totally ripped off my text!! Word for word!!
As it was August (the time of the year that when I turn into a rottweiler...with a headache ) I rang him and gave him a piece of my mind, my husbands mind and any other bod I could grab. Then I contacted OD who acting quickly & said they'd boot him off unless he changed said text pronto!

Who's running this site anyway? And one wonders if the other houses are ligit?

Mouse
X

[Garri]

They have stolen her details to make their site look good

With due respect, their site looks good with or without Catherine's details. Better than the usual tosh you see out there.

I reckon it's a genuine error - they got the details mixed up since they've probably added them manually. They wouldn't been able to use a robot to pull the details in automatically since H-R has an extensive list of banned bots.

Have you tried doing a search on their site for your name to see if comes against anyone elses rental by mistake?

Hey, you don't think they're trying to scam you, do you?

[enid]

their site looks good with or without Catherine's details.

Except in her region they only had one other property besides hers. For such an established site I think this is awful - how could this have happened by accident? - she never sent them her details!

[Hells Bells]

Probably couldn't be bothered to do their own.
My photos were stolen for a listing on a French site (IHA?). found them accidentally in a google search. They'd been pinched by the builder of our development . I would have allowed him to use them if he'd actually asked me. He has now replaced them with his own pictures though.

[Garri]

What I mean is, they've made an error entering her details.

I take back what I said about the site being good, it is utter tosh! Too many cr@ppy banner ads and it took me more than 10 clicks to find Catherine's place and guess what? I still couldn't find it!

That said, they do look legit so don't know what their game is.

[Paul Carmel]

Surely if they've copied and pasted it from H-R then the contact details would be correct. To me it seems unlikely just to be a simple mistake. I think you should contact the site urgently and see what they have to say about it.

This could be a scam ie a ficticious owner with a property that does not exist.

[vrooje]

they got the details mixed up since they've probably added them manually.

That is an astonishing amount of faith.

They added the pictures and the description correctly, and only screwed up the contact details? I seriously doubt it -- more likely what Paul and everyone else said -- it's some kind of scam.

CatherineS, can I make a suggestion? If it were me I'd remove the "www" and "http" bits on the links provided -- because giving them a link from LMH is rewarding them for bad behavior.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the robots.txt file isn't web law, is it? I mean, if I were a nasty bot couldn't I just ignore the file and proceed with stealing all the details I wanted?

[paolo]

That contact name and number belong to this house:

http://gourel.club.fr/index.html

The owner of frencentree when I exchanged links a couple of years ago was Guy Hibbert. But I think that each region is run by different people, like a franchise.

I'm surprised they have done this, even if they just got your contact details mixed up, as they seemed a decent outfit.

[Normandy Cow]

I phoned their head office (in the UK) and spoke to someone who did seem genuinely apologetic and concerned that this had happened.

Aparently, the bit of the website where my ad appears is not on the main website (and not in the new holiday home section which they are promoting and contacting home owners with the free offer), it is within the "Normandy" section which is run by someone in Normandy. Looking at the website I get the impression that these regional subsections are some form of franchise????

I am waiting for someone to get back to me with more info. But to be honest, I don't think it is a scam. I suspect it probably is an error - but a very naughty one!!!

I'll try to keep you posted, but we're off to France tomorrow so it might not be until we get back in a week.

In the meantime, I wouldn't be surprised if more LMHers get the email - it's from French Entree Holidays and the subject is "Advertise your French holiday home or gite FREE of charge for 2007!", so keep an eye out. As I said, the website does look quite good as a resource for France. The guy at the head office said it was the leading website for France, but I have to say, I've never heard of it! Time will tell...

[la vache!]

I've just phoned the the number on the ad and this is their gite

http://gourel.club.fr/index.html

I'm sure it is something F-E have mixed up themselves, not the owners. Their new web address is this

http://www.gite-en-normandie.com

Isn't that similar to yours? Not being funny, but their place looks pretty impressive too, so I don't know why they would want to use your details!

M Declerq will be home at 17h if you want to speak to him.

I only ever had one booking from F-E Brittany, it was the 40th birthday party last year

[paolo]

One weird explanation would be that the Declercqs submitted the ad to increase their bookings, thinking that renters would not really notice the difference when they turned up at a completely different house.

[Garri]

Brooke, well they haven't used a bot 'cos the contact details would correct. So it must have been added manually. Unless there's another explanation.

Keeping the http in the link will mean this shows up on their radar and would be interesting to see their response.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the robots.txt file isn't web law, is it? I mean, if I were a nasty bot couldn't I just ignore the file and proceed with stealing all the details I wanted?

Yes, in theory you could but as far as I know it's connected to the htaccess file, when it sees known bots it disallows them access, thus:

http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/robots.txt

Mind you, they haven't updated for a few years now so it's possible a new strain has gotten through.