Running a Gite in Brittany

Gite booking scams

Most of our gite bookings come via the website and email. Sometimes however the bookings are scams. The most recent example is this email from someone wanting to book a gite.

Tenant name: Marco G Antonio
Phone: 01
Total Number of persons (incl. children): 1
Number of children:
Date of arrival: 1-05-2007
Date of departure: 31-05-2007

Hello,
In response to your advert on your apartment for rent. My company
is sending me to France on an official assignment in May 2007 and
I am being posted to your area. I will like to rent your apartment
for the period of (1 Month) that I will be staying in France.
Pls do give me the following  information.
  1. A brief description of the apartment
  2. Cost for 1 Month rental.
  3. The address of the apartment
I will be waiting for your response. Hope to hear from you in earnest......
My Regards....

Experience tells me this is a scam. Some are really obvious, with terrible spelling and grammar, references to third parties, or just a bad feel about it.

The way the scam works is once you get into correspondence the client offers to pay you too much to 'cover expenses', 'organise a hire car', 'modelling agency fees' or some such. You are asked to then use the amount overpaid to pay the 'third party'. Of course you wait until the cheque they send you clears, the money is in the bank account, no problem. The instructions for payment to the third party usually involve a Western Union wire transfer. The transfer of money from you account is immediate. Four weeks later the bank informs you that the deposited cheque is fake, and removes the money from the account. A variation of the classic Nigerian 419 scam.

A couple of examples below with the follow up emails to show how it pans out.

Hello,
I am Ron Crawford.  A one of Suffolk Sheep Association based in Huddersfield.
I have a two clients from Asia that would be able to lodge into your hotel apartment for 7 days.
Please let me know the amount for one star with 1 bedroom only.  I would be responsible to make
the payment also let me know if you will accept a Cheque Issueing from a United Kingdom Bank
or Europe Bank for payment.
Awaiting to your quick response.
Thanks and god bless,
Mr Ron Crawford.

And the follow-up once they have got you interested.

Hi,
Accepted, But we got a called from our clients said that the booking should be for two person for
that same period and which is two room seperately. and I want you to be expecting the cheque payment
as from next week because i have instructed my financee to issue you the cheque of amount 3450 EUROS
on their behalf. As soon as the cheque arrives you will hold out your amount which is £800 and send
the excess balance of the money to my clients that they would need for tickets to fly to the france
for the business trip and the money should be send via Money Gram or Western Union. In other to come
over to your place, i hope i can trust you for my balance?
Waiting to hear from you soon
Regards,
Ron.

And another example...

I am Mr Jeffer Mindo of Brighthall(coral) Agency,London .I need to book
reservation for a christian organisation from London coming for a
Christian summit on the 10th of DEC to the 20th of DEC. Get back to me if
the dates mentioned above are free,so that we can book reservations
immediately.Thank you and have a nice day.

Kind Regards,
Jeffer Mindo 

Thanks for your reply and assistance so far .I am glad to tell you
that we have concluded payment with the delegates.

However, we are going to send you the Credit Card Information first
thing tomorrow morning that will cover the cost of your accommodation,
and the necessary arrangement for the delegates.

Moreover, we also made an arrangement with a pre paid car-hiring
firm who will supply the delegates with cars they will use during their
stay, but because of security reasons and confidentiality, we have decided that
only one person will have to handle the credit card information.

So once you are in receipt of it, you are required to charge the
credit card, confirm the amount of (6,000 EURO), in your account then deduct the cost
of your services 3,050 EURO and send 2,950 EURO via Money Gram Transfer, to the car hiring
agent whose information will be forwarded to you once this is confirmed.

So confirm this and provide me with your (1) YOUR FULL NAME (2)
ADDRESS (3) PHONE NUMBERS for office records.

Please remember that the integrity of our agency is involved, so
this business requires prompt response. I also hope the stay of the
delegates will be made comfortable.

Kind Regards,
Jeffer Mindo 

|   1:45:43 PM   Gite booking scams