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1

Booking Scam

I want to warn others of a scam that is currently doing the rounds. I'm sure more experienced owners will be aware of it already.

We received an enquiry from an English couple who wanted to rent our French gite. Their initial email address was connected to an Italian school of martial arts, which seemed odd. They wanted to know whether the gite was available for week in March and asked for a quote. Their use of language was a little strange but there were no major red flags at that stage. Although we received the inquiry through our website I'm sure that they found out about our property through one of the two booking portals that we advertise on, booking.com being one of them. I responded to the enquiry and got a reply a few days later. This time the email was from a gmail address and included a home address in the UK and mobile phone number - I'm sure they've used someone else's address and I haven't bothered to try the mobile number. The bulk of the email is pasted below and speaks for itself. I appreciate that most of you won't fall for this but as I received the email yesterday I suspect that others will be receiving something similar so wanted to flag it up. Here it is:

The payment would be made to you by our company business associate
who has promised to pay for our holiday expenses which include the
rental fee and our flight ticket fee and they have informed us that
the payment would be made via a French Bank cheque.

The Bank cheque that you will receive will be in excess because Our
Traveling Allowance which includes our Flight ticket fee will be
included with the rental fee base on trust. As soon as you have
received the Bank cheque you would have it deposited into your account
for clearance, you would deduct the rental fee and I will tell you how
to send our traveling Allowance which includes our flight ticket fee
to my traveling agent After the Bank cheque has been cleared in your
account.

I will appreciate if you can get back to me with the following
information that will be needed by our company business associate to
make the payment out to you so that you can receive the payment as
soon as possible:

Full Name on Bank cheque:
Full address:
City:
Postal Code:
Country :
Telephone Number :

I would be very glad if you can be of a helping hand, I will be
looking forward to reading back from you with the information needed
above.

Thanks


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6
David 5 years ago

Hi this is an old scam usually made by scammers from Africa. It works by you depositing a fake cheque and they ask for the remainder to be transferred to their account immediately before the fake cheque bounces hence you get no funds and end up giving the scammers the difference.