Has anyone had someone called Gerard Petiteau trying to book b&b or Gite. His email seems highly suspicious.
Not that name, but we do get quite a few likely scams that we ignore totally. Iâve pasted one in below for you to see. They are usually for several weeks, thereâs usually some sort of story to show they are âgenuineâ, they are usually written in a very over the top flowery language, and often show that itâs obvious they havenât looked at the gĂźte detail (eg sayimg they are 7 people when we only accept 6). And they never come from a well known email address, like orange or btinternet.
En vue dâorganiser des vacances avec ma femme, je serais dĂ©sireux en tant que Ă©tranger Français dans votre rĂ©gion de pouvoir bĂ©nĂ©ficier de la location de votre Bien. Elle doit se tenir le 10 Octobre AU 31 Octobre soit 4 semaines de sĂ©jour.
En ce qui concerne la réservation, je souhaiterai le ferai par virement bancaire ce qui semblerait un moyen de rÚglement sécurisé et suivi, est-ce possible ??
Je vous serais obligé de me faire savoir si vous pouvez répondre favorablement à ma demande, en me précisant les clauses concernant cette location.
Je me tiens à votre disposition pour tous renseignements complémentaires qui vous seraient utiles.
En espĂ©rant que vous pourrez rĂ©pondre favorablement Ă notre demande, je vous prie dâagrĂ©er, Monsieur, lâexpression de mes respectueuses salutations.
Thanks Jane,
I think it is a scam as he said he had seen our ad, which we donât have; he did not message from our website; he did not know the property name or which accommodation he wanted. The language is OTT and the address he gave is a hotel and the tel no is a fax no to another hotel. I will not communicate with him anymore. So disappointed as we thought we had a 3 week booking! Lots to learn.
Câest avec plaisir que je vous confirme par la prĂ©sente notre rĂ©servation du 06 Avril au 27 Avril 2019.
Le solde sera rĂ©glĂ© par la suite et par virement bancaire comme nous lâavions convenu.
ConformĂ©ment Ă notre Ă©change, je vous prie de me faire parvenir par mail, un contrat et un RIB afin dâofficialiser la rĂ©servation.
Veuillez agrĂ©er, Monsieur/Madame, lâexpression de mes sincĂšres salutations.
Respectueusement.
Information pour Ă©tablir le contrat:
Monsieur PETITEAU Gerard.
6-8 Wellington Quay D2 Dublin Irlande
+353 1 676 5424
We wouldnât have replied to that oneâŠa bit of a giveaway is the language about wanting to pay by a virement and wanting a RIB. Normally people donât ask this first off, and itâs us who tells them the different ways of paying when we send the contract. Itâs unusual to volunteer that you want to pay by virement. I donât quite understand how it works but apparently thereâs some sort of scam where people send more money than required and then ask you to vire back the excess. Meanwhile theyâve clawed back the full original amount.
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Thanks Jane. I shall be more alert to these in the future
The address is for the Conrad Hotel in Dublin and the number is a fax number.
@tim17 Do you also think itâs a scam?
The address could be that he knows someone who works there perhaps? Still think itâs a scam, and personally happy to loose a booking than get tied up in something unpleasant.
Absolute scam.
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Definitely a scam, we seem to get a fair few like that.
Like us a booking out of season.
I am sure that they think that people will be less vigilant.
We always advise our rental clients to have a defined ârental seasonâ and to stick to it no matter how tempting an âextraâ booking seems at the time.
Iâm not a gite owner but as an IT geek something just started itching and I may need to scratch it; is there no sort of centralized service where you can run these kinds of emails through and it will come back with either details or other info to help judge whether or not itâs a scam (or, maybe not that explicit, perhaps something just informing you that somethingâs not entirely on the straight and narrow).
Seems like it may be a fun thing to haveâŠ
Donât quite see how that would work? People can change names and email addresses as often as they like and if they havenât actually committed a scam then you canât really show them up can you? Maybe a section on gĂźte owners fora like laymyhatâŠ
I reckon after a few years you develop a nose for people trying it on.
There are also general sites to check for scams, like this one
More a thing that when given the details (name, email, possible phone number) does a reverse search on various places (google, etc.) to see if what they say actually matches the real world. In your example above the address was for a hotel and the phone number belonged to a different hotelsâ fax line - which, obviously, would be a big red flag.
But, you do have a point with the tools already being there - and the noses, also 
We have not heard back from Donovan Bennett after we told him we were not accepting his booking.
It was money laundering.
Good griefâŠ
Good grief indeed! And just for 125âŹâŠ a bit sickening. Mind you the final line from AirBnB is also a bit jaw dropping - itâs hardly an impressive response to remove the listing
âAirbnb has previously said it was âdeeply saddened and outragedâ by the case, and that it had removed the listing from its site.â
Do you Gßte Owners⊠ever have trouble getting paid⊠??? 
Never in 6 yearsâŠthe worst that has happened is someone who rounded down the bill and knocked off 40 centimes. (Shouldnât speak too soon obviously with new season just underway)
Payment for the holiday shouldnât be an issue, payment for any damage can be a different problem though. One of our former clients had to replace a pool liner (3000 Euros) after it got ripped by a guest, the security deposit was 300E, in theory every renter should have insurance covering such damage but no one does and the owner has to cough up every time.