Not sure how you might handle your courses, but for ordinary B&B guests we take cash or French cheques and have only once had a problem. A charming man -well he would be, wouldn't he, if he knew he was about to take you for a ride - passed us a stolen cheque for 2 nights stay and a dinner.
Jan
Again, thanks Finn for sound advice. So how is a small business to accept payment? Is it the case that someone could pay via PayPal for their holiday, come and stay here, and go back and claim back the money???
Thanks Finn, and you're quite right about the language used. For example, he describes himself as "Mr. Thierry Vignon" when a real French person would have used "M" or "Monsieur".
Hi everyone and thanks for all the replies. I Googled him too Kathrin, and found the poor guy in Provence too!
A couple of years ago, we were contacted via Henry's website by someone asking to buy one of Henry's paintings. We agreed a price and added shipping. I gave this person our postal address to send the cheque. Cheque duly arrived, drawn on a client account of a major law firm in London, and of course for much more than the price sought for the painting. Of course we got the email saying an administrative error had occurred, and would we send the refund. Perhaps one or two people might have fallen for this as the cheque looked legit, but at that time, I was Legal Executive in a law firm in Dublin, and knew quite well that client account cheques are only ever used to pay out money on behalf of clients. I rang the firm in London, and they confirmed that the cheque was one of a series of cheques that had been stolen. This did not stop our scammers - they actually rang the house and asked had we sent the refund! Cheeky or what?
Just HAD to do it - I googled the name Thierry Vignon, and there is actually is French man in Provence coming up. Poor guy, his name being used in such a way! Lol
We do not send out the bank details for payment until we have received a firm response to our confirmation that the property is available, what the rent is etc. If and when they reply positively to that, we then send out the rental agreement, containing all the terms and conditions, which also then contains the details of the bank account to which the transfer is to be made.
Even with these details they can do nothing to your bank account without passwords, pins etc.
Hello Shiela and hello to all Gites members. I kmow this problem, I rent an apartment out in Paris for short stay rental or tourist rentals. I have had the same kind of emails and the further you get alomg with the booking process you start to feel something is not quite right. I guess you know its not a true rental when they are not prepared to pay you in advance by paypal.
Helen - there MUST be genuine, honest people in Cote D'Ivore and Nigeria etc. So I'm always prepared to give the ones which don't *immediatly* tick the boxes a chance. As an initial enquiry the only thing I find suspicious about this one is the 00225 number. He hasn't asked to pay by cheque, from someoen else, or any of the other odd things. He hasn't said he doesn't care when he comes, or that he's taking part in some event which really isn't likely to happen in your area, etc...
But yes, googling for some of the less generic text in the mail may reveal more.
Hi Sheila,
Your email definitely looks like a scam and a lot of what I was going to say has already been said but can I add a couple of points:
Yes, a lot of scam emails originate from Cote d'Ivoire, I run chambres d'hotes and I get at least one scam email a month BUT not everything from Cote d'Ivoire is bad - my niece is married to a really nice man from that country!
With chambres d'hotes, more so than with gites, bookings are often NOT Saturday to Saturday . . . and I had a very genuine booking for three weeks, a couple of years ago . . . so not always possible to rule out scams using those guidelines.
As a general rule, I would agree that if it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is, and any of the points already raised by other people such as poor grammar, asking silly questions, flexible dates, etc should alert you to being very wary. Certainly, if they mention paying up front by cheque for an excessive amount, I would delete immediately. And NEVER give out your bank account details!
But if in doubt, and some of these scammers are more pausible than others, I reply with a fairly standard run down of my rooms, my prices and how I would expect a deposit to be paid (cheque from a French bank account or PayPal). If the reply comes back requesting a different payment method (which usually happens if it's a scam) then I simply delete.
Hope this helps! And good luck with your room.
I get at least one of these every week - as they use a different email address every time I don't even bother adding them to the junk mail list any more. The interesting thing about this one is that he has given an Ivory Coast number but a Bamako (Mali) address! Don't reply, as you will then be on a "live" list.
Hi... We run property websites for houses in Brittany & Normandy and we get this kind of thing quite often... I haven't checked on this particular bloke but I'm guessing if you Google him you will find him and it will be because his name has featured in scams. But, even if he's kosher, the way it's written makes it sound dodgy. My initial hunch... Bin it!
We receive these all the time for a guest house in Normandie. It is a scam, we were so advised by the local Société d'Iniative. Don't bother responding.
The international dialing code is for Cote d'Ivoire so it is almost certainly a scam. I once followed one of these enquiries through until they started to ask for bank details and for us to send them money, at which point I dropped it. We get loads of bogus enquiries, some of which are quite imaginative and amusing. One of our favorites and one which we regularly get, is a request for accommodation for 4 newly ordained priests from Greece!! You will soon learn to recognise the scammers and never bother with anything from Cote d'Ivoire.
Hi Sheila and all,
Just saw this and dont have time at the moment to read all of the responses , just off to sort out another mistake Pacifica (Credit Agricole) insurance have made!! GGRRRR! So someone may have pointed this out already, but the prefix 0022 on a phone number indicates that it is an Ivory Coast number. We have quite a lot of these so I did some research. XX
It is a scam, but you have not been targeted specially. Hundred of thousands of these emails are sent out every day.
The definitive guide to these is on http://www.hoax-slayer.com/ with every known scam detailed for your information.
To add a little balance, scamming is endemic, in society, from petty crooks like these, to soap powders which "wash whiter", creams which give "a youthful glow"....etc. Caveat Emptor :-)
Any booking enquiry with a phone number starting 00225 is fraudulent so either reply by telling them to get lost or delete the mail straight away. The mechanism of the scam and the email address are irrelevant. If an enquirer books for longer than a normal holiday, wants to book a honeymoon/room/gite in 'your place' or 'your town' without having researched the names of your gites etc etc from your website its dodgy so don't waste your time on it.
Think about it - when it is so easy for people to advertise non-existent appartments/gites on the net, genuine enquirers do lots of research before they commit to mailing for info. If in doubt cut and paste their text into a search engine and watch the results flood in !!!
You could always look up the IP address - which can be interesting. Try using http://www.ipmarker.com/ip-lookup/index.php.
I look for odd dates (not Saturday to Saturday), anyone who can only pay by "certified" cheque or anyone offering more money than is required. As has been said, questions about the property or area which are covered in the web site also ring alarm bells.
If unsure, reply stating that the accommodation is / is not available but do not give any bank details until you are happy with the enquirer / enquiry.
Have fun!
Also, I'm collecting mail addresses of scammers here: http://immogo.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/latest-scam-spam-addresses/ If your 'client' wants to pay you an advance by money order (Western Union mostly) please let me know and I'll add him.
They often target new properties/gites and B&Bs too. I guess they are hoping you will be too green to spot a fake.
I had one when we first advertised our house claiming to be coming to a large conference. As we live in a remote rural area, right on the coast, and a at least 70kms from the nearest conference venue, their scam was unmasked immediately.
Certainly a scam. I wrote a page about this, intended for house sellers, but this works for gîtes as well: http://www.property-france.fr/en/document-27/Fraud_prevention.html