Some friends of mine have just recently bought a mobile home to rent out in the South of France. They've advertised it on the bon coin last night and today they thought they had a booking but it sounded iffy to me.
The gentleman from Ile de Reunion asked for the contract and my friends details concerning the payment of the deposit. He then in a series of emails gave some convoluted explanation of forwarding funds via a banque postale account and then them sending him a cheque and so on. It looked even iffier then and we concluded it is a con.
I just wondered if any of you could share details of any con's scams etc you are aware of when renting out a holiday home/bnb room etc in France.
I said I'd ask so I can give him an idea of what to look out for as I would hate for them to fall foul of some idiot scam.
We get these all the time. Do not reply to any of the African colonies and Caribbean countries.
Most of them want a rental for a month or more or purport to be from some agency wanting b&b for business clients.
A good check is typing their email address into Google … Often get a list which includes “arnaque”. Also use this method to check ‘unknown’ numbers on the phone both here and from the UK.
I have no idea if this is relevant or if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs - but payments by IBAN are common place here (that might be relevant to the forwarding of funds by Banque Postale), which is something we Brits aren't much attuned to and tend to see as rather 'suspect.' Your friends sending him a cheque seems to be a bit iffy though!