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Scammers are out there


Hibou
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They are still trying! I received an enquiry for a week in February from someone with a Scandinavian sounding name.  Didn't want to open up and start heating running in Feb just for one week, so said no.  They came back and suggested a week in April, so we said yes, can do. Today, they said they wanted to book .  It's the old story again but the the email was full of detail.  A long story about how his employer paid for their family holiday every year, including car hire and everything else ( any jobs going?!). I would get a Certified bank cheque for 4000 euros which I could cash and give them back the residue to book car hire. And by the way, could I arrange car hire for them.

Thank God for this forum or I might have been taken in .

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Yes, Paul.  I think he was the one who asked to buy our car a couple of years ago. His company would put the money in our account and a Maersk container would come to our house, load up the car and take it to Marseille for shipping to Nigeria.(actually it was Ivory Coast but let's not split hairs!)

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[quote user="Hibou"]Yes, Paul.  I think he was the one who asked to buy our car a couple of years ago. His company would put the money in our account and a Maersk container would come to our house, load up the car and take it to Marseille for shipping to Nigeria.(actually it was Ivory Coast but let's not split hairs!)
[/quote]

My uncle gets about [:D]

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I received a message purporting to come from EDF this morning saying that my last bill had not been paid with a clickable link to pay on line. Looking on the French anti scam sites I see that quite a few of these messages have been received over the past few days.

I know that this one may have been mentioned before, but it does no harm to mention it again.

Steve

 

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 I think that internet scams are only going to get worse as people find things getting harder and more expensive, some are clearly desperate to con innocent people and have no guilt about doing it either. Remember that utilities will write, not send e.mails and the same goes with banks and other important bodies.

I feel sorry for you property letters having to contend with possible genuine clients and then getting the dregs of humanity trying to con you, all you can do is be vigilante and try and protect yourself. One thing a friend was finding was that brits were renting her gîte for a family of four and then bringing other people in when the coast was clear, something else to contend with as well.

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[quote user="Val_2"]

 I think that internet scams are only going to get worse as people find things getting harder and more expensive, some are clearly desperate to con innocent people and have no guilt about doing it either. Remember that utilities will write, not send e.mails and the same goes with banks and other important bodies.

I feel sorry for you property letters having to contend with possible genuine clients and then getting the dregs of humanity trying to con you, all you can do is be vigilante and try and protect yourself. One thing a friend was finding was that brits were renting her gîte for a family of four and then bringing other people in when the coast was clear, something else to contend with as well.

[/quote]

It's not only Brits. We saw at least nine french people coming out of the studio next door to ours in Le Barcarés. We didn't know the (french) owner at the time, but were able to warn another (also french) neighbour another year, that there were about 15 staying in his 2 bedroom apartment.

Actually, I called his mobile at about 3 a.m. because his North African tenants were having a fight, and were keeping us awake. He said he had rented it "on the internet", and had no idea who was there [:D]

 

 

 

 

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You should never click on an email link to anything, go via the www of the company concerned, banks paypal etc.

Renting can bring in a good amount if income, but lets not get into location et all. If you are an off site owner or don't live local to your rental, best to have a good manager in place who can keep an eye on your rental and nip things on the bud.

Agree with nomoss, in the main it's the french who try to over occupy in my experience.

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  • 1 year later...
We had an automated telephone call last week, telling us that our consumption had increased and could we ring to arrange increasing our payment.

Having not had our meter read since the summer, I wondered how they would know that we had consumed more. Telephoned the International EDF line they advised that under no circumstances should we return the call to these scammers. Definitely fraudulent. Please everyone be aware.

Suey
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Orange too! Have been getting calls to say my account has not been paid for last month- well I would think not seeing as I ditched orange some years ago and the caller had a terrible french accent as well. Best just to supprimer all emails and say nothing that could incriminate you on the phone too as companies often take a verbal "oui" as a contract.
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They are targeting house sellers too.  Pick up advert from internet, still for sale, if reply (well wouldn't you, it might be genuine!)  back comes the rigmarolle .. happy to buy sight unseen, money stuck in country etc etc, husband dead (in this case!) send all details and will send a bank draft ... loadsamoney available etc etc ....

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  • 5 months later...
I get several emails each day with malicious attachments purporting to be county court judgements, refunds, bills etc., and can spot them easily. This letter, that up to a point is quite specific, would have been more likely to have caught me out, bearing in mind that I often have several outstanding responses to enquiries.

The subject was "Enquiry from Sylvia Derek: Sept 01 to Sept 11"

Hi again,

My apologies for delay in reply.

Thank you. We would like to go ahead with the booking of your property for these dates (which are flexible depending on fligts).

I have attached in the document dates with full info of our party members so you can edit the booking contract properly.

If the dates are booked already please let me know so we can work something out. If something else is needed please advise.

Best regards

Sent from my Blackberry

There was no attachment but two hyperlinks after the text. Presumably to malicious web pages.

Clearly targetting hotels, accommodation providers etc. Be on your guard!

Steve

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  • 3 months later...
I received an email a couple of days ago advising me that my Paypal account had been suspended, with the "usual" links to click to remedy the problem.

A quick login to my Paypal account showed that this was not the case.

Please think about the likelihood of such emails being genuine or even remotely possible before being tempted to click on links they contain!

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