water rat Posted September 21, 2007 Share Posted September 21, 2007 Bonjour all, I've been a voyeur for a while ,but felt I had to reveal meself after receiving a dodgy booking enquiry from "Mr Alain Perrin" and paying by bank transfer.The date is laughable ....10th Oct to 30th Dec !! Nobody in their right minds takes a "vacances" round these parts ( dept 36 ) when it's likely to plunge to 10 below!It's a french address but originates from the UKThought those of you who are tempted should be warnedLuv Water rat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Posted September 21, 2007 Share Posted September 21, 2007 I have had a couple of these this last week, they look french, look genuine ish, again for three months, and the same payment method and when I put address into Auto route, its the good old Ivory coast again!!! When will they learn that we are getting wise to their scams???? Wouldn't touch 'em with a ten foot pole!!!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wendy Posted September 22, 2007 Share Posted September 22, 2007 We have just got this one too. We are suspicious of any booking that runs to longer than 2 weeks in this region especially those with Yahoo addresses that wish to pay by cheque. The grammar is always the giveaway and your reply always bounces.We get alot of bookings this time of year from South Africans and Chinese; they all book the cheapest room we have for a period of at least 10 days then don't turn up. We found out they are booking us so that they can get Shengen visa's into France/Europe, they show their booking email to the Embassy. This year we outsmarted them. We have just received a 19 day booking from a South African female so we charged her credit card up front for the entire stay so she could produce the info to the French Embassy to support her claim for entry. We acted within the law as payment for accommodation must be produced. She called us and screamed her head off as she had no intention of showing up. We will refund her money so long as she is happy for us to contact Embassy officials to say she no longer needs her visa as she has no intention of coming here to stay. No word from her since.These fraudulent bookings in the past have cost us time and money so this year we have fought back. And we came out on top. Beware those fraudulent bookings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 Thanks, Wen. We haven't had any of those but I was not aware of the visa angle from those parts. [:)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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