duchessapartmentrentals

Hello everybody,
I've juste been ripped off by Richard Craig.

I wanted to book an apartment for 1 week in Chelsea, London.
He gave me bank account of a Simon Peter, owner of the apartment. The IBAN was not working so we used western union (Bad mistake).
He told me he received the money and to call him when I would arrive in London and he will give me the adress of the apartment.
The night before arriving, he sent me an email asking more money for a refundable deposit of 350£ because I was a foreigner and the owner wanted to be sure that I was serious. If I would have sent the money, he would have given the apartment to other people.

I didn't send money, my cousin called him and he answered (with a bad accent). He didn't say anything and rang off suddenly.

Then I saw your website and was really sad not being enough anticipating.

Please be carefull people, because now, I don't know how to do to make a case against him for the legal protection of my insurance for they give me my money back.
If you have keys or ideas please tell me...I'm desperate...

I;m sorry to hear you've been scammed. I'm afraid there is no chance of finding the scammer or getting your money back. Scammers use false names, free anonymous email addresses, and usually work out of Internet cafes.
Can you quote the email you received? With your personal information deleted
http://www.duchessapartmentrentals.com was added to the databse at www.aa419.org on 17th July 2009 but is still live. Although it looks as if it was shut down, and then set up again with someone else.

Updated Date: 26-jul-2009
Creation Date: 24-jun-2009
Expiration Date: 24-jun-2010

The website name seems to have been registered only for the email address.

We had many emails between Richard and me. Around 30 because I asked him lot and lot of questions.

What informations do you need?

You've done a great search about the website. How did you do?
Yes I saw the website was not working anymore now. Maybe I have afraid him!
You're telling that the website is still "alive"? Could we do something?

I found he has an other website: http://www.mayfairapartmentrentals.com/ AND http://mayfairapartmentrentals.com/contactus.html



Thank you so much

Hi Ajoha2, Welcome to Scamwarners! I am very sorry to hear that you were the victim of a scam, but glad to hear that you didn't send any more money. Did you see this thread where other victims have reported this and other fake companies running the same scam: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2403

We will take a look at the websites and see what we can do about getting them closed down http://www.duchessapartmentrentals.com and http://www.mayfairapartmentrentals.com/

I have posted the information on the sites so our site killing experts will investigate.

Please post of any emails that you have where he requests money/sets up the scam or feel free to send them all to me in a Private Message, and I can post up the important pieces. Also please post or PM me the bank details that he gave you. (You mentioned in the first post that the there was a problem with his bank account info.)


Edit to add: http://www.duchessapartmentrentals.com looks dead to me. Arnold are you still seeing it? Maybe it is in your cache.

Adding this info so the search engines pick it up. This site is a scam:
http://www.mayfairapartmentrentals.com/
Mayfair Apartment Rentals
Tel: +44 (0) 7519569598 Fax: +44 208 181 6081
Address: 68 Leinster Square, Bayswater, London, W2 7PR, United Kingdom'
Email:[email protected]
[email protected]
Front Desk Officer :Richard Craig

The scam is being advertised on this site: http://www.1000ferienwohnungen.de/vacat ... 1248026345

I was also just recently scammed by Richard Craig at http://www.mayfairapartmentrentals.com
I had sent a bank transfer to an account for the deposit of 368 GBP and he tried to tell me that he couldnt get the money, his bank was giving him a hard time and to send it again via money gram. Thankfully I told him until I verified with the bank I was not sending him another dime. He then surprisingly all of a sudden was able to get the money . I realized it when I was asking him legitimate questions like, what time can I check into the apartment and where do I pick up the keys. He came back to me and said he was sick of my questions and was no longer going to respond. I told him to send back my money and I never heard from him again. I reported him to the police in London last week, I suggest perhaps you do the same. The day after I contacted the police his website was offline and his email address was no longer valid. Not sure if its coincidence or if they had something to do with it. I am just thankful I realized all of this prior to arriving in London in September.

The bank was Abbey Bank... The office address listed below doesn't exist as I have a friend in London who went to check it out. We tried calling that phone number several times and he never answers. I havent followed up with the police yet however will contact them next week to see if they have found anything,if they do I will be sure to let you know but again I suggest you file a report yourself.

Take Care, Lisa

Have you reported details of the bank account to the police ?

We report the bank accounts we discover being used in scams to the police, but if you've already done that you've covered that point. However, it would be interesting to know if it's in the name of Richard Craig. I would doubt that it is.

We've even known them use company accounts, but that's a rarity.

There's no need to tell us the full details of the account.

Hi Lisa, thanks for posting your story. The website of mayfairapartmentrentals.com was reported to its hoster by a fraudulent site killer at our sister site, www.419Eater.com. It was entered into the database of fraudulent websites kept by another anti scam site that we work with, aa419.org. The database entry for the fake site is here: http://db.aa419.org/fakebanksview.php?key=38385
A report was sent to the hoster on July 26 and another on Aug 6. On August 7 the person who reported it to the hoster noted to us that the site had been suspended. It's likely a coincidence that you reported to the police at that same time. Unfortunately, our volunteers are more effective and getting fraudulent sites shut down than law enforcement.

Yes I gave all the bank details to the police, and yes it was a different name on the account. He claimed it to be the apartment owner. The name on the account was MR. PIOUS TUNTI.
He also had his apartments listed on Craigs List. I did report him to them as well.

Hi Lisa

Thank you for that additional information, it will go a long way to slowing the scammer down.

I am unsure as to how cooperative the police will be with that bank account but you may be able to enquire as to if they have been able to do anything with it.

If you response does noy give you any satisfaction you could send it to one of our support team, mods or admin who can ensure it is dealt with.

We will however need the email that included that account number together with the full header that accompanies it, please feel free to remove any of your own details, that is not required.

If you need help with headers please ask

I have encountered with the same scam, but with different site name. I was checking apartments for vacation rental on craiglist, in london. There are lots of apartments listed out there by jiterentals.com or citymallrentals.com, and all of them are scam. I have sent a mail just to check with them and I have got a reply from same supposed Richard Craig guy. Then to my surprise, they have called me from a nigerian number, and said that they are excepting me to pay, and send lots of mails about payment details. In the end of course they wanted me to send the money by western union.

We will advise you to send the deposit through Western Union Money
Transfer, we can only accept Western Union from you, becuase the bank
transfer from abroad takes 3 - 4 days before it's appear in our account,
we know we can't , receive the deposit from your bank in 2 days, send the
deposit with the information below.
However,if you dont know what is western union transfer you can ask for it
agent's and make the transfer today.
Name: Anthony Phillip
Address: 42 Wilton Road,London SW1V 2DE United Kingdom .

Once you have made the payment and paid, the Western Union Agent will
issue a unique transaction identification number known as Money
Transfer Control Number (MTCN). This is your confirmation.

Send us the MTCN and the name of the sender.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks

Regards,

Richard Craig

Hi kabadam

Welcome to Scamwarners

Thank you very much for this additional information

I have quoted the email from the scammer in your post to make it easier for others to see the scammers script

Could you please post the email address if it is any different to what is posted above as well as any other information.

The more information we have on the scammer, the better the chance of preventing people from being scammed

hello ralph,
Of course I can. I have got their mails from [email protected]. Actually if you check their website: http://www.jiterentals.com/, you may notice this note at the end of the site :
Copyright © 2006 http://www.mayfairapartmentrentals.com
So I assume they even didn't change the site content, but just upload into a new domain. The number I was called is +2348033864234, a Nigerian number. But probably they were calling me from a prepaid number. The guy I have talked had really broken English, and their site also not persuasive either to convince me that it is a legit rental agency.
I post some other replies I have got from them:

Here is our account details below to send the money have the transfer scan
and send to me as soon as the money has been transfer.
BANK NAME: HALIFAX

ADDRESS: 427, HIGH ROAD
WEMBLEY MIDDX HA9 7AB

ACCT NO: 01561442

S/C: 11 ? 08 ? 27

IBAN: GB65HLFX11082701561442

BIC: HLFX21W36

NAME: PIOUS K. TUNTI

However,we dont accept paypal because we do not have account with them you
can as well send money transfer if you are having difficulty making
paymment to the account.Await the payment slip from you later today or the
money transfer reference number.

Regards,

Richard Craig

Tel: +44 (0) 7519569598

Fax: +44 208 181 6081

Here is the correct account to make the deposit our management just called
today that the account should not be given to guest again henceforth,you
should discard that account and use the one below.
You should have the transfer slip scan and send to me for confirmation of
your payment.

ABBEY BANK

ABBEY NATIONAL HOUSE
2, TRITON SQUARE
REGENT'S PLACE
LONDON
NW1 3AN.

BIC: ABBEYGB2LXXX

IBAN: GB95ABBY09012704963172

ACCOUNT NUMBER: 04963172

SORT CODE:090127


Regards,

Richard Craig

Tel: +44 (0) 7519569598

Fax: +44 208 181 6081

Also you should be very careful about posts in craiglist's london vacation rentals section. I believe most of those posts that are made by rental agencies are scam, and if you check their websites, they look somewhat similar to http://www.jiterentals.com 's site. If you make up a google search you would possibly not find any links to their site.
http://london.craigslist.co.uk/search/v ... &bedrooms=
You can understand the strangeness from the prices actually, they are much more lower than what would be for a week stay, maybe half or 200 pounds less. All of posts by those rental agencies are fake (so far the ones I have spotted):
http://www.choicesrentals.com/
http://www.homelettingcity.com
http://www.citymallrentals.com/

[AlanJones]

I've done a quick domain check on the sites listed on kabadam's post and they are all recent 1 year registrations, 3 of them to the same person in Nigeria.

They all look fake to me. I don't have time to post on Eater at the moment, so could some one post them over there for killing.

I have also just been a victim of Richard Craig. I wired him 2200 pounds (I requested a 4 month let) on July 22 and he told me that he had trouble withdrawing the funds. He instructed me to request a refund of the wire transfer and then suggested I make another transfer so that the apartment could be held. I told him I did not feel comfortable doing that until I got my original wire back. I spoke with him on the phone (broken english). The apartment I found was on duchessapartments and I also inquired on one from vacationlondonrentals. His email address is no defunct but his phone number still works.

I have the same exact account information- Mr Pious Tunti and another one which he was trying to get me to make a second transfer. I don't understand how this guy is allowed to keep all these transfers. My bank told me that he had refused permission to release back my funds. I am going to make a police report once I get to London next week. What are my options to try and shut this guy down? I cannot believe he has scammed so many people.

Thanks