RENTAL SCAM: Parkside Real Estate & Sebastian Braamse !!

"This scam goes on and on in different cities: using different names and Real Estate Agencies, the story they are telling is LITERALLY and EXACT the same!"

That's unfortunately true! I received the EXACT SAME or almost exact same emails about an apartment in Groningen, from the name Eugene Arnbjörn Vegter ([email protected]). My initial routine Google search didn't turn up anything suspicious. I even found this name listed in the Groningen telephone directory with the address of the apartment he was supposedly renting out. That went a ways towards reassuring me that it was legit. I guess I should have been suspicious in the first place, because the rental price was really "too good to be true".
The website of "Primrose Real Estate Ltd." seemed legit too. I searched it anyway, and found the company was founded in 2007. I even found records of their tax statements, so again that seemed reassuring. Still I had a hunch that something wasn't right, and a google search of a few sentences from his email finally got me to this thread.

Anyway, here's the text of his emails:

Hello,

Ik verontschuldig me voor contact met u in het Engels, maar mijn Nederlands is niet zo goed.
I am sorry but I do not speak Dutch very well. I was born and lived in Sweden until 4 years ago when I relocated to London for a new working contract. The apartment that I have for rent, I bought it as an investment during one of my trips in The Netherlands. I have used it as a holiday retreat for a while, but now I have decided to rent it out for an additional income. I am not planning on using nor selling the apartment for the next 3-4 years. Therefore, I am actually looking for a long term rental but I'll take short term rentals into consideration too (minimum 3 months).

The apartment is located at Violenhof 33, 9712 RK Groningen.
The apartment is furnished, ready to move in; it comes with parking space and it's own storage room in the basement. If you are not planning on using any of the stuff I have there you can put it in the storage area.
I will get back to you with some more apartment photos.

The rent is 800 EUR/month (basic rent: 680 EUR) (it includes service costs (administrative costs), gas, water, electricity, municipal taxes).
The deposit is 1600 EUR (fully refundable at the end of the contract unless you damage something and you don't fix it).
I will not be able to be present for viewing, therefore I spoke to my real estate agency here in London and they said that they will take care of the whole transaction. They have a Property Management service that will basically take care of everything (contract, paperwork, bills, rent payment etc.) for which I will pay the fees.

Before any agreement between us, the agency will send you a draft of the contract so you will have a clear idea of the content of the contract. It is a standard lease contract very similar to the one most the Dutch use provided by the Real Estate Council of the Netherlands.

If you are interested, please provide me information about yourself as a possible future tenant.

Regards,
Eugene Vegter
26 St John's Ln,
London, EC1M 4BU
United Kingdom

**************************************************************

Good evening ...,

Sorry for the late reply! I have received lots of emails for the apartment so the correspondence is a bit slow.

Thanks for the information! Everything sounds good, but I must tell you that I am still talking to people before taking a decision since my wife is very picky when it comes to our future tenants. She thinks that not everybody has respect for other people's property, so I need to make an informed decision to please her. I'm not saying this is the case, just that it will take a couple of days for me to decide.

The agency is called Primrose Real Estate Ltd. (http://www.primroserealestate.co.uk). I will ask them to send you a draft of the lease contract so you can read it and get a clear idea of the rental terms.

So, in case we come to an agreement, this is how the process works:
- You'll have to give me your full name, date of birth, telephone number and postal address. A copy of your passport or driving license would be necessary to be added to the paperwork.
- Then I will forward your information to the real estate agency and they will start the process. They will contact you with more information regarding the transaction and also how to make the payment. You will have to pay the deposit and first month rent into the agency's bank account.
- After the payment is received by the agency, they will send you the contract and keys by mail courier and you will receive them in about 2-3 days.
- Since you haven't seen the apartment yet, the real estate agency will provide you with a 10 days Money Back Guarantee. This means that the payment will not be forwarded to me and you will have 10 days to decide if you'll take the apartment or not. If you don't like the apartment or if it's not as I have presented it to you, then you can mail back the keys to the agency and they will immediately refund your payment to your bank account.
- If you're satisfied with the apartment, all you have to do is to sign the contract and mail it back to the agency. You will be paying the rent every month into the agency's bank account and they will forward it to me. The agency will also take care of the monthly bills.

You can read a more accurate description of the whole process here: http://www.primroserealestate.co.uk/Int ... lRent.html

I might agree renting out starting August 15th but my request, in case we eventually agree upon a deal, is that we finish this payment/keys/paperwork exchange within the next 8-10 days. It's about the fact that this rental process is time consuming and I would like to have it done as soon as possible so I can focus my time and attention towards other things.
Let me know if this is possible for you.

Kind regards,
Eugene Vegter

PS: In order for you to make a better idea about the apartment, I've uploaded some photos of it here: http://www.yogile.com/eugene#31s

***********************
All the links I clicked in earlier comments were either dead or blocked by my anti-virus. These links are still working now, but probably not for long...

^^^Welcome to Scamwarners, Thank you for the update.

Can you please post the email headers of the email. Information can be found here. http://whatismyipaddress.com/find-headers Please remove your name and email address from the headers prior to submitting.

This will help us in reporting the fake site for fraud.

Domain name:
primroserealestate.co.uk

Registrant:
Andreas Stylianou

Registrant type:
UK Individual

Registrant's address:
Dashwood House
London
London
EC2M 1QS
United Kingdom

Data validation:
Nominet was able to match the registrant's name and address against a 3rd party data source on 12-Jun-2015

Registrar:
123-Reg Limited t/a 123-reg [Tag = 123-REG]
URL: http://www.123-reg.co.uk

Relevant dates:
Registered on: 12-Jun-2015
Expiry date: 12-Jun-2017
Last updated: 12-Jun-2015

Registration status:
Registered until expiry date.

Name servers:
ns.123-reg.co.uk
ns2.123-reg.co.uk

ETA: primroserealestate.co.uk is in the process of being reported for fraud.

Hi!

I was contacted by Joakim Pälle van der Hut with exactly the same story about an apartment in Amsterdam. Kinkerstraat 360-4. I didn't trust it from the start, but was kind of hoping for a miracle.. I researched him, the real estate agency and all information on the property but nothing suspicious came up, untill I Googled the email address with which Primrose Real Estate contacted me. This led me to this thread, luckily!
Can I send this info to the authorities via some way? Or is that useless?

His emails (sorry I couln't figure out the header thing for Outlook on Mac):

From: Joakim Pälle van der Hut <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday 21 July 2015 00:29
To:
Subject: RE: apartment Kinkerstraat, Amsterdam

Good evening,

The agency notified me that they have sent the draft of the contract to your email address.
Let me know if you have received it and if so, get back to me after reading it with your thoughts on the terms and conditions.

I hope you will find the contract terms agreeable as I have discussed the options with my wife and we decided that we would like to have you as our tenant.
I consider that as long as you will take good care of the apartment, we will get along just fine!

So, if everything is clear and you are ready, I will need you to provide me with your personal information (full name, date of birth, address where the keys and contract will be delivered) and a copy of a photo ID (passport, driving license or else; if you don't have access to a scanner, you can take a photo with your camera or phone, it will do just fine).

As soon as I have these, I will make an appointment with the agency and start the process!

Once the process is started you will get the final form of the contract (filled and signed) in electronic format , for you to review before anything.
Also, I would like to call you after making all the arrangements. When is this possible for you taking into account it might be during working hours?
Could you please confirm that you can be reached at the following phone number:?

Kind regards,
Joakim van der Hut

PS: I've attached a copy of my passport so you can put a face to the name.
-----------------

From: Joakim Pälle van der Hut <[email protected]>
Date: Saturday 18 July 2015 15:05
To:
Subject: RE: apartment Kinkerstraat, Amsterdam

Good afternoon,

Sorry for the late reply! I have received lots of emails for the apartment so the correspondence is a bit slow.

Thanks for the information and for the photo as well! Everything sounds good, especially the fact that you are looking for a long term rental, but I must tell you that I am still talking to people before taking a decision since my wife is very picky when it comes to our future tenants. She thinks that not everybody has respect for other people's property, so I need to make an informed decision to please her. I'm not saying this is the case, just that it will take a couple of days for me to decide.

The agency is called Primrose Real Estate Ltd. (http://www.primroserealestate.co.uk). I will ask them to send you a draft of the lease contract so you can read it and get a clear idea of the rental terms.

So, in case we come to an agreement, this is how the process works:
- You'll have to give me your full name, date of birth, telephone number and postal address. A copy of your passport or driving license would be necessary to be added to the paperwork.
- Then I will forward your information to the real estate agency and they will start the process. They will contact you with more information regarding the transaction and also how to make the payment. You will have to pay the deposit and first month rent into the agency's bank account.
- After the payment is received by the agency, they will send you the contract and keys by mail courier and you will receive them in about 2-3 days.
- Since you haven't seen the apartment yet, the real estate agency will provide you with a 10 days Money Back Guarantee. This means that the payment will not be forwarded to me and you will have 10 days to decide if you'll take the apartment or not. If you don't like the apartment or if it's not as I have presented it to you, then you can mail back the keys to the agency and they will immediately refund your payment to your bank account.
- If you're satisfied with the apartment, all you have to do is to sign the contract and mail it back to the agency. You will be paying the rent every month into the agency's bank account and they will forward it to me. The agency will also take care of the monthly bills.

You can read a more accurate description of the whole process here: http://www.primroserealestate.co.uk/Int ... lRent.html

In case we reach an agreement, since the transaction itself will take some time to complete (payment confirmation, delivery of keys and contract, 10 days money back guarantee), I was thinking of the 30th of July as a starting date for the rental. Would that be convenient for you?

Have a nice weekend,
Joakim van der Hut
-------------------------

From: Joakim Pälle van der Hut <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday 16 July 2015 23:08
To: xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: apartment Kinkerstraat, Amsterdam

Good evening,

As you already know, my name is Joakim. I was born and lived in Sweden until 4 years ago when I relocated to London for a new working contract. The apartment that I have for rent, I bought it as an investment during one of my trips in The Netherlands. I have used it as a holiday retreat for a while, but now I have decided to rent it out for an additional income. I am not planning on using nor selling the apartment for the next 3-4 years. Therefore, I am actually looking for a long term rental but I'll take short term rentals into consideration too (minimum 3 months).

The apartment is located at Kinkerstraat 360 IV, 1053 GG Amsterdam.
As I said, the apartment is furnished, ready to move in and it comes with it's own storage room in the basement. If you are not planning on using any of the stuff I have there you can put it in the storage area.

In order for you to make a better idea about the apartment, I've uploaded some photos of it here: http://www.yogile.com/joakim#51s

The rent is 1050 EUR/month (basic rent: 890 EUR) (it includes service costs (administrative costs), gas, water, electricity, municipal taxes, internet).
The deposit is 2000 EUR (fully refundable at the end of the contract unless you damage something and you don't fix it).
I will not be able to be present for viewing, therefore I spoke to my real estate agency here in London and they said that they will take care of the whole transaction. They have a Property Management service that will basically take care of everything (contract, paperwork, bills, rent payment etc.) for which I will pay the fees.

Before any agreement between us, the agency will send you a draft of the contract so you will have a clear idea of the content of the contract. It is a standard lease contract very similar to the one most the Dutch use provided by the Real Estate Council of the Netherlands.

If you are interested, please provide me more information about yourself as a possible future tenant (job, approximate income, lifestyle, etc.).

Regards,
Joakim van der Hut
181 Lauderdale Twr, Barbican,
London, EC2Y 8BY
United Kingdom
------------------------

From: Joakim Pälle van der Hut <[email protected]>
Date: Wednesday 15 July 2015 15:38
To: xxxxxxxxx
Subject: apartment Kinkerstraat, Amsterdam

Hello,

Sorry for the late reply, I've been very busy lately. The apartment is located at Kinkerstraat 360 IV, 1053 GG Amsterdam.
The rent is 1050 EUR/month (it includes administrative costs, internet, gas, water, electricity, municipal taxes).
The apartment is furnished, ready to move in and it has 2 rooms for a total of 55 m2, balcony and roof terrace.
At request, it can be rented unfurnished or semi-furnished.
If you are still interested please let me know and I will get back to you with more information and some more apartment photos as well.

Regards,
Joakim van der Hut

I also contacted Eugene Vegter about an apartment in Groningen.
Looked legit, nice guy, searched on the internet to get more info. Checked out the website of the real estate agency, found his name matching the adres in the online phonebook, checked google maps. Nothing suspicious so far.
The only thing I was concerned about was “pay first, get key later” so I called the land registry office to make sure it wasn’t a scam.
Last name was the same but his first name did not correspond (only the first letter). A few minutes later I found this page.
I contacted the websites where he posted the apartment for rent to warn them.
He’s good... What an asshole... Glad I did not sent my private data to him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry for the late reply! I have received lots of emails for the apartment so the correspondence is a bit slow.

Thanks for the information! Everything sounds good, especially the fact that you are looking for a long term rental, but I must tell you that I am still talking to people before taking a decision since my wife is very picky when it comes to our future tenants. She thinks that not everybody has respect for other people's property, so I need to make an informed decision to please her. I'm not saying this is the case, just that it will take a couple of days for me to decide.
Regarding your question, the big bedroom has approx. 15 m2, and the 2nd one (where at this moment there is a small 'office' ) has 8 m2.

The agency is called Primrose Real Estate Ltd. (http://www.primroserealestate.co.uk). I will ask them to send you a draft of the lease contract so you can read it and get a clear idea of the rental terms.

So, in case we come to an agreement, this is how the process works:
- You'll have to give me your full name, date of birth, telephone number and postal address. A copy of your passport or driving license would be necessary to be added to the paperwork.
- Then I will forward your information to the real estate agency and they will start the process. They will contact you with more information regarding the transaction and also how to make the payment. You will have to pay the deposit and first month rent into the agency's bank account.
- After the payment is received by the agency, they will send you the contract and keys by mail courier and you will receive them in about 2-3 days.
- Since you haven't seen the apartment yet, the real estate agency will provide you with a 10 days Money Back Guarantee. This means that the payment will not be forwarded to me and you will have 10 days to decide if you'll take the apartment or not. If you don't like the apartment or if it's not as I have presented it to you, then you can mail back the keys to the agency and they will immediately refund your payment to your bank account.
- If you're satisfied with the apartment, all you have to do is to sign the contract and mail it back to the agency. You will be paying the rent every month into the agency's bank account and they will forward it to me. The agency will also take care of the monthly bills.

You can read a more accurate description of the whole process here: http://www.primroserealestate.co.uk/Int ... lRent.html

In case we reach an agreement, since the transaction itself will take some time to complete (payment confirmation, delivery of keys and contract, 10 days money back guarantee), I was thinking of the 1st of August as a starting date for the rental. Would that be convenient for you and Lysanne?

Kind regards,
Eugene Vegter

PS: In order for you to make a better idea about the apartment, I've uploaded some photos of it here: http://www.yogile.com/eugene#31s

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

His e-mail:
[email protected]

Bryon,

Here's the email header for Primrose Real Estate Ltd.:

Delivered-To:
Received: by 10.25.28.68 with SMTP id c65csp980637lfc;
Mon, 20 Jul 2015 07:36:16 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 10.107.134.193 with SMTP id q62mr40256824ioi.91.1437402976141;
Mon, 20 Jul 2015 07:36:16 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from mail-ig0-f194.google.com (mail-ig0-f194.google.com. [209.85.213.194])
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id b9si17146401ict.0.2015.07.20.07.36.15
for
(version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128);
Mon, 20 Jul 2015 07:36:16 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 209.85.213.194 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of [email protected]) client-ip=209.85.213.194;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
spf=neutral (google.com: 209.85.213.194 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of [email protected]) [email protected]
Received: by mail-ig0-f194.google.com with SMTP id ij6so1391134igb.3
for Mon, 20 Jul 2015 07:36:15 -0700 (PDT)
X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d=1e100.net; s=20130820;
h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to
:content-type;
bh=LjOKtn0oVRj3PWKuQA3n6Ln8Ggo7t7X9wu57F0+iswA=;
b=dX4LqtNI0KO+gUhv/jmzw/XGkzVYsCdElX7M9fCNAiRX4t1RCzwarlwPUo1RFvdsms
fYK4cGDFt+iu5gI0kcvyUCmwIy7j2ewAn41I2NPYKOx+AFkz1m98ruW817wYcSZzhP3t
QaONSGANTv8ZvvPQ2AD+tOhFD2FKsIXzBm1fspJHzjfXw2bJTeM00l03NLZfoKy9iKFQ
LtMunVNsJbaE/Uq4GyymrqKnYPjQDZXxVFEBba8+I+X8JdCGnhh3Zh4kL3VQO+CgFRPP
Ut1e5mD39ST9iIaagl53vAcrPyr2bqsezSjx5+qIzio0jQW0SZwByQa3inNYk+DkkPA0
YW2A==
X-Gm-Message-State: ALoCoQmgEnqTiKsZvjijt2ZnXRhUv9Js1UvX4DZ3zquStqmoajmk155MKHsMaNJ0yrpJl3p7dXKi
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Received: by 10.50.4.102 with SMTP id j6mr16037598igj.40.1437402975332; Mon,
20 Jul 2015 07:36:15 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.107.35.85 with HTTP; Mon, 20 Jul 2015 07:36:15 -0700 (PDT)
X-Originating-IP: [82.176.54.244]
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 14:36:15 +0000
Message-ID: <CANbP-TWvQ-6-geG63g5Wj5TfqXtP9F5i5SORommcbcqVuRnKPg@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Lease agreement draft / Huurovereenkomst
From: Primrose Real Estate <[email protected]>
To:, Xxxxxxxxx
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=001a11c31f6ebf15a7051b4f7555

The scammer is now going by the name William Immink. I received the exact same emails and became truly suspicious where it says the lessor has "a Property Management service that will basically take care of everything (contract, paperwork, bills, rent payment etc.) for which I will pay the fees." No one would pay those fees! What a Skellum! (South African for little S*#t)
Thank you to Scamwarners and all the lovely people who posted about this!

Hey everyone. The posts are 2 years old but I was lucky enough to find them because he is still doing his scam.
I just post every eMail a received from him.

Name: Laurens de Jong
living in Sweden
his original Link for the "booking" was: http://airbnb.com-itinerary-request-hom ... s=eRGFZrin
I mailed the host of the website that it is a pishing website and now it is offline.
I could not find his IP or anything relevant, so I hope all this posts will help someone


Hello,

Sorry for the late response, I've been very busy lately. The apartment is located at Veilingstraat 57, 3521 BE Utrecht. The rent is 930 EUR/month (basic rent: 770 EUR); it includes internet, administrative costs, heating, gas, water, electricity, municipal taxes.
The apartment is furnished, ready to move in and it has 3 rooms (2 bedrooms, 1 living room) for a total of 77 m2.
At request, it can be rented unfurnished or semi-furnished.
If you are still interested please let me know and I will get back to you with more information and some more photos of the apartment as well.

Regards,
Laurens de Jong


Good morning Till,

First of all, we have this conversation since you contacted me regarding the apartment (it was advertised on huurexpert.nl) or your profile as a home seeker popped up in my inbox as I've paid subscription to several rental websites.
As you already know, my name is Laurens, I was born in Sweden and this is also where I live and work. The apartment that I have for rent, I bought it as an investment during one of my trips there. My family and I have used the apartment from time to time but mostly we have rented it out on Airbnb for the extra income. We realized that we do not want short term rentals anymore and we are actually looking for a long term rental (minimum 3 months, preferably years).

As I said, the apartment is located at Veilingstraat 57, 3521 BE Utrecht.
The apartment is furnished, ready to move in, it comes with it's own storage room and parking space in the basement garage. If you are not planning on using any of the stuff I have there you can put it in the storage area.

In order for you to make a better idea about the apartment and surroundings, I've uploaded some photos here: https://www.yogile.com/laurens#51m

The rent is 930 EUR/month (basic rent: 770 EUR); it includes service costs (administrative costs), heating (district heating), gas, water, electricity, municipal taxes and internet.
The deposit is 1500 EUR (fully refundable at the end of the lease unless you damage something and you don't fix it).

I will not be able to be present for viewing, but we will find a suitable solution.
Please provide me information about yourself as a possible future tenant (age, job, approximate income, lifestyle, etc.).

Kind regards,
Laurens de Jong
Gothenburg, Sweden


Good evening Till,

Thanks for the information! Everything sounds good but I must tell you that I am still talking to people before taking a decision since my wife is very picky when it comes to our future tenants. She thinks that not everybody has respect for other people's property, so I need to make an informed decision to please her. I'm not saying this is the case, just that it will take a couple of days for me to decide.

I will not be able to show you the apartment therefore, in case we reach an agreement, I was thinking you can book the apartment on Airbnb (you can check out www.airbnb.com to see how it works) for the first 1-2 months, at the same rent. After 1-2 months, if you like the apartment, then we will sign a contract. I will email you a draft of the contract so you can read it and get a clear idea of the rental terms (it's a standard contract).

For how long approximately are you and Viktoria planning on renting my apartment?
You said you would like to move in asap. Do you have a specific date in mind? If not, is the 1st of March convenient for you or this date would be too soon?

Kind regards,
Laurens de Jong


Good evening Till,

I had hoped to get back to you quicker but I was swamped with work, I barely had time for myself.

Thanks for the additional information.
If we come to an agreement, I will give you the link to the apartment so you can book it on Airbnb for a minimum of 30 days. After the payment is done and the booking is confirmed, an Airbnb agent will provide you with the keys to the apartment. I will have to change the details on Airbnb so that the rent will be 930 EUR/month because when we rented it out before the price was higher. After the Airbnb rental is over and if you are satisfied with the apartment, we will sign the contract.

I have attached a draft of the contract. The contract is an open-ended one and you will have the apartment at your disposal for the next 3 years in case you decide you would like to stay that long (I won't be needing the apartment for this period, maybe longer but I am not sure at this very moment). Please read the draft of the contract and get back to me after reading it with your thoughts on the terms and conditions as me and my wife are planning on making a decision soon. It's written in both English and Dutch.

Kind regards,
Laurens de Jong


Hello Till ,

I'm glad that you find the terms of the contract agreeable as this evening I have discussed the options with my wife and we decided that we would like to have you and Viktoria as our tenants. I consider that as long as the rent is paid on time and you will take good care of the apartment, we will get along just fine!

Here is the link:
https://www.airbnb.com/booking/listing/ ... s=eRGFZrin

You can pick your own starting date (1st of March as we agreed) and you will have to book it for a minimum of 30 days.
As I said, this rental process is time consuming and I would like to have it done as soon as possible so I can focus my time and attention towards other things. Therefore it would be appreciated if you could book the apartment sooner rather than later, with the 1st of March as a move in date, of course.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,
Laurens de Jong

PS: I've attached a copy of my passport and I would like you to provide me with a copy of a photo ID (passport, driving license or else; if you don't have access to a scanner, you can take a photo with your camera or phone, it will do just fine)