Accommodation Scam In London

Thank you so so much for all your help once agan.


Cjraver

They are back in action and looking to take advantage of others in this format -- buyer beware!

http://www.knights-place.co.uk/

Thank you GCCBee

Domain name:
knights-place.co.uk

Registrant:
Roger Miller

Registrant type:
UK Individual

Registrant's address:
The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
address omitted from the WHOIS service.

Registrar:
Gandi t/a Gandi [Tag = GANDI]
URL: http://www.gandi.net

Relevant dates:
Registered on: 29-Jan-2010
Renewal date: 29-Jan-2012
Last updated: 29-Jan-2010

Registration status:
Registered until renewal date.

Name servers:
a.dns.gandi.net
b.dns.gandi.net
c.dns.gandi.net

Contact details posted here for the search engines to find:-

Knights Apartment Ltd
18 Grosvenor Place,
London, SW1X 7TB

Tel: 020 7193 3760
Fax: 020 7657 3081

Email:
[email protected]

Hi,

I've been scammed by these people. I've paid them 560 pounds by bank transfer. They've got a different website now (http://www.hyde-parkrentals.co.uk/), but the same operation procedure and identical e-mails. I would greatly appreciate any advice/help you could give me on how to proceed. Is there anything I can do about it? Should I report it to the police? Here is one of the e-mails they’ve sent me:


Received: by 10.213.36.3 with SMTP id r3cs442380ebd;
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Received: by 10.204.131.85 with SMTP id w21mr6910512bks.174.1268131621710;
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:47:01 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from relay1-d.mail.gandi.net (relay1-d.mail.gandi.net [217.70.183.193])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id w11si6838319bka.72.2010.03.09.02.47.01;
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:47:01 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 217.70.183.193 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of [email protected]) client-ip=217.70.183.193;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 217.70.183.193 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of [email protected]) [email protected]
Received: from localhost (front3-d.mgt.gandi.net [10.0.10.133])
by relay1-d.mail.gandi.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4ABE22552F5
; Tue, 9 Mar 2010 11:47:01 +0100 (CET)
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Webmail
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Reply-To: Hyde Park Rentals London <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
X-Origin: 94.197.147.24
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 11:48:39 +0100
Subject: Re: Self Catering Apartment in London
From: Hyde Park Rentals London <[email protected]>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


You can check the apartment before your arrival, but we need a deposit from you to secure the date.

A member of our staff will be there to check you in and deliver keys, also will be there on your check out.

To proceed with the booking of the apartment.

Please click the following link to complete the apartment booking form:

http://www.hyde-parkrentals.co.uk/#/boo ... 4538935862

Below is the information to make the deposit of £560:

Acct Name: H. Rentals
Sort Code: 11-00-01
Account No: 08028278
IBAN: GB83HLFX11000108028278
BIC: HLFXGB21F08
Bank: Halifax Bank
Bank Address: London, United Kingdom


We will need the copy of the transfer confirmation from your bank, the scanned copy,very important.
We will send the booking confirmation and how to receive the keys once we have received your deposit and confirm your booking.

Best wishes

Samuel & Joan Baxter (Owner)
Owner Website: http://www.hyde-parkrentals.co.uk

Welcome, firefly - & sorry you have lost money to these scammers.

Dependant upon where you are, the police may or may not be interested in the information. Sadly, there is little you can do, as the money is lost.

The details of that website http://www.hyde-parkrentals.co.uk are:

Domain name:
hyde-parkrentals.co.uk

Registrant:
Norman Long

Registrant type:
UK Individual

Registrant's address:
The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their
address omitted from the WHOIS service.

Registrar:
Gandi t/a Gandi [Tag = GANDI]
URL: http://www.gandi.net

Relevant dates:
Registered on: 14-Feb-2010
Renewal date: 14-Feb-2012
Last updated: 14-Feb-2010

Hi there,

I'm new to this site, found this when I tried to find more information on these appartments.

I'm from holland and I have been scammed by these people.
I tried booking the appartment in February, since I'm coming over to London this summer to study for a month.
Am so hating myself for not researching upfront, but I trusted them and required the apartment.
I had to transfer 400 pounds, which I did, but then they said they never recieved the money. They asked me to make a new transfer with Western Union, which I didn't do.
That's when I thought there was something wrong... I contacted my bank who said the transfer was done correctly.
The people from the apartment said they went to their bank to ask (which I know now it's obviously a lie...) but that it still hadn't arrived. According to my bank that does sometimes happen so they started to investigate.
However they couldn't find anything that went wrong with the transaction.
They told me I could demand the money to get sent back, which I did. But obviously the people of the appartment no longer replied to my emails. And the site is down as well.
The british bank is now trying to contact them for me but I'm afraid I've lost the 400pounds (which is a lot of money for a student like me...)

does any of you have any advice for me what to do?
should I report this somewhere?

Welcome, SarahP - I'm sorry you found us too late & have sent money

You could report it to your local police - they sometimes act on such reports, especially as it involved a bank transfer. It is worth trying, at least.

Please feel free to ask if you have suspicions of other sites or emails & we will do our best to help.

thank you so much for your fast reply.
I will def see if I can report it over here and if that makes any difference.

I have also found this website:
http://www.citylettingservices.co.uk/

and was wondering if anyone could tell me if it's legit?
as I need to be 100% this time before transferring any money...

Instantly, it is obviously FAKE!!

From the 'Contact Us' page:

Telephone Number: +44 70 770 86751

Fax Number: +44 70 060 73748

ALL numbers +44 70xxxxxx are 'Redirect to anywhere' (but usually to a mobile in West Africa) & are used by scammers to add authenticity to their claims to be in UK.

ETA: The Home Page says 'We offer outstanding apartments at affordable prizes.

thank you so much for helping me out!

I don't know who to trust now any more... are there any websites that you know of that I can trust?

are there any websites that you know of that I can trust?

We can't post legitimate sites on the forum, sorry - & I'm having a problem sending you a pm.

Perhaps you could google "rental apartments in London" - the first 2 listed appear legitimate.

www.citylettingservices.co.uk is scam... they took 400 euros from me and never got back at me. The funny thing is that they are still active. So stay away from that website.
these are some emails that you should avoid:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
and these bacnk details:
Bank Name: Lloyds TSB
Bank Address: 70-71 Cheapside London ES 2V 6EN
Account Name: Kaliyeva Kulyash
Bank Account: 17038260
Sort Code : 30-91-83
Swift Bic: LOYDGB2LXXX
IBAN: GB85 LOYD 3091 8317 0382 60

Bank Name - Abbey National Bank
> Bank Address-263-265 Neasden Ln Brent, London NW10 1QQ, UK
> Account Name- Nishma Patel
> Account Number- 91601372
> Sort Code- 090126
> SWIFT BIC: ABBYGB2LXXX
> IBAN GB82 ABBY 0901 2691 6013 72

I forgot to mention that they use the name NISHMA PATEL

am so sorry to hear you got scammed too... never knew there were sooooo many people out there who did this...

I just wanted to let you all know that I've spent a few hours down at the police station today. They took my statement and now it's over to Interpol to contact the UK etc.
They told me not to expect much too soon, that it could be months before I hear something.
But that's okay, at least I know now that I did everything in my power that I could do.

@ SarahP: Glad to hear that you reported this. Yes, there are tons of these types of scams as you can see by the number of posts in this forum, mostly by Michelle.

@ drivasiparrea: I'm sorry to hear that you were scammed. Thank you for posting that information. I have listed that website at 419Eater.com. If we can prove it fraudulent it will be reported. I have also forwarded the bank account information on to a contact of ours who reports those. Can you please post the emails you received from that site/scammer, especially the ones that ask you to transfer money into that bank account and those specifically from that domain? If you can also include the headers that would be very helpful as we'd like that evidence. Let me know if you need help with this.