RENTAL SCAM: Parkside Real Estate & Sebastian Braamse !!

Be aware! We were just looking to rent an apartment in Utrecht and suddenly we got a reply from [email protected] for a 'too-good-to-be-true'-place. Naive as we were we did respond and kept responding, but luckily we found out in time that this is a rental scammer! "Sebastian" will probably use another name and emailadress, but the websites www.parksiderealestate.co.uk & www.mainlandrealestate.co.uk
will be used as a link to gain people's trust. These companies probably don't exist (since they are all using the same pictures and layout for their websites). Below I copied his parts of the email conversation we have had.

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Hello,

Sorry for the late reply, I had some problems with my email. The apartment is located at ..., ... Utrecht. The rent is 870 EUR/month (it includes service costs (administrative costs), gas, water, electricity))
The apartment is fully furnished, ready to move in and it has 3 rooms for a total of 72 m2.
If you are still interested please let me know and I will get back to you with more information.

Regards,
Sebastian Braamse

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Good evening ...,

As you already know, my name is Sebastian. 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).

As I said, the apartment is located at ..., ... Utrecht.
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/sebastian#31s

The rent is 870 EUR/month (basic rent: 750 EUR) (it includes gas, water, electricity and administrative costs).
The deposit is 1700 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 some more information about yourselves (job, approx. income, lifestyle, etc.)

Regards,
Sebastian Braamse
23/41 Frampton St,
London, NW8 8LU
United Kingdom

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Good evening ...,

Thanks for the information! Everything sounds good, especially at least 1 year 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 few days for me to decide.

The agency is called Parkside Real Estate Ltd. (http://www.parksiderealestate.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.parksiderealestate.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 June as a starting date for the rental. Would that be convenient for you and ...?

Kind regards,
Sebastian Braamse

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Parkside Real Estate Ltd.
24 Old Burlington Street
London, W1S 3AW
United Kingdom
Company No. 07266942
http://www.parksiderealestate.co.uk

Dear customer,

At the request of Mr. Sebastian Mård Braamse, we have provided you with a draft of the lease agreement. The draft is for information purposes, no action is required. You will find the draft attached to this message.

Thank you for using Parkside Real Estate Ltd. Services!

Michael Woods,
Customer Service



*The content of this e-mail is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient(s), or the person authorised as responsible for delivery to the intended recipient(s), please note that any reading, printing, storage, disclosure, copying or any other action taken in respect of this e-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.

I received exactly the same email and correspondence but from a different person, called Johannes van Daal , but the rest were the same. The apartment was in Eindhoven. I have already received an rental contract from them, and all seemed professional an legit.
Thank you for your warning, I was almost also a victim. I then also googled the Parkside realestate agency, they used, only to find out this agency does not excist. When it is too good to be true, it probably is! I am just thankful for smamwarners and for this post.

Thanks for posting the information on these fake rental companies.

www.parksiderealestate.co.uk

Parkside Real Estate Ltd.
24 Old Burlington Street
London, W1S 3AW
United Kingdom

Telephone
Local: 020 33 227 220
International: +44 20 33 227 220

Email
[email protected]

www.mainlandrealestate.co.uk

Mainland Real Estate Ltd.
86 Jermyn Street, 5th floor
London, SW1Y 6AW
United Kingdom

Telephone
Local: 020 33 226 133
International: +44 20 33 226 133

Email
[email protected]

Both of the website are now in the process of being reported for fraud.

Thank you for posting this!

It was indeed too good to be true, but he also made a lot of efforts to make the whole story believable. His English was very good, the address matched the pictures and he even sent us a copy of his passport.

The apartment was even registered under the name of which he contacted us! In our case, he worked via the name Ragnar Smidts (also from Sweden, but now living in London).

Hopefully this forum thread will also prevent other people from this scam.

Hello all!

Thank you very much for posting this! We were also ready to close a deal with this guy. He introduced to us as Ragnar Smidts as well and also provided a copy of his Passport which seemed totally legit! (I could upload it here, however I am not sure if it is allowed by the forum)

The whole procedure seemed so organized and legit. It was about an apartment in Groningen, 100 m2. He uploaded photos at the same site as we saw he did for other cases http://www.yogile.com/ragnar#31s.

He even contacted us by phone today in order to make sure that we received the final drafts of the contracts that we would sign...
The only thing that bothers us is that we had sent him copies of our IDs... Has anyone else went that far?

Welcome to Scamwarners,

Yes, other have sent items and money. The passport he sent you is from another victim of his scams.

Please post his email address and phone number. Also post a couple of his emails to you. Please remove your personal information from them prior to submitting.

Hello,

The email address he used to contact us was this one: [email protected]
His phone number, from where he contacted us today was this one: +44 20 3289 6735

All the emails we received from him were the following (they are exactly identical as the ones provided by other users above):

Hello,

Sorry for the late reply, I had some problems with my email. The apartment is located at Oostersingel 23-31, 9713 EX, Groningen.
The rent is 790 EUR/month (it includes all utilities).
The apartment is furnished, ready to move in and it has 3 rooms for a total of 100 m2.
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,
Ragnar Smidts

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Good evening,

As you already know, my name is Ragnar. 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).

As I said, the apartment is located on the 4th floor at Oostersingel 23-31, 9713 EX, 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.

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

The rent is 790 EUR/month (basic rent: 680 EUR) (it includes service costs (administrative costs), heating (district heating), 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).
There are no additional costs.
Regarding the dog, I can live with that(I also have a Chihuahua) as long as he does not damage something in the apartment.

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 some more information about yourselves (job, approx. income, lifestyle, etc.)

Regards,
Ragnar Smidts
4 Wilton Pl,
London, SW1X 8RH
United Kingdom

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

Good evening,

I have received lots of emails for the apartment so the correspondence is a bit slow. Therefore, I would like to apologize for my late reply.

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 few days for me to decide.

The agency is called Parkside Real Estate Ltd. (http://www.parksiderealestate.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.parksiderealestate.co.uk/Int ... lRent.html

Regarding your question, there is 1 elevator present.

If I understood correctly, you would like to rent my apartment starting mid/end of July?
If so, I might agree renting out then but my request, in case we reach an agreement, is that we finish this payment/paperwork exchange within the next 10-12 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/your fiance.

For how long approximately are you planning to rent my apartment?

Have a nice weekend,
Ragnar Smidts

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

Good afternoon,

Thank you for the extensive reply. Based on it we made our decision.

I'm glad that you 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 tenants. I consider that as long as you will take good care of the apartment, we will get along just fine!

I will be able to rent the apartment for the next 4 years, maybe longer, but 4 years from now on there is known ground for me regarding house market and I am more than sure that I won't be selling the apartment.
Also, is the 25th of July convenient for you as a starting date for the rental? Would you like to schedule the delivery of the keys and contract somewhere around this date (starting date for the contract) at your address in Greece or you would like to have them as soon as possible at your friend in Netherlands?

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, your personal address, phone number) 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).
Your fiance's personal details would also be necessary to be added to the paperwork (full name, date of birth, phone number and a copy of a photo ID)

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 and also the time zone difference?

Have a nice day,
Ragnar Smidts

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

We also received a few emails from the "so-called" Parkside Real Estate agency, but they contained mostly the "fake-as-it-seems" contracts.

Parkside Real Estate Ltd.
24 Old Burlington Street
London, W1S 3AW
United Kingdom
Company No. 07266942
http://www.parksiderealestate.co.uk


Dear customer,
At the request of Mr. Ragnar Smidts, we have provided you with a draft of the lease agreement. The draft is for information purposes, no action is required. You will find the draft attached to this message.

Thank you for using Parkside Real Estate Ltd. Services!

Michael Woods,
Customer Service


*The content of this e-mail is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient(s), or the person authorised as responsible for delivery to the intended recipient(s), please note that any reading, printing, storage, disclosure, copying or any other action taken in respect of this e-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.

As you can see he was sharing too much information and he was more than cooperative... At least it seemed so...

Again thanks everyone in here, as we were one step from sending him the deposit money... :S

Thanks everyone for sharing their story!
Parkside Real Estate & Sebastian Braamse are at this moment also known as:
Janek Ayiter and Redstorm Real Estate Ltd and continuing with their scam in The Hague...

JANEK AYITER a.k.a. RAGNAR SMIDTS, a.k.a. SEBASTIAN BRAAMSE, a.k.a. JOHANNES VAN DAAL....
And don't forget about MICHAEL WOODS...

Dear all,

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!

The apartment I was interested in is located in The Hague, the Netherlands.
The owner: 'Janek Ayiter' seems very convincing and believable. [email protected]
'Redstorm Real Estate Ltd.' has a modern website and have sended a draft of the contract which seems very legimit.
I couldn't find anything on the internet about Janek Ayiter, that's odd in 2015 but can be. When I couldn't find anything about Redstorm Real Estate Ltd. (a flashy website with a Facebook-, LinkedIn-, Twitter-button but all not working and excisting and no review or other information about the company after a Google search) I knew this story is too-good-to-be-true... Google search has shown me these posts at Scamwarners after I was looking for 'Michael Woods' he replied on behalve of Redstorm Real Estate Ltd. He replied to one of you on behalve of 'Parkside Real Estate'....
Thanks for sharing.

Luckily I haven't send documents or money. I will include my correspondence in this reply so others can see this scam is even bigger as we think and is still going on, sadly...

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

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 Riouwstraat 100 A, 2585HG Den Haag.
The apartment is furnished, ready to move in; it comes with it's own storage room in the basement and bicycle storage. If you are not planning on using any of the stuff I have there you can put it in the storage area.

The rent is 790 EUR/month (basic rent: 680 EUR) (it includes service costs (administrative costs), heating (district heating), 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,
Janek Ayiter
804/135 Harrow Rd,
London, W2 1HG
United Kingdom

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

Hello .....,

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 few days for me to decide.

The agency is called Redstorm Real Estate Ltd. (http://www.redstormrealestate.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 (those included in the rent).

You can read a more accurate description of the whole process here: http://www.redstormrealestate.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 10st of June as a starting date for the rental. Would that be convenient for you?

For how long approximately are you planning to rent my apartment?

Have a nice weekend,
Janek Ayiter

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/janek#31s

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

Redstorm Real Estate Ltd.
35 Hays Mews
London, W1J 5PY
United Kingdom
Company No. 04690608
http://www.redstormrealestate.co.uk


Dear customer,

At the request of Mr. Janek Ayiter, we have provided you with a draft of the lease agreement. The draft is for information purposes, no action is required. You will find the draft attached to this message.

Thank you for using Redstorm Real Estate Ltd. Services!

Michael Woods,
Customer Service



*The content of this e-mail is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient(s), or the person authorised as responsible for delivery to the intended recipient(s), please note that any reading, printing, storage, disclosure, copying or any other action taken in respect of this e-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.

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

Good afternoon .......,

Thanks for your extensive reply.
First of all, at least 2 years rental sounds great to me.
The agency notified me yesterday 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 as me and my wife are planning on making a decision soon and I need to know where we stand.

Kind regards,
Janek Ayiter

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CONCLUSIONS:

- Different names (only Michael Woods is used before for a different company)
- Different locations in the Netherlands
- Different (fake) Real Estate Companies
- Exact and literally the same 'selling' story
- They use the same link or presenting pictures (only changing the name)
- The website of Redstorm shows the following phonenumber: +44 2033 898 878 (a different number)

Thanks all for the warning and awareness!

Hello ScamwarnerTheHagueNL,
Thank for taking the time to post the information on this new website used in this ongoing scam. This website was first registered on 26-May-2015.

www.redstormrealestate.co.uk

Redstorm Real Estate Ltd.
35 Hays Mews
London, W1J 5PY
United Kingdom

Telephone
Local: 020 33 898 878
International: +44 20 33 898 878

Email [email protected]

The website is in the process of being reported for fraud

I received exactly the same email and correspondence but from a different person, called Johannes van Daal , but the rest were the same. The apartment was in Eindhoven. I have already received an rental contract from them, and all seemed professional an legit.
Thank you for your warning, I was almost also a victim. I then also googled the Parkside realestate agency, they used, only to find out this agency does not excist. When it is too good to be true, it probably is! I am just thankful for smamwarners and for this post.

Indeed for my also the same Johannes van Daal for an apartment in Eindhoven, but with another real estate agency: www.redstormrealestate.co.uk

Thanks for the warning!

Dear everyone,

We are a young couple (students) in the Netherlands. We were also very interested in the apartment in Groningen. We checked everything, since I'm a controlfreak, and were convinced it was OK. We payed the 1600 euros and then there was no contact anymore. The bank can't do anything for us, so we are going to the police tomorrow. We printed all the e-mail, contact information and so on.. So we hope we can get our money back and get those bastards..

To stand strong, we need more victims of the Parkside Real Estate and/or Ragnar Smidts (if it is even his name). We are going to get his bastard..

Can you please reply if you're interested in making a case?

Cheers!

According to the IP address from their emails they are located in California, Blue Mountain Way.

Generally when you see a California IP like that it means that the sender IP has been stripped, and the IP that is showing is the server for the email provider.