London vacation apartment scam

I have just been had by LondonSummerApartments.com a legitimate looking site advertising short term vacation apartment lets in London. The domain name is owned by a person in Nigeria. Need I say more? Stay away from it! Gory details available if you insist.

RPCV66 Welcome to scamwarners. Sorry to note that you have been scammed.

If you could please post further information it will alert other potential victims and save them from being scammed. Please do not post any of your personal detail, your online safety is also our concern.

http://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2403

Thank You for posting.

Welcome to Scamwarners, and I'm sorry you were scammed.
More info would be very useful. Both to warn other potential victims, and to justify us trying to have the site shut down.
EDIT. I see this site have been reported already, but your additional report is still appreciated.

[AlanJones]

Hi RPCV66,

I'm going to look to get this website shut down. To assist me could you post the emails you've received from the scammer, including the headers (blank out all of your personal details).

Also, how did they ask you to pay the money that you paid them? If it was by transfer to a bank account could you PM me the email (again including headers) that provided the account. I won't be able to get you your money back, but I can pass the account details onto someone who will look into te use of the account. If you're worried about PMing me with the details then pass them to one of the mods or scamwarners here and they can do the same thing with the account details.

Edit: I'm not really that slow at typing, I was researching the site while typing my post. Arnold, this is a different one to the site in the other topic. I've posted this one on Eater and when it gets added to the DB I'll look to get it killed. They are also quoting fake Co Reg and VAT details on their contact page.

It looks like this is becoming a popular new scam format.

Hi Arnold, I didn't see a report for that site in aa419 or Eater. It is still up and running. More info would be helpful to get it closed down. Where has it been reported?

[AlanJones]

Just posting the following so that the search engines can pick it up.

London Summer Apartments (londonsummerapartments) claims to be owned by Sunview Ltd or Sun-view Ltd of the following addresses -

259 Marine Road Central, Morecambe, Lancs, LA4 4BJ
Sunview Ltd, 107-111 Fleet Street, London, EC4A 2AB

There is no such company on the Companies House register at either address and both addresses belong to a legitimate company.

The phone number quoted +44 702 409 2606 is a redirect number and can be redirected anywhere in the world.

Additionally, the Co Reg Number 4588978 belongs to a totally unrelated company and the VAT Reg No 803 1200 04 is fake.

I have so much information I do not know where to start. I insisted on bank to bank transfer therefore I have bank details. I cannot locate the email with scammer's bank details but this is what I do have from confirmation notice and inquiry from bank regarding status of transfer:

Beneficiary Bank: National Westminster Bank, Premier Place, Devonshire Square, UK
Swift ID: NWBKG82LXXX
Routing Code: 60246
IBAN GB39NWBK6024611231505
Name: London Summer Rentals
Acct No: 1123105

NatWest confirmed credit to bene account under ref RGHBCSI10133343 dated 22APR09 for 993.50/GBP.

WhoIs search confirms following LondonSummerApartment website owner:
DOMAIN: londonsummerapartments.com

RSP: Registeram.com - Domain Registrar
URL: http://www.registeram.com

created-date: 2009-02-20 06:00:14
updated-date: 2009-02-20 06:00:14
registration-expiration-date: 2010-02-20 06:00:30

owner-organization:
owner-name: Mr. James Thompson
owner-street: 22, martins str
owner-city: ikeja
owner-state:
owner-zip: 23401
owner-country: NG
owner-phone: +234.8026647733
owner-fax: +234.8026647733
owner-email:


I already reported this to IC3 Complaint_ I0905051542405922 and [email protected]

I posted query on TripAdvisor and there was a response that LondonSummerApartments is a scam.

Here is header copied from one of scammer's emails (I should have been suspicious about reply to a gmail account!)
From: London Summer Apartments <[email protected]>
Date: April 20, 2009 10:26:18 AM CDT
To: Howard Ellegant <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Booking/Reservation Inquiry... (Howard Ellegant)
Reply-To: [email protected]

Thanks RPCV, I reported the bank information to the person who handles those things and there are some people working on getting the site closed down. There appears to be several other sites that are related to that one.

[AlanJones]

RPCV, can I ask how you managed to initially find the London Summer Apartments website. Was it just from a Google search or were they advertising somewhere?

Google search for London short term vacation apartments or short term self catering flat

I noticed that they have listings on several free advertising sites. Some of the ads have been taken down, but they show up in cache.

Hi,

My name is Jamie Elliott, freelance journalist with the Observer. We were alerted to a site called London Nice Apartments - www.london9iceapartments.uuuq.com/ - which is a similar scam. I am very keen to speak to anyone who has been affected by this type of scam. Please call or email if you have information that could help with this investigation. Tel: 0044 +7790 000490 email: [email protected] www.jamieelliott.com

Thanks very much

Jamie Elliott
Freelance reporter
The Observer
www.observer.co.uk

Hi Jamie, and welcome to Scamwarners. I've just sent you an email.

Hi Jamie and welcome,

Public awareness is our most effective tool against scams so we do appreciate you writing an article on this subject.

May I suggest that our scam support team members have a wealth of knowledge on the various scams and are usually more than willing to help reporters such as youself to spread the word.

If you have any specific questions or would just like to get some more information than please post or PM your request and we may be able to help you

DOMAIN: londonsummerapartments.com

RSP: Registeram.com - Domain Registrar
URL: http://www.registeram.com

created-date: 2009-02-20 06:00:14
updated-date: 2009-05-09 10:28:14
registration-expiration-date: 2010-02-20 06:00:30

owner-organization:
owner-name: Mr. James Thompson
owner-street: 22, martins str
owner-city: ikeja
owner-state:
owner-zip: 23401
owner-country: NG
owner-phone: +234.8026647733
owner-fax: +234.8026647733
owner-email: [email protected]

admin-organization:
admin-name: Mr. James Thompson
admin-street: 22, martins str
admin-city: ikeja
admin-state:
admin-zip: 23401
admin-country: NG
admin-phone: +234.8026647733
admin-fax: +234.8026647733
admin-email: [email protected]

tech-organization:
tech-name: Mr. James Thompson
tech-street: 22, martins str
tech-city: ikeja
tech-state:
tech-zip: 23401
tech-country: NG
tech-phone: +234.8026647733
tech-fax: +234.8026647733
tech-email: [email protected]

billing-organization:
billing-name: Mr. James Thompson
billing-street: 22, martins str
billing-city: ikeja
billing-state:
billing-zip: 23401
billing-country: NG
billing-phone: +234.8026647733
billing-fax: +234.8026647733
billing-email: [email protected]

nameserver: ns3.registeram.com 174.120.15.138
nameserver: ns4.registeram.com 174.120.15.141
nameserver: n/a
nameserver: n/a
nameserver: n/a

It's unusual that they have left in the Nigerian details.