CHEQUE OVERPAYMENT SCAM - HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

POTENTIAL OVERPAYMENT SCAM USING PRIVATE BED AND BREAKFAST OR SELF-CATERING ACCOMMODATION.

These are not unknown but still not widely publicised enough.

Please do your bit to help others NOT fall for this practice. And be aware of the existance of Mr Thomas Anderson and his email address [email protected]

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

A friend of mine, a French lady who runs a B&B listed on her local tourist board’s website accommodation page received this mail. (The xxxxxxx characters replace her name, they are not expressions of affection!) No corrections have been made to any of the texts quoted.

(Original mail)

From: Thomas Anderson
Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2014 10:57 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Booking request/demande de réservation

Hello

We are Mr&Mrs Anderson we are interested in staying in your
accommodation for our holiday for the following date:

Arrival Date :15 March 2014
Departure Date:22 March 2014
Guest: 2 Adult

Am waiting to read back from you with the availability of the dates
and the total price for one week

Greetings
Mr and Mrs Anderson

Bonjour

Nous sommes M. et Mme Anderson nous sommes intéressés à rester dans
votre logement pour nos vacances pour la date suivante:

Date d'arrivée: 15 Mars 2014
Départ Date: 22 Mars 2014
Invité: 2 adultes

J'attends de lire de votre part de la disponibilité des dates et le
prix total pendant une semaine

salutations
M. et Mme Anderson

My friend replied back, suspecting nothing suspicious in the request.

From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 01/04/14 11:36 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Booking request/demande de réservation

Bonjour Madame, Monsieur, j'ai des disponibilités pour ces dates du 15 au 22
mars 2014. Le prix de la chambre est de 45 € , petit déjeuner compris. Au
plaisir de vous lire xxxxx

Hello , Yes , I have place for your holliday for following date from 15
marh to 2 march 2014. The price is 45€ with Breakfast inclused. I will have
plaisure to ride you about this accommodation for your holiday. Best regard. xxxx

She then received this communication, and was concerned, so asked me to have a look at it.
This is a classic example of an invitation to take part in an overpayment scam and I have found the same text elsewhere on the internet with only a change in the sender’s name.

From: Thomas Anderson
Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2014 8:34 AM
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Confirmation of booking and payment

Hello,
Thanks for getting back to me, i am very happy that you will be able to rent your property to us, we have agreed to use your place and we are very much okay with the price, so i will want you to block other people from renting this following date:

Arrival Date: 15th March 2014
Departure Date: 22nd March 2014
Guest: 2 adult
Rental Amount: 45€

Below is our Name and address where you can send any document:

Mr and Mrs Anderson
21 Cheltenham gardens
loughton
IG10 3AW
Essex
United Kingdom
Telephone: 4470538454668

The payment would be made to you by our company business associate in Europe who has promise to pay for our holiday expenses at once which include the rental fee , Basic Travelers Allowance, feeding and our flight expenses and they have offered to make the payment to you by Euro's Cheque which i will instruct them to issue out the Euro's Cheque in your name base on trust .

Also as soon as you receive the Euro's Cheque you will have it deposited into your bank account for clearance. And as soon as you have cashed the Euro's Cheque into your account, you are to deduct the rental fee ,bank charges and send the remaining balance to our traveling agent,which would take care of our flight expenses. Details and Instruction on how to send the remaining balance to the traveling agent would be forwarded to you as soon as you received the payment.

If you are Okay with this,i will like you to get back to me with the following information as soon as possible so that the Euro's Cheque can be send to you as soon as possible.

Full Name on Euro's Cheque:
Full Address:
City :
Zip Code:
Country :
Telephone Number :

I would be very happy to read back from you very soon with the above information so that the payment can be made out to you as soon as possible.

Best Regards
Mr and Mrs Anderson

Should you as an accommodation provider or an acquaintance of yours receive a letter such as or similar to this one, do not respond to the person sending this mail.

Should a cheque arrive, take it to your bank for verification and for potential fraud investigation. The cheque is likely to be a counterfeit or has been stolen. IN NO CIRCUMSTANCES CASH THE CHEQUE. You should also report the matter to your local police. No one will turn up to claim the accommodation on the due date.

(Mods and admin, please feel free to amend the content of my post if it is too confusing or too ‘helpful’.)

I'm situated in France as a B&B-owner and received also one e-mail and booking from the same people. Other names but the same coordinates. original IP from the e-mail came from Lagos - Nigeria !!!



Hello,

Thanks for getting back to me, i am very happy that you will be able to rent your accommodation to us,I have discussed this with my wife and we have agreed to use your place, so i will want you to block other people from renting this following date:

Arrival Date: 17 May 2014
Departure Date: 24 May 2014
Guest: 2 adult
Price: 420 euros

Below is our Name and address where you can send any document:

Mr & Mrs Hernandez
21 Cheltenham gardens
loughton
IG10 3AW
Essex
United Kingdom
Telephone: +447053845468

Concerning the payment arrangement,I am assuring you that their won't be any problem because our company's associate in Europe would be paying for our holiday expenses and they have inform me that they will be making the payment via french cheque.

The French Cheque that you will receive will be in excess, has Our trip expenses which include our B.T.A (Basic Travelers Allowance)fee will be included with the rental fee base on trust. As soon as you have receive the French Cheque you would have it deposited into you account for clearance, you would deduct the rental fee and i will tell you how to send our trip expenses which include our B.T.A (Basic Travelers Allowance)fee to my traveling agent so that he can do all paperwork's, After the Euro Cheque has been cleared in your account.

I will appreciate if you can get back to me with the following information that will be need by our company business associate to make the payment out to you, so that you can receive the payment as soon as possible:

Full Name on French Cheque:
Full address:
City:
Zip code
province:
Country :
Telephone Number :

I would be very glad if you can be of a helping hand, I will be looking forward to read back from you with the information needed above.

Best Regards
Mr & Mrs Hernandez

Well, my lot never turned up ... more's the shame, though I suspected they might not show!

Did yours send a cheque?

Hello,

No cheque received, I didn't send any more details en didn't confirm their booking.

By reporting the coordinates from the scammers every time on internet , we help each-other to disappoint them. Each year I have at least 15 bookings like that !!

Keep up the good work.

Greetings,

Hello everybody,

I rent out an apartment to holiday guests in Germany.

I got an Email enquiring to rent out the apartment for one week from a Mr. Richardson Moore from the UK.
Apart from the name (sounded like James Bond ) it did not feel strange since we have had many bookings from foreign guests so far.

After I responded that we were fully booked for the period requested, I got an answer asking when we would have availabilities, so they could reschedule their vacations.

Somehow I started to have a strange feeling....

Thank god I put the phone number of Mr. and Mrs. Moore on google and came across your warning.

Thank you and thank everybody who is posting in this forum saving others, like me, from falling into the trap of being scammed.

Chantal

Hi

Just signed up having used the website a number of times: thought it was about time we started contributing. We run a small B&B in Shropshire and get our fair share of "6 rooms for 10 nights for priests attending a conference" enquiries

We have just had a slightly dodgy sounding enquiry from "Edward Cooper" which references the mobile above namely +44 7053 845468. The email address [email protected] could be one to look out for, too. Despite being a "UK" enquiry, the originating IP address is in the US (although that's not necessarily suspicious in itself) and the email seems to be sent from hotmail with a gmail return address.

From: Edward Cooper <[email protected]>
Date: 8 September 2014 15:43
Subject: Holiday Reservation
To:
Good Afternoon
Am Edward Cooper, I’m interested in rent your accommodation for 1 week
Arrival Date : 22 Nov 2014
Depart Date : 29 Nov 2014
People: Two Adult

Looking forward to read from you with the availability and the price of the booking
Mobile: +447053845468

Thanks

[AlanJones]

^^^The US IP address is normal for Hotmail and Gmail email addresses, as them mask the real IP address of the sender and only show their own.

The phone number, +447053845468, however confirms that it is a scam - +4470 numbers are not mobiles, they are personal re-direct numbers that can be redirected to any number in the world. Someone really in the UK would have no need for such a number, they would have a proper UK mobile or landline.

Yup - just got this exact scam, we run self catering holiday cottages in Cornwall.

Mr & Mrs Cooper from France...

Have reported it. Thanks for the info on this site.