Apartment scam(?) help!

seanie_m

Hi, so myself and 3 friends are going away for a week in August, and I'm trying to sort out accommodation. This place called 'Residence Victoria Surf' looks pretty good, however I'm concerned that there's something fishy going on. When you google it, you get a few travel companies offering you bookings through its website, but also two other websites that seem to be aiming for the "official" webpage look.

Its pretty hard to track down an email address for the place, every website is mad keen to give me the address of the place and its phone number, but thats not of any use to me since each time I ring it, I just get an answering machine speaking really fast in French!
By googling around, so far I've found a couple of different 'emails' for the place:
(1) victoria.management@wanadoo.fr
(2) victoriasurfbiarritz@free.fr
(3) contact@victoriasurf.com


Email address number 3 there definitely looks the most genuine to me, however when you google it, nothing pops up other than the website I took it from. That same website has 'reservation enquiry' option which I filled out, and they got back to me with an email from the @wanadoo.fr address

Few things I'm uneasy about though:
* Isn't @wanadoo.fr just like some lad making up a gmail.com address?
* They want 25% payment as a deposit and the rest paid 15 days before arrival
* The email itself and the little attachment they sent with it looks a bit shoddy...

These are all different websites that seem to be going for the "official" look:
http://www.victoriasurf.com/victoriasurf/
http://www.victoria-surf-biarritz.com/
http://victoriasurfbiarritz.free.fr/index.htm

So what do ye think I should do now? I'm pretty sure there's definitely something funny going on somewhere.... Thanks a million in advance for any help

Larianne

Read what you just posted there. You should be able to get the answer from your own post.

seanie_m

Oh I'm very highly doubting that the @wanadoo.fr address is real, whats getting me is this - why, when i google contact@victoriasurf, do I not get a whole load of other search results? Or at least one coming from the actual place itself? Like it definitely does exist, traveladvisor has about 16 reviews on the place

Ficheall

I don't see any link between the third website and the other two..?

biko

From AH

Cuddlesworth

seanie_m wrote: »

traveladvisor has about 16 reviews on the place

How long do you think it would take you to write up 16 fake reviews?

Wanadoo.fr is a orange email address in France, essentially the same as a @eircom.ie address provided with broadband.

Two of the sites are owned by Victoria Management Sarl, one is a free site host.

Owner of both sites is Christine Dix, touradour@wanadoo.fr

+33.559430065
Fax: +33.559431340
Soubialdia
Arcangues, FR 64200
FR

not even wrong

seanie_m wrote: »

* They want 25% payment as a deposit and the rest paid 15 days before arrival

How are they asking for payment? If it's credit card you will be able to claim it back from your bank even if it is a scam. If it's a bank transfer or Paypal you have less protection. If it's Western Union run a mile.

The_Conductor

OP- personally, I don't see anything too suspicious here. Its not unusual when you're renting property in France to encounter terms such as these (Portugal and other countries are very similar too). As per above- Wanadoo is the equivalent of an Eircom.net address in Ireland- they are an ISP- not a virtual webmail freehost supplier (though they do have free options targeted at students in particular).

If you're unhappy with their proposed payment options- suggest something mutually agreeable to both of you- or walk away. You have the lady's contact info above- shes not going to be difficult to find

seanie_m

@cuddlesworth - haha, how do you find such information?!

@not even wrong - I replied asking this info, so far they haven't gotten back to me yet though. Will be interested to see what they say. And yeah, I've always heard that Western Union is dodge-central for paying over the internet!

@smccarrick - I'm just going to wait and see what she says, waiting on a few other emails back from other places yet anyway so its not as though its our only option.

Thanks for all the replies, I do appreciate it.

jmayo

seanie_m wrote: »

Hi, so myself and 3 friends are going away for a week in August, and I'm trying to sort out accommodation. This place called 'Residence Victoria Surf' looks pretty good, however I'm concerned that there's something fishy going on. When you google it, you get a few travel companies offering you bookings through its website, but also two other websites that seem to be aiming for the "official" webpage look.

Email address number 3 there definitely looks the most genuine to me, however when you google it, nothing pops up other than the website I took it from. That same website has 'reservation enquiry' option which I filled out, and they got back to me with an email from the @wanadoo.fr address

Few things I'm uneasy about though:
* Isn't @wanadoo.fr just like some lad making up a gmail.com address?
* They want 25% payment as a deposit and the rest paid 15 days before arrival
* The email itself and the little attachment they sent with it looks a bit shoddy...

These are all different websites that seem to be going for the "official" look:
http://www.victoriasurf.com/victoriasurf/
http://www.victoria-surf-biarritz.com/
http://victoriasurfbiarritz.free.fr/index.htm

So what do ye think I should do now? I'm pretty sure there's definitely something funny going on somewhere.... Thanks a million in advance for any help

Sounds pretty standard to be honest.
Have hired gites in France and villas in Spain with same payment terms.
Also security deposit usually payable and returnable either on leaving or a week or so later.
You will often find some of these advertise in multiple locations and the owner themselves also advertises and probably uses the equivalent of an eircom.net, gmail or hotmail personal email address.

The weirdest thing I have come across is a property advertised with two different names.
One actually included the name of the owner, the other was just a name.
Turned out to be really nice rental.

Look for tripadvisor or any other reference to the property.
If the property is stand alone house I now always check if i can see it on Google street maps.
Amazing what you can see and how it gives you feel for the place.

BTW the website www.victoriasurf.com has been registered since 2001 so either they are great at scamming or it is legit.

Also if you are going to Biarritz make sure to head down the road to St Jean de Luz.

seanie_m

Thanks jmayo. Will definitely be making a trip down to St Jean de Luz alright, has been recommended to me a couple of times now so it has to be worth a visit.

They actually emailed me back saying they had made a mistake, they no longer can accommodate us as they only do Saturday-Saturday bookings... So yeah it must have been legit all along and it was just my crazy mind playing tricks on me! Sorry Victoria Surf!

Cuddlesworth

It never hurts to be cautious when spending money online.