house advertised on rental website without permission from owner

endofrainbow

Bit of an odd one : House has been advertised on a website called Spotaroom/Rentberry as having rooms to let. This is certainly not the case as it's a family home.

The ad only shows the interior (ie. the rooms to let) and provides a description but the Google Maps on the ad show the exterior of the house - which is the actual house concerned.

I've emailed the company (based in San Francisco and Spain) and also sent a message on FB. Their Dublin office is 'permanently closed' according to their website - no response.

Any suggestions where to go to from here ? I really don't want any ramifications further down the line.

Scotty #

Apply to rent it and see what happens. Obviously don't give too much personal details and NO financial details. See if they offer somewhere else or something.

I was recently informed of a company using one of my wedding photo's (taken from FB) as the main image on their website.

spaceHopper

drive around and knock the door, report it to the cops. Apply to rent a room if it's a scam they'll let you have it and ask for a bank transfer then contact the backs fraud/money laundering department. Bet it will be HSBC

ED E

Its a scam. Liveline has covered it a thousand times.

Foreign students (mostly) will pay a €2000 booking deposit to stay there for a semester, land in from SK or Taiwan and roll up to the door expecting you to let them in and give them a key. Then when you tell them its not for rent they start to have a really really bad day.

Scotty #

OP, you could contact their hosts...

Domain Name: RENTBERRY.COM
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.101domain.com
Registrar URL: https://www.101domain.com/
Updated Date: 2020-11-16T06:59:37Z
Creation Date: 2011-10-13T18:08:58Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2028-10-13T18:08:58Z
Registrar: https://www.101domain.com/
Registrar IANA ID: 1011
Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.7604448674
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Registrant Organization: Rentberry
Registrant Street: 201 Spear Street, Suite 1100
Registrant City: San Francisco
Registrant State/Province: CA
Registrant Postal Code: 94105
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.4156030707
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
TO CONTACT REGISTRANT, COMPLETE THIS FORM: https://my.101domain.com/contact-registrant/RENTBERRY.COM.html
Name Server: RICK.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
Name Server: SARA.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net
For more information on Whois status codes, please visit https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/epp-status-codes-2014-06-16-en.
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2020-12-14T12:49:39Z <<<


If you believe this domain is in violation of our terms and conditions,
please complete an abuse complaint at

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and our team will investigate accordingly.


Information Updated: 2020-12-14 12:49:39

endofrainbow

spaceHopper wrote: »

drive around and knock the door, report it to the cops. Apply to rent a room if it's a scam they'll let you have it and ask for a bank transfer then contact the backs fraud/money laundering department. Bet it will be HSBC

I KNOW it's a scam. It's our house! What I want to know is how to have it removed from the website.

seagull

It may be that the site is legit, but that there is a scammer using it. I seem to recall there were similar issues on daft where people were advertising non-existent properties to let. In that case, it's not the platform but the individual user doing the scam. I'd say the first thing is to see how the website responds to your mail. If they're legit, you should get a reply along the line of "Sorry about that. The listing has been removed and the user banned".

Samuel T. Cogley

Report it to the local guards and fire off an email to GNECB (gnecb_dv@garda.ie).

endofrainbow

Update:

After a week of emailing Rentberry (emails kept bouncing back) I got a reply on FB messenger on Wednesday asking me to provide a telephone number or email address. They didn't get in touch so I just bombarded them with messages every 30 mins for a few hours....

The ad has been removed and a report made to the local Garda Station.

Graces7

endofrainbow wrote: »

Update:

After a week of emailing Rentberry (emails kept bouncing back) I got a reply on FB messenger on Wednesday asking me to provide a telephone number or email address. They didn't get in touch so I just bombarded them with messages every 30 mins for a few hours....

The ad has been removed and a report made to the local Garda Station.

Well done!

webpal

How did you find out your house was on this site?

endofrainbow

webpal wrote: »

How did you find out your house was on this site?

purely by chance. I was checking something on Google Images and saw the house listed under Rentberry