Fraud Now - Caveat Vendor

[Stewart]

I'll update this as things develop and will publish details of the scammers if I do end up getting defrauded.

I accepted a last minute booking on Sunday for a Monday evening entry (for five nights). It was for a number of men who are doing canvassing work for a well known telco.

I use the excellent Supercontrol booking engine so customer had to agree T&C's to go on and make the booking - and the vital condition for this occasion was that payment was cleared i.e. cash before entry.

They arrived late at night saying they would "pay tomorrow". I foolishly agreed. Hasn't happened. I got a call from their boss and he agreed to make a PayPal payment (and I was able to send the payment link via Supercontrol) with a deadline of noon today.

At 13:40 guess what, no payment.

My cynical prediction is that they will either push the tomorrow story or I will be "paid"

So while I hatch my eviction plan be aware that PayPal will not arbitrate disputes for "intangibles" such as holiday letting. HOWEVER that does not stop the buyer trying to persuade his card company to reverse the payment.

Watch this space

[Bridg1t]

Hi Stewart, what a total nightmare; poor you. I hope you do get your money, and your cynical predictions/ worst fears are wrong.

I had a timely reminder NOT to allow entry without cleared funds. I have a FHL which will take 4 people and had 2 people who negociated a discount for their under occupancy of the property.

Their friends booked another local house, but turned up with a cheque; stayed one night, cancelled the cheque and ended up in my place. I only put this all together as I keep in touch with another local holiday let provider, who emailed me about this party.

Both of us have doubly re-doubled our resolution to never allow occupancy without full cleared funds. This can be embarassing, when you get a sob story about paypal payments being unable to be processed, etc, and we are all so customer focussed that we tend to give benefit of the doubt.

How are you going to go about the eviction? Thankfully I have never had to do this. I realise we grant them a license not a tenancy and are thus entitled to end the said license, but are you employing a security firm/ changing the locks or what?

[B&B netherlands]

this is really awkward. it's one of the reasons i never accept bookings paid by bank - on very short notice. cash on arrival, or no access. once accepted a guest arriving very late, midnight, part of a group with a family that paid cash on arrival - she didn't. (i run a B&B; she booked for the other room to be shared, which was with a 2 yr old that ended up sleeping in the double bed with her parents)

after 3 days i decided to evict her, for more reasons than just not paying. her behaviour was obnoxious and she kept all of us awake the whole night. i know it's useless to call the police here for that. it was bloody uncomfortable, also for her friends - who offered to pay for her, nicely enough.

she locked herself up, threw a terrible tantrum, it was a complete mess in her room after she left. stole things i didn't notice. even my neighbours heard her yelling and shouting...

i do have a 'plan B' now for non-paying guests: 'i keep your luggage while you go to the bank, and i give you 30 mins to do that.' and otherwise do NO longer accept bookings without having names, adresses, phone numbers of the guests. this booking came through friends of the other guests - who didn't even know this person.

'work related' bookings are my nightmare. i keep them off the door as much as i can! always want 'more for less money', always book (try to) friday afternoon at 4, starting the monday after that, always want 'a discount as our personnel will stay for weeks, which we cannot say now how many.' yeah. avoid!!!!!

[Stewart]

Promised PayPal transfer failed to materialise. I'm absolutely sure that the "sender" had a deliberate plan to keep me fobbed off in this way for the duration of the stay.

(at one point he was insisting my computer had a problem that was causing me not to see the PayPal confirmation)

The £250 loss is too small to pursue.

This morning I made entry to the cottage, secured the guest key (v. important) and told them they had to go. Reluctantly they went. Apart from an appalling mess I stood over them to ensure there was no malicious damage (also vital I think).

BTW the party (5 early twenties males) had shown aggressive behavior between themselves earlier in the week so I was a wee bitty worried.

I asked the police to be in attendance but that got me nowhere. The response was that this was a civil matter (despite me indicating I had a chance of being threatened or worse).

Eventually just prior to me going in I asked a neighbour to report a disturbance and this assured me two policemen pitching up. I think under the circumstances this was justified.

Lessons learned

No one gets in without cleared payment - period

Be wary of so called corporate business. The party were selling for TalkTalk so that had given me a false sense of security. In fact it was a subcontractor (a Jay Solutions based in Manchester).

Even if dealing with a respectable company be wary about abnormal working hours that mean noise and disturbance late into the night.

No all male groups less than 35 years age. My feral lot were early twenties and by the messy, uncleaned state of the place just didn't respect fixtures and fittings at all.

Possibly no groups at all under 30 years and limited in number to the number of double beds (three in our case).

While PayPal will not arbitrate for intangible services such as this, they will refund if asked by the buyers card company. I think we are all vulnerable here.

Clearly our T&C's were not read or simply ignored and while they give you the legal high ground they do not guarantee properly behaved guests.

[Nemo]

A very pragmatic approach Stewart and hopefully you will be able to put it all down to experience with no further repercussions.

It is very hard when dealing with last minute bookings, as you want the rental income but unless you can accept immediate credit card payments you have to live on the edge a little however you then procure the money.

I have two last minute bookings for this weekend and I definitely get more headaches and more work from these type of bookings.

[waterwitch]

Stewart - I've been thinking about this awful situation all this morning really relieved to hear you got them out. Good idea to get your neighbour to phone the police!

Unfortunately we do get taken advantage of as we can be seen as an easy touch. Imagine trying that on with a hotel! I've had to get guests out (when they over-stayed) and its dreadful violation of your trust.

Well done.

[Charollaise]

"Be wary of so called corporate business. The party were selling for TalkTalk so that had given me a false sense of security. In fact it was a subcontractor (a Jay Solutions based in Manchester)."

Stewart - have you considered pursuing the company through the small claims court?

[Stewart]

After the eviction (the Police were great and added a certain amount of gravitas that was respected) I sent the following to boss man

Scottish Police (who attended this morning's eviction) have opened a case on this alleged fraud. I suggest that you use the [PayPal] link below immediately and make the payment. I will refund the remaining days once I have deducted extra cleaning and gas heating costs as per our terms and conditions.

I will continue with the charge process if you delay and will additionally issue a press release to Scottish newspapers and copy the release to TalkTalk's Group Commercial Director David Goldie (who I know from the days when he ran Martin Dawes Communications) and advise how your company is operating.

rgds,

At 1630 PayPal issued an e-mail indicating a deposit for full amount had been made.

I'd be surprised if I see this money at the end of the day but who knows

[Hells Bells]

Stewart, it should have gone into your Paypal account immediately unless it was an echeck payment.

[Stewart]

Thanks Helen. The point for me is that even if money comes into your PayPal account it could be reversed out. PayPal advised yesterday that "while they do not offer buyer or seller protection services for intangibles ( i.e. holiday lets rather than widgets) they will pay out to a credit card company acting on behalf of their client"

[Nightowl]

yeah, but if the payment is reversed out you can go forward with Plan A (above).

He must know that and would therefore be on a pretty sticky wicket if he attempted to defraud you of the payment just made.

I reckon (hope) you'll get to keep the payment that you just got.

[Hells Bells]

I think he/they would be on very dodgy ground trying to get a chargeback too.

[Normandie]

At 1630 PayPal issued an e-mail indicating a deposit for full amount had been made.

I'd be surprised if I see this money at the end of the day but who knows

Result and respect! An excellent outcome from a bad situation.

If they were planning to reverse out the payment they wouldn't have made it - imo. What's the point - you'd already evicted the "guests" so why pay after the event?

If the threat of a claim for fraud and bad press encouraged the payment to be made that situation does not go away just because you've had the payment for a few days.

Hope that one is done and dusted, anyway.

[harcourtv57]

Well done Stewart - a difficult situation which you handled very well.

We too have had some probs with last minute bookings but have made it a rule, whatever the story, not to allow access unless full payment (including the damage deposit) has been made.

In our early days we had a party who booked all our properties (3) for a two week work related booking, they gave us the runaround over the Paypal payment and finally agreed to pay cash on arrival. We duly met them as agreed, having paid out for car parking permits for them - to be told they had decided to book into a B&B elsewhere