Rental Scammer - [email protected]

The same email wording, same house address, have been used in a recent scam (15 August 2017) by a different user account [email protected].

The ad was placed on rental portal site kamernet.nl, and the communication was carried out in Dutch. Then, the owner asked to move communications to a private gmail account (still in Dutch). The communication in the gmail account was then switch to English.

"Sorry for the late reply. We are Nienke and Thomas. Travel and holidays are a big part of our lives. We love the mountains and skiing and last year we moved to Haute Nendaz, Switzerland to open up a business in tourism. We own a chalet, which at the moment is our main source of income. It was pretty hard, we were very close to giving up but in the end we made it.

At first, the apartment was on sale. Being not very profitable and after further discussion with my husband we decided to rent it. The apartment's address is: Bedumerstraat 98, 9716BP, Groningen. The monthly rent is 630euro with all utilities included. The apartment is furnished and equipped.

The minimum period for renting the apartment is 3 months up to maximum 5 years. Registration to the municipality is possible. We have written out of the municipality so you will register the house as a main tenant, a condition for getting housing allowance. We also have a storage place where you can deposit pieces of furniture so you can bring your own but please keep in mind that you can't store all the apartment's furniture there.

At the moment, it's impossible for both of us to personally show you the apartment due to our busy schedule and chalet administration but this is not a problem because we can use Homeaway's services. They handle rentals for people all over the world providing secure services for both tenants and hosts.

We can offer you more details if you are interested.

Thanks,
Nienke and Thomas

P.S. I appreciate a reply in English, if it is possible. Thank you!"

The rental portal site had been alerted and the account was blocked. They said that the ad was up only for a very short time, but apparently attracted quite some interest.

Hi EZ CMa,

Last week me and my girlfriend responded on an apartment in Eindhoven on kamernet.nl.
The contact person was called Nienke, and after initial contact she asked to switch to her 'private' gmail account: [email protected]
We then received the following e-mail:

Hello .. & ...

I'm sorry for the late response. We are Nienke and Patric. Travel and holidays are a big part of our lives. We love the mountains and skiing and last year we moved to Haute Nendaz, Switzerland to open up a business in tourism. We own a chalet, which at the moment is our main source of income. It was pretty hard, we were very close to giving up but in the end we made it.

At first, the apartment was on sale. Being not very profitable and after further iscussion with my husband we decided to rent it. The apartment's address is: de Greide 24, 5622NC Eindhoven. The monthly rent is 630 euro with all utilities included. The kitchen and bathroom are fully furnished and equipped.

The minimum period for renting the apartment is 3 months up to maximum 5 years. Registration to the municipality is possible. We have written out of the municipality so you will register the house as a main tenant, a condition for getting housing allowance.

At the moment, it's impossible for both of us to personally show you the apartment due to our busy scheduel and chalet administration but this is not a problem becuase we can use Homeaway's services. They handle rentals for people all over the world providing secure services for both tenants and hosts.

We can offer you more details if you are interested.

Regards,
Nienke and Patric

P.S. I appreciate a reply in English, if it is possible.
Thank you!

It might be just me, but this looks awfully similar
Searching on Homeaway (or google) to chalet Nandez and then looking for a home-owner named Nienke yielded no results, as was to be expected.
I hope by adding this comment more people will be able to find this thread on Google (searching on Nienke Breuer or Patric Breuer).

Please, do not let yourself be fooled by whoever this is. He/she is still active today (may 2018) and asks for a 1100 euro deposit in order for you to visit the apartment.
The room seemed to good to be true, and it turned out to be just that.
I'm happy that I found this thread before we did anything stupid.

Thank you OP.

Hi guys,

I created this account to thank you and to share my story; I nearly got bamboozled by this scammer too.

Just like Tipejojo, my girlfriend and I were looking for an apartment. After weeks of lurking on different websites, we found an amazing apartment in Groningen on Kamernet (Grote Beerstraat 376). We immediately took the bait and showed our interest, not realising this was too good to be true. We did find it strange that the advert got taken down almost instantly. At first we thought the apartment was gone, but on 15/05/2018 at 15:36 (CEST) we received the following email from [email protected] :

"Hello …,

I'm sorry for the late response. We are Nienke and Patric. Travel and holidays are a big part of our lives. We love the mountains and skiing and last year we moved to Haute Nendaz, Switzerland to open up a business in tourism. We own a chalet, which at the moment is our main source of income. It was pretty hard, we were very close to giving up but in the end we made it.

At first, the apartment was on sale. Being not very profitable and after further discussion with my husband we decided to rent it. The apartment's address is: Grote Beerstraat 376, 9742SM Groningen. The monthly rent is 660 euro with all utilities included. The apartment is furnished and equipped.

The minimum period for renting the apartment is 3 months up to maximum 5 years. Registration to the municipality is possible. We have written out of the municipality so you will register the house as a main tenant, a condition for getting housing allowance. We also have a storage place where you can deposit pieces of furniture so you can bring your own but please keep in mind that you can't store all the apartment's furniture there.

At the moment, it's impossible for both of us to personally show you the apartment due to our busy schedule and chalet administration but this is not a problem because we can use Homeaway's services. They handle rentals for people all over the world providing secure services for both tenants and hosts.

We can offer you more details if you are interested.

Regards,
Nienke and Patric

P.S. I appreciate a reply in English, if it is possible. Thank you!"

Thanks to you guys we did not get robbed of 1160 EUR.

Heey! We got the same email as you as well, also via Kamernet, but this time for an apartment in Amsterdam.

Hello,

I'm sorry for the late response. We are Nienke and Patric. Travel and holidays are a big part of our lives. We love the mountains and skiing and last year we moved to Haute Nendaz, Switzerland to open up a business in tourism. We own a chalet, which at the moment is our main source of income. It was pretty hard, we were very close to giving up but in the end we made it.

At first, the apartment was on sale. Being not very profitable and after further discussion with my husband we decided to rent it. The apartment's address is: Van Oldenbarneveldtstraat 15, 1052JP Amsterdam. The monthly rent is 870 euro with all utilities included. The apartment is furnished and equipped.

The minimum period for renting the apartment is 3 months up to maximum 5 years. Registration to the municipality is possible. We have written out of the municipality so you will register the house as a main tenant, a condition for getting housing allowance. We also have a storage place where you can deposit pieces of furniture so you can bring your own but please keep in mind that you can't store all the apartment's furniture there.

At the moment, it's impossible for both of us to personally show you the apartment due to our busy schedule and chalet administration but this is not a problem because we can use Homeaway's services. They handle rentals for people all over the world providing secure services for both tenants and hosts.

We can offer you more details if you are interested.

Regards,
Nienke and Patric

Created an account just to repeat that this scam is still going. Now in Denmark, I received (and even believed for a couple of days, that:


Good evening ***** and Happy New Year !

I'm sorry for the late response. We are Maaike and Christian. Travel and holidays are a big part of our lives. We love the mountains and skiing and last year we moved to Haute Nendaz, Switzerland to open up a business in tourism. We own a chalet, which at the moment is our main source of income. It was pretty hard, we were very close to giving up but in the end we made it.

At first, the apartment was on sale. Being not very profitable and after further discussion with my husband we decided to rent it. The apartment's address is: **********. The monthly rent is 6850 kr with the utilities included. The apartment is furnished and equipped.

The minimum period for renting the apartment is 3 months up to maximum 7 years. Registration to the municipality is possible. We also have a storage place where you can deposit pieces of furniture so you can bring your own but please keep in mind that you can't store all the apartment's furniture there.

At the moment, it's impossible for both of us to personally show you the apartment due to our busy schedule and chalet administration but this is not a problem because we can use Homeaway's services. They handle rentals for people all over the world providing secure services for both tenants and hosts.

We can offer you more details if you are interested.

Regards,
Maaike and Christian

P.S. I appreciate a reply in English, if it is possible. Thank you!