Bryan talbot/leslie/bulgaria/rental fraud/scam/cherry tree house/paedophile
This new scam from the con artist extraordinaire, Bryan Talbot, came to light just recently and concerned the Owners Direct website which allows you to book property with owners directly. This new Talbot scam is also in Use on Ebay and in fact any website that has high cost items. Beware.
You have to remember, Owners direct 90% of customers is bank transfers, they don't offer credit card payments...
Basically the Bryan Talbot clan sends out a Phishing email to thousands of owners of properties for rental, or for sale, or Ebay cars, anything HIGH value.
If the person opens the email and his computer is then compromised then all their login details for Owners Direct, Paypal, Ebay etc are in the hands of Bryan Talbot.
Talbot then logs into their Owners Direct account (Or Ebay) and changes the email address slightly on their advert and sets up that email address account. He then starts getting emails from interested bookers, in this one case he attacked a ski chalet and had 600 people interested in renting.
He then asks for a deposit, which MOST pay, then eventually they pay the full amount... All via bank transfer. Talbot talks to them via email, and even uses throw away prepaid mobiles too.
All the money is in the bank. Then he hides and lies low...
Owners direct complete over 500,000 bookings a year so this is not a small website, and as I said, most are bank transfer which no-one really questions because the website is so big and established/recommended...
The guy who finally discovered this had booked the chalet, paid Ј9000 and has lost the lot. Not the banks problem, Not the owners problem, Not the websites problem... ZERO COMEBACK...
This is the cleverest scam I have seen todate from Bryan Talbot, and I have seen hundreds... Basic rule of thumb is so so simple - check Bryan Talbot is not behind it in any way.
Brianj42
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