Online Fraudulent Ski Booking Website

Online Threat Alerts (OTA) - Alerting you to scams and frauds.

Online Fraudulent Ski Booking Website - www.SkiMoar.com

The story below was sent to us by someone who got ripped off by the fraudulent website www.SkiMoar.com, and wants to make sure no else suffers the same fate. We have confirmed that the website is fraudulent and people booking ski holidays should look out for the same and similar websites that are currently scamming people out of thousands of dollars. Stories like the one below will help educate others about online threats, so we are encouraging victims of online crimes to share their stories by sending them to us.

Here is the story...

I have just been defrauded of 4300 GBP by a sophisticated scammer. Hope the details here helps someone else avoid the depressing frustration of being screwed out of you hard earned money.

We booked a Ski Chalet through skimoar.com; a very slick website as can be gleaned from the cached pages at the search engine because it is no longer active. We were in regular friendly email contact with seemingly well mannered (impeccable English speaking) contacts Marc Dalseg and Maria Folger (fake names) who purported to be from Carden Office Property Ltd trading as SkiMoar.com. Based in the darkest reaches of Scotland and reported by Companies House as a safe going concern involved in property rental; the scammers really picked well.

Sophistication of the scam was high - all communication was well versed around our intended holiday: catering, travel etc. However after foolishly paying the invoice; a neat PDF with seemingly strong credentials (phone number - actually a message service we thought was a convenience for England folks; Halifax UK bank details; etc); we didn't get a response to one of our enquiries and started to feel uncomfortable. It turns out that the account name for payment was Carden Office Propriety (neat, huh... and missed whilst reading the invoice).

The Halifax branch hosting the account refused to divulge details on the account holder; but we are now aware that their web site was carefully scraped from another's, including convincing details and photos. We have reported the incident to the police however it seems that we were effectively screwed by an advanced, English speaking/culture aware, organization or individual.

From whois.net information the original website was registered to: Website: skimoar.com

Title: Premium ski chalets and apartments in luxurious winter resorts
Description: Premium ski chalets and apartments in luxurious winter resorts
Type: house

Domain Age: 39 Days
Organisation: xu liang
Owner: liang xu
Owner Address: xiang zhou qu cui xiang jie dao No.513
Owner City: zhu hai shi
Owner Postcode: 519000
Phone Number: 075622913386
Email: pingyi1@hotmail.com

Searching for that phone number has revealed a couple of other sites they may be using to scam people:

www.west263.com
www.SORGENFREILEBEN.com
www.euvilla.com
www.cotevillas.com

The registrar/hoster might not be aware of this criminal activity, but I doubt it:
CHENGDU WEST DIMENSION DIGITAL TECHN

Online Threat Alerts (OTA) https://www.onlinethreatalerts.com/

Comments / Answers (26)

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Comment count 26

Oct 16, 2017 by an anonymous user from: Milan, Lombardy, Italy

Euvilla.com is still working. It claims to sell Bose product.

Jun 30, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Ghent, Flanders, Belgium

Euvilla is a fraud, booked last month , paid 2 weeks ago . No sign of life since then, these guys are professionals.
Lets hope I get something back. If anyone has an idea post it on this site please.

Best regards,
Dirk.

Jun 27, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Singapore, North West, Singapore

To add to my earlier post, the communication was through euvilla.com

Jun 27, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Singapore, North West, Singapore

Hi

We also appear to have been scammed. The communication dried up shortly after the website went down. We paid to 'Traveleo Ltd', to a bank account in Germany. After reading this and another website it looks like these crooks have history.

What I am not clear about is, how do we know that they are the same people as cotevilla and also what action has been taken in the past? Are there court cases/ names of people who we can pursue?

Jun 23, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Petah Tikva, Merkaz, Israel

We have also been scammed by them, while they were operating as euvilla.com

Jun 22, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands

euvilla.com is now also offline after robbing probably different people like myself and the rest. Question is whether anything can be done? I am sure the local police will not be able to do anything and for international agencies this will not be big enough to take any form of action. It is very unfortunate and I can only wish these people a very bad health.
J

Jun 10, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Geneva, Switzerland

a new web site is still active www.euvilla.com. This is the exact copy of www.cotevillas.com!!! Only the name of the houses have been modified. How those guys can still operate???
Nico

Jun 17, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Solna, Stockholm, Sweden

OMG! I am so angry with them.. they stole over 4500GBP from us when we booked a villa via www.cotevillas.com in Corfu Greece this summer.

And now I see they use the same villa, but they renamed it of course... Why cant the police in the EU nations start a fraud Group or something? They must be stopped NOW!!!

/ C-bel in Sweden!

Jun 20, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Ashburn, Virginia, United States

Hi! Same messed-up situation here. Tried to contact SEB to see if they can do anything about it.

Have you had any feedback from your bank? I so hope thay catch them and put an end to this!

Jun 21, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Vilnius, Vilniaus Apskritis, Lithuania

Hello,

We contacted with our bank, also SEB but unfortunately they said that they cannot help for us because the account to which we transfered the money in Germany, is already empty and there are no availability to make refund of our payment:(

Maybe somebody have another news from their banks?

Jun 9, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Geneva, Switzerland

Hello everyone,

I have been robbed as well and just discover it yesterday. We should have rent a nice villa in Mallorca...

If there is a possibility to get the fund back, thanks to help

Nico

May 27, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Vilnius, Vilniaus Apskritis, Lithuania

hello, everybody,
unfortunately, we also fell a prey to those swindlers..booked villa in Sardinia from 2 June, transfered money for them and several days ago they disappeared and websiate is not working, it is for sale..maybe somebody know what we can do in such situation? as I understood there is no possibility to return back our money..:(

May 23, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Booked and transfered 9495€ from Italy for a villa in st tropez. Any advise on how I should try to get my money back, if ever possible ? The invoice is issued by Merchiston Property Management.
Rgds
Massimo

May 27, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Vilnius, Vilniaus Apskritis, Lithuania

Hi,Massimo,

You are not alone in this situation..we also transfered for villa rent in Sardinia and only now we understood that we falled a prey to swindlers..:(

May 13, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Wakefield, England, United Kingdom

***** EVERYONE PLEASE READ ****

THE WEBSITE - COTEVILLAS.com IS A CON, DO NOT BOOK WITH THEM.

I am the director of Merchiston Property Management Ltd based in Edinburgh and we are a property management company - NOT A HOLIDAY LETTINGS BOOKING COMPANY.

They had stolen my company name and address.

DO NOT BOOK WITH COTEVILLAS.com.

Apr 2, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Porto, Portugal

HI there,

I am about to rent a house with www.cotevillas.com, and doing some research on the internet I found that their company's description is the same as skimoar.com.

Does anyone know if cotevillas.com belongs to the same fraudulent scheme/gang?

Thank you!

Apr 2, 2015 by info

See comment below.

Apr 6, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Porto, Portugal

Thanks! This site and this page has just saved me 7.000€!
I felt the same as the Finnish fellow below, it sounded too good to be true, so I searched and searched the net trying to find something weird about the site and ended up at your page.

I tried calling "Klaus" from cotevillas.com and the number wasn't working. I sent him an email asking for the correct number and he replied they were without a phone for a month - that's when I knew something was definitely wrong!

Thanks again guys!

Apr 7, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Aalter, Flanders, Belgium

This is crazy!!! Yesterday we were going to book through cotevillas.com too!!! And also very fast and polite reply from Mr. Klaus!!! It was all so nice, too nice...and then you find out, that you have to pay full amount in front...strange...so I went to google...and I came here.

THANK YOU!!!

Mar 19, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Helsinki, South Finland, Finland

Hi,

I found this on your website and noticed that the same "management" is running this site http://www.cotevillas.com/our-company/

Looked to good to be true so I didnt book and when doing some research I found this Skimoar company and the warning on your site.

Would be great if you could warn others. Seems this cotevillas.com is a pretty new site.

thanks

Apr 13, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Madrid, Spain

Similar to one of the contributors below we found a villa with http://www.cotevillas.com/ which is almost certainly a scam and this post sent me in the right direction. Doesn't seem to be anything you can do about it apart from highlighting it via sites like this. Thanks.

Mar 5, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Lesvos, Voreio Aigaio, Greece

Same here people,

I have a travel agency in Greece Thessaloniki, Overseas travel.
On the 27th of January we send 3295 pounds in the account number GB17BARC20203740092487 account in Barcleys bank under the name GARDEN OFFICE PROPERTY LTD.
The name of the chalet in the SKIMOAR.COM was "Glory"
Since then there was no communication by email or phone.
And of course no reservation was made by the Skimoar web site.

WE HAVE ADDRESSED THE PROBLEM TO THE "prosecuting cybercrime" FILLED IN A FORM ETC.
WHAT THEY TOLD US IS THAT THE BRITISH LAW DOESNT APPLY IF THE AMMOUNT OF FRAUD IS LESS THAN 10.000 EUROS TOTAL TO EACH COUNTRY. HAVING SAID THAT WE COULDNT EVEN GET THE NAME OF THE ACCOUNT HOLDER.
LAST TIME I CHECKED (TODAY) THE SITE IS STILL ON AND FULLY ACTIVE.

HAPPY TO JOIN FORCES WITH EVERYONE.

Feb 14, 2015 by an anonymous user from: The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands

Alas, if only I had read this message a few days earlier. We have been robbed of £2300 when booking a last minute chalet with these people.

PLEASE DO NOT BOOK WITH THESE PEOPLE. WE ARE GOING TO PROCEED STOPPING THESE PEOPLE.

Happy to join forces with other victims. Let me know if you are interested in trying to get your money back.

We are extremely keen to get our money back and put a stop to these people.

Feb 14, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Brussels, Belgium

Hi, same here. Just realised we have been scammed too. Happy to join forces too.

Jan 24, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Veszprem, Hungary

The same happened with us almost the same time when you posted this. And today I saw that the site is working again.

Jan 19, 2015 by an anonymous user from: Groningen, Netherlands

Thank you I was about to book a holiday with SkiMoar for 4 of us but just had a feeling that it was all a little too good to be true.

So had a Google for any reviews and found your story. I'm sorry you lost a lot of money, but thank you for writing your piece as it has saved us and will probably save others as they are still masquerading out there..