Prime House Estates +44 20 3239 4347 Fake realtor

[HannahsDad]

Prime House Estates at http://primehouse-estates.com

[Your name here] is one of Europe's most recognisable brands attracting thousands of buyers every month. In addition, our advanced technology allows us to market your property to buyers across our entire network of offices.

We eliminate risks associated with Internet transactions by acting as a licensed, neutral, third party.

CIS Tower Miller St Manchester M4 4AH England
Phone: +44 20 3239 4347
Fax: +44 20 3147 4872

Domain registered anonymously 25th April 2014 for 1 year only

[Martin Lewis]

Mod Note: This post was made by the scammer himself or a confused victim. As stated in the above post. Prime House Estates at http://primehouse-estates.com is a fake site. (BW)

I am very surprised to find this listed as a scam. I must say that I have rented an apartment using their services and they were OK. Stop giving people a bad name and please investigate before making any accusations.

[AlanJones]

^^^I'm guessing scammer - so I've reported the post.

[AlanJones]

UK phone numbers are strictly geographic.

Scammer's claimed location Manchester.

Phone numbers - not Manchester

Only about 150 miles out in fact.

[AlanJones]

From the scammer's website, detailing the services they offer:

1. The Tenant will provide the Owner with his address and contact details.

2. The Owner will initiate a rental transaction by dropping off the property's keys and documents to an Prime House Estates RENTALS agency along with the tenant's shipping details.
3. Prime House Estates RENTALS will make a detailled inspection of the property's documents in order to certify ownership. If ownership is confirmed, Prime House Estates RENTALS will accept the initiated transaction. However, if ownership is not confirmed, Prime House Estates RENTALS will decline the initiated transaction and notify the Tenant to stop all communication with the other party.
4. Prime House Estates RENTALS will send a written confirmation to the Tenant certifying that the Landlord is the legal Owner of the property to be rented. Prime House Estates RENTALS will hold the keys, the copies of ownership documents, the copies of Owner ID`s and a normal, standard rental contract signed by the Owner.
5. At this point the Tenant will transfer a refundable security deposit to the Prime House Estates RENTALS agent responsible with the transaction.
6. The Tenant will complete the payment following the specific instructions sent by us. After the payment has been verified, the funds will be locked, and an Prime House Estates RENTALS agent will fly to the Tenant's address within the next 24 hours (Monday to Sunday) to assist the Tenant's inspection of the property.
7.a. If the Tenant is completely satisfied with the property, he will sign the contract and receive the keys to the house. One copy of the contract will remain at the Tenant and one copy will be given to the Landlord along with the security deposit.
7.b. If for any reason, the Tenant will not be satisfied with the property, the Prime House Estates RENTALS agent will refund the security deposit to the Tenant and will return the property's keys and documents to the Landlord. The refund will be made in cash, on the spot. In this instance the transaction is finished with no further obligations for the Tenant or the Landlord .

This counts as an Escrow service - to offer such a service they would have to be authorised by the regulators and give the details of that authorisation - they aren't and they don't.

[Martin Lewis]

Mod Note: This post was made by the scammer himself or a confused victim. As stated Prime House Estates at http://primehouse-estates.com is a fake site. This post is an attempt to keep what victims that may be still on the hook.(BW)

I am not a scam artist and I am not related with this website. I can prove with documents that I have rented the apartment through them. I don't know who you people are, but you better get your facts straight!

[AlanJones]

Sure, and you were such a satisfied customer of theirs that you decide to search out any bad press about them and "put the record straight" - half an hour after the fake site was listed.

I'm guessing it is more likely that you found this site as a referrer in your server logs and realised that your scam had been publicised.

ETA: Just to add

[Dotti]

Welcome Martin,

I have taken the liberty of assigning you a more appropriate title.

It's always interesting when someone comes along trying to support the legitimacy of a site immediately after a post is made about them, yet they claim they are not affiliated with the site. Do you really expect anyone to believe that you spend your days monitoring the internet for posts about "companies" you have done business with (but you are not affiliated with) or you just happened to find a single post on the internet 21 minutes after it was posted?

Even more interesting is the claim to be a satisfied customer when the domain is only 5 days old. If the site was real, it would be too soon for anyone to have completed the entire process and moved into a new place!

But in the end, even without your completely implausible attempt to add legitimacy to a fake site, we already knew and posted the facts.

I see that this site looks remarkably similar to another fake site, http://www.union-realestates.com which is also listed here.

As Alan has already clearly stated, there are very specific rules and requirements for escrow services, and this "company" does not meet them.

[TerranceBoyce]

I hope they can rent flats or provide escrow services (though we know they don't, don't we ?) better than they can set up websites.

Unfortunately the website uses a US template which is a mistake to handle UK property as the countries use different words and technical terms in the property market.

To confuse matters further, if that's possible, it appears to offer flats for rent, escrow services and also impersonates the National Association of Estate Agents. Quite an impressive feat, but indicative that the brains behind this should get some.

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) is the UK's leading professional body for estate agency. Its members practise across all aspects of property both in the UK and overseas, including residential and commercial sales and letting, property management, business transfer, auctioneering and land.

……………...

We were established with the goal of upholding good practice and high professional standards in UK estate agency. This struck a chord with the industry at a time when there was little representation for estate agents and has allowed the Association to grow phenomenally over the years.

The person setting this up has ignored the fact that trade bodies exist only to serve their members not compete with them. A woeful effort at building a website.