It’s the holidays and many people will be renting accommodation on the coast, but one family won’t easily forget the unfortunate experience they had at Christmas 2022. Lore and Nico from Roeselare thought they had rented a flat with sea view in the seaside resort of Koksijde, but when they and their three children arrived, they discovered the woman they had rented the accommodation from on Facebook wasn’t even the owner! Their holiday plans have been irrevocably spoiled.
The family are the victims of an unscrupulous fraudster, who has done this kind of thing before!
As agreed, the couple headed for the sixth-floor apartment with a sea view on the day they believed they had rented it, but once arrived they discovered that the flat wasn’t being rented out.
“It’s not every day that we both take the week off. We were looking forward to a week at the seaside with the kids for Christmas. We had planned to celebrate Christmas, go for walks, rent go carts for the kids, have a real family holiday, but it was not to be” the couple explain.
They had found the flat on Facebook’s Marketplace and contacted the woman claiming to be the landlady: “Emma Willems”. “She answered all our questions. She had a regular Facebook profile. Everything seemed A-OK”.
The couple transferred 525 euros and looked forward to their holiday. On the agreed date they arrived at the premises in high spirits, but these were soon disappointed when it became clear there were people living in all the flats on that floor. A lady explained that the previous week too an elderly couple had arrived expecting to take possession of a flat, but they had also been conned by “Emma Willems”!
Lore than contacted “Emma Willems” on Facebook. She saw how her messages were being read. Then she was blocked and “Emma Willems” deleted her profile.
“It was clear we had been conned too! But by whom is a mystery because everything was done under a false name. Our holiday has been destroyed. We drove home with three kids crying in the car” says Lore.
“We’ve planned a number of daytrips to the coast. The kids will ride in their go carts, but we have lost our money for good!”
“It’s scandalous and we hope that by telling this story we can warn other people. In future we will be particularly careful!”
The couple are filing a complaint with the police.