Tenant Scam: French Retiree Victimized by Subletting Crook on Airbnb

2023-08-19 17:05:06

A French retiree was cheated by a tenant who refuses to pay the rent and who has sublet the accommodation on Airbnb several times.

Claire decided to put her furnished apartment up for rent last May in order to pay the costs of her husband’s residence for the elderly, according to what the Actu Paris site reported. “In order to avoid too many constraints, I called on a real estate agency,” she told the local media.

Quickly, she received the “exemplary” file of a young tenant. According to false documents submitted to the agency, the man earned 7,000 euros (10,300 Canadian dollars) per month, fooling everyone by the fact.

It was regarding two weeks following the new tenant moved in that things started to turn sour.

“He told me over the phone that the apartment had a lot of flaws. However, he told me that his father and his brother have companies that might manage the work,” Claire told the French media.

However, the father of the tenant is none other than the crook Samy Brami, alias Samy la Weasel, recognized for having rented unsanitary accommodation at astronomical prices.

Although she was unaware of Samy Brami’s past, Claire sensed something fishy. “They put a gigantic TV on the wall and the new sofa bed I had put in was replaced with a lower quality one,” she recalled.

The case took on disproportionate proportions when Claire learned that instead of living in the accommodation, her tenant was subletting it on Airbnb for the sum of 490 euros (721 Canadian dollars) per night. According to the platform, the man was also managing four other ads.

After the owner of the apartment had the multiple advertisements withdrawn from the various platforms, such as Airbnb and Vrbo, the tenant at fault counter-attacked by refusing to pay his rent.

With two months of unpaid rent, Claire had to change her husband’s residence, because she might no longer pay where he was. “He is no longer in Île-de-France, which allowed me to have him close to me. I am very helpless, very upset and very angry,” she said.

Given the time that the legal process will take, the situation is not to the benefit of the retiree, underlined her lawyer, Me Aurélia Morrachini.

“We are going to send a formal notice of expulsion, but there will be the winter break. It’s a family of thugs!” said the real estate agency.

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