We have never suffered from any scam at Maison Boye, nor has anyone ever been scammed in connection with Maison Boye - but we thought it best to include this guidance for the 2012 booking season because of recent scare stories, and because we want all our clients to know how to make sure that their bookings are perfectly safe.  

The reported incidents are where scammers pretend to be the owners of overseas villas by advertising a copy of a real villa's details. They take bookings and payments from unsuspecting holidaymakers, who then go on to arrive and find the place is already occupied by the real owner's guests. Scammers can make themselves seem credible by offering "proofs" (such as utility bills) that are either fake or have been cunningly obtained by posing as a cautious holidaymaker and asking the real owner to provide them!  

Fortunately, there are also some helpful articles around giving advice on how to handle this situation, so we are pleased to list below some of the recommended ways you can verify the validity of your booking.

We only promote Maison Boye on cheznous.com (villa ref 186970), which means it also appears on their sister website holidaybank.co.uk. It may also be found occasionally on eBay. So if you've seen it listed anywhere else then you are looking at an unauthorised or out-of-date listing. All genuine advertisements directly steer you towards our own website boye.co.uk.

Are you dealing with the real owner?

We are Paul & Claire Downham of Bluntisham in Cambridgeshire. Our email address of paul@boye.co.uk is obviously a pretty good clue, and if you ask us any question about the house, the Caylus area, or travel arrangements, etc. we will know the answer. 

You can go to any WHOIS search facility to check the ownership of the boye.co.uk domain name and you will see that it is registered to us at our home address, and also that it has been registered to us for well over 10 years... and that's a very good test of authenticity, because while scammers can set up believable fake domain names, they can't backdate them!

Check the local phone directory too ...

Another tip is to check the local phone directory to see that the villa is listed under the name you expect to find as the owner. The online French telephone directory is free to use, and like ours is called Yellow Pages (Pages Jaunes) with a white section (Pages Blanches) for residential. You can visit www.pagesjaunes.fr here, then click on the PagesBlanches tab, then enter "downham" as the (nom) and "paul" as the (prenom), then click on (trouver), and you will find us at Boye in Caylus ... the only Paul Downham in the whole of France!

Who are you paying?

We process all deposits and final balances into our personal bank account, with all cheques and transfers made out to us by name, and any correspondence going to our home address as above. If paying by PayPal (and its probably best not to) the payment should only go to paul@boye.co.uk, the same email address as above. You should not be paying anything to anyone else ... no agents, no intermediaries, no card payments.

Have you got a key?

Our policy is to send you a marked and returnable front door key by post a few weeks before you are due to stay, and when this isn't possible such as in the rare case of a very late booking , we may use an on-site emergency key. Any other suggested arrangement (such as greeting you on site, or supplying a KeySafe code etc.) would be wrong.