A mum-of-one has been left feeling "stupid" after being scammed out of £370 when she booked accommodation for a French holiday.
Rebecca Webster, 44, was looking for an accessible villa in Bergerac, France, for her family to stay in for two weeks during the school holidays. While looking on Facebook Rebecca came across a four-bed villa with a hoist for the pool, a wet room, ramps and plenty of outdoor space.
She reached out to the apparent owner and felt confident he was legitimate after a phone call where he told Rebecca the home was adapted for his mum who has multiple sclerosis, a lifelong condition which affects the brain and nerves.
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Rebecca transferred a £370 deposit over to him via bank transfer, and was looking forward to the holiday in July. But a week later, she saw posts saying the alleged owner was a con man, and that he didn't own the villa.
After confronting him and getting no reply, Rebecca demanded a refund but was unable to get hold of the seller. She cancelled the family holiday and never got her money back.
Rebecca, a benefits officer, from Coventry, said: "It was a lovely villa, it was very accessible for me. I contacted him to ask what weeks were available and he told me I could book it for July.
"Before we booked I spoke to him on the phone, we spoke about my disability, how accessible the villa was and I asked about the restaurants nearby. He really sold it to me.
"After sending the deposit over, I saw some rumours on Facebook that he was a conman and I contacted him to explain what was going on. He blocked me on Facebook and my emails stopped sending to him."
Rebecca came across the villa in October 2022, when she began looking for a holiday for herself, husband Paul, 46, a benefits officer, and her son Seth, 17.
She added: "Because he had said he has done this for his mum, you think he will have made sure that everything was alright. It is rare to see a house so well-equipped for a wheelchair user.
"He told us there would be a housekeeper that comes round and a summer pool guy who would turn up. It was too good to be true."
Rebecca sent the scammer a message and the pair exchanged emails. Before she sent the deposit they had a long conversation on the phone.
She added: "He seemed like a really nice man, we spoke for a while about my life, being disabled. We had a proper friendly conversation. I was speaking to my husband, we are usually more switched on than this – we should have smelt a rat.
"But, we didn't think he would defraud a disabled group." [sic]
Rebecca was browsing the same group she had first seen the ad when she spotted people saying that James was a conman. She said: "Luckily we only had the villa booked. I am in a wheelchair so we don't fly, we drive, that's why we thought we would go to France.
"Once we realised it was a scam, we couldn't find the villa. We found out in January, we didn't know what we were going to do.
"Wheelchair-accessible holidays are not easy to find. We felt stupid, we should have been more switched on about it."
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