NOTE: If you have already made a Paypal deposit to this scam business, as soon as you read this, cancel your booking in writing and lodge a transaction dispute ASAP. Note there is usually a three month deadline between the payment and the opening of a dispute, so do not waste any time!!
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I am a college student living in Australia and I would like to like to post a warning about the vacation rental company "Brooklyn Deluxe Suites" run by "Mr Pate" or "Saeed Pate". They operate these sites:
http://brooklyndeluxesuites.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/brooklyndeluxesuites
And advertise on sites like craigslist, homeaway.com, greatrentals.com, newyorklisting.com, alwaysonvacation.com and so on.
I have recently been informed that they also operate under the name "Dolores Coor Pate", using the email address NYRESERVES@aol.com. Apparently, Dolores pretends to be Saeed's mother and she says they own a 3 floor brownstone building and that her son rents out the 3rd floor and she rents out the 2nd.
This business was unprofessional and dishonest - they will scam and fraud you. They not only tried to cheat me, but many others (see below). I urge you not to deal with them.
Here is my story about how I almost lost US$1000 from this company.
On October 28 2008, I started enquiring about a vacation rental for the rental advertised on greatrentals.com for 4 people for the dates December 23 2008 to January 5 2009.
I was sent a booking form (a Microsoft word document) to fill out via email from the account brooklyndsuites@aol.com to my email account. I filled out the booking form, which specified a booking policy of a 50% deposit that was fully refundable if a cancellation or request for refund was made 20 days prior to the date of the reservation. The booking form also stipulated that the refund would be made in 20-30 days.
I sent back the booking form on November 6 2008 and was asked to make a deposit of US$1200 via Paypal to the email address saeedpate@gmail.com. This payment was made on November 6 through my mother's Paypal address, which is linked to her Visa credit card.
Soon after we made this deposit, I became more and more suspicious about the legitimacy of this business and I asked the co-business owner, Saeed, to refund the deposit to my mother's account. He made an oral agreement over the phone (November 7), as well as a written agreement over email to do so (November 8).
From November 7 2008 to January 20 2009, either me or my mother were in email contact with Saeed and Brooklyn Deluxe Suites to ask for a refund. During this time, I received three confirmations I would receive the refund (November 8, December 4, January 9 2009). I also received emails with excuses as to why the refund was not yet sent - he said that their Paypal account was frozen and thus the refund had to be delayed (December 1) and blamed it on the holiday season.
He did send an email setting out a timeline for a refund (January 8). However, the timeline for the first part of the refund lapsed, and we sent another email. We then received a US$200 refund on January 18, falling far short of the total $1200. We sent another email urging Saeed to send the rest of the money before January 22, and explained we would take action like this otherwise.
Well beyond the 30 days the booking conditions stipulated for a refund, we still did not receive the remaining US$1000. We ended up lodging a transaction dispute with Visa, since our Paypal account is linked to a Visa credit card. After providing them with email communication evidence and the deposit contract, they reversed this transaction for us. If he tries to cancel last minute, you need to get written confirmation of this straight away if possible and go to the police/authorities. Chase this up ASAP because there is a 3 month limit for these kinds of disputes.
When I called them and they sounded reasonable and legitimate, and also referred me to this: http://http://appsext8.dos.state.ny.us/corp_public/CORPSEARCH.ENTITY_INFORMATION?p_nameid=3715681&p_corpid=3720709&p_entity_name=brooklyn%20deluxe%20suites&p_name_type=A&p_search_type=BEGINS&p_srch_results_page=0 but even so, I found them to be very unprofessional and generally dishonest.
If you want any more info about what happened, including how you might be able to get your money back, feel free to contact me on brooklyndeluxesuitesscam@gmail.com
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UPDATE 25/08/09: a new victim to the Brooklyn Deluxe Suites scam tells her story (below in the comments section)
UPDATE 09/11/09: yet another victim, this time an unsuspecting family from Germany, to the Brooklyn Deluxe Suites scam contacted me to tell me their story
We are a family from Germany and wanted to stay for one week (2009-10-11 till 2009-10-18) in NYC. We found brooklyn deluxe suites and everything was alright. Maybe to good. We paid the 50% deposit ($525) via paypal and waited for our journey. One week before the arrival we asked him if everything was still alright. He wrote back: yes and if we want he can offer us a better apartment. We asked him why we should take this etc. but got no answer.
2 Days befor the arrival he just sended us an email that our apartment ist cancelled because he does not own the house anymore and that he will re-transfer the deposit via 72 hours. We called him and he apologized and that he will tries to help us. He offered us to stay somewhere but that we have to change the apartment at our stay. This was no solution for us so we cancelled everything. it was really hard for us to find a new apartment in 2 days but happily we found something else and our stay in NYC was very good.
After one week we got $175 back. we called him why not everything but he just made excuses. One week ago he transferd $100 but after 3 days he cancelled the transfer. So we he still has outstanding deposits to us after 1 Month.
UPDATE 12/04/10: Brooklyn Deluxe Suites continues to scam innocent people out of their money! Another German traveller reports:
unfortunately i’ve read your article about brooklyndeluxesuites too late. I have also made the 50% deposit and got the confirmation via email. I should call them when I would be in route to the apartment. Last week when I landed in Newark, NJ, i tried to call them but I couldn’t catch them on the phone (many times). So I went to the apartment and nobody was there. I tried to call them again, but nothing. Then I went to an internet café because I thought they would have written me an email they had a problem and would delay. But also nothing….At this moment I realized that they betrayed me and so I googled about brooklynsuites and found your article .. too late.
It was not easy over eastern to get cheap hotel rooms for 6 persons in downtown Manhattan. Over the 2nd and 3rd April, there were no rooms for us, so we decided to rent a car and make a trip to Niagara falls.
Now I am back in Germany and try to get my money back, but the transaction I did with brooklynsuites was in January, too late reverse for my bank. They told me, the only thing I could do is to report an offense against them.
UPDATE 10/06/10: Unbelievable! These guys are still scamming innocent, decent people out of their money. A new victim writes:
Hi, my name is ******** *********. I was going on a trip to NYC with 3 friends and found BDS as a good place to stay. A day before the travel date he called saying the pipes have burst due to the cold winter weather and we couldnt stay there. He said via phone that he would send our money back. We never got a written confirmation of this.
Problem made short i had to dispute the money with paypal and my credit card. They won and kept all of our $540 bc i didnt have any written confirmation of the cancellation.
UPDATE 04/10/10: Another unsuspecting tourist is robbed. She writes:
My name is Bonora Irene and I’m Italian. Last November I booked on Homeaway website an apartment in Manatthan (East Village) from Pate (Brooklyn Deluxe Suites), for the first ten days of June. I sent through Paypal the deposit of 800 dollars.
In January, looking for the apartment on Homeaway I noticed that it disappeared from the website and I started to be concerned about it. So I sent a mail to Brooklyn Deluxe Suites asking explanation and they answered me that they removed the advertisment from the website because they were about to create their own website and they sent me a new link where I could find again the apartment references.
A month later, also on the second website, the apartment disappeared and I asked again explanation. They answered me quickly and impolitely (“…Irene please relax!”).
I don’t’n know why but I didn’t relax at all. In next months I tried to contact them by mail (I don’t speak english very well and so I preferred write to call because I was afraid to don’t understand) for ask details about the apartment. I’have a two years old child and you understand that when I travel I must organize all the details of the trip in advance. But from March 2010 to the end of May I didn’t receive any answer.
Meanwhile I’ve made research on internet about Brooklyn Deluxe Suites and I’ve found your website (brooklyndeluxesuites3.blogspot.com) that confirmed me what I long suspected. A lot other people had troubles whit them. So two days before my departure I’ve tried to contact Brooklyn Deluxe Suites by phone ten times. But even on the phone I’ve got no answer. The phone was always switched off. Then I decided to book another hotel.
The day after I keep trying to phone and only at two o’clok in the morning (time of New York) someone answered. I tried to explain my situation and I asked the deposit back but they told me angrlily that they don’t understand what was the problem. They told me that they’ve had their computer broken for two months and that they don’t understand very well what I was saying and that It was better to keep in touch by mail. I wrote them another mail the same day (the twenty-eighth of May) but they of course didn’t answer.
Unexpectedly the ninth of July I received a mail that says that they were very disappointed for what happened and that they would have returned our deposit in five days.
I called immediately but I found again the phone switch of for two days. We left a lot of messages on the answering machine and I sent another couple of messages by mail with my references on PayPal. But no answer and no deposit back.
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DON'T BE THEIR NEXT VICTIM
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http://brooklyndeluxe.livejournal.com/
http://www.myspace.com/brooklyndeluxesuites2
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooklyndeluxesuites
http://brooklyndeluxesuites.webs.com
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
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