Mirror, mirror on the wall

The Mirror has published a further story about the fraudulent activities of Robin Larkins and The Real World Rental Company. Now at least we have a face to the name.

It is sad to note that these activities are still continuing, and the same lies are spewed forth:

"We've satisfied most outstanding issues," he insisted (Larkins that is, not Ian from the court).

"At the end of the day, we are agents. If owners say to us to withhold a deposit or forward it to them, that's what we do.

"With about 30 people on short-term leases a week that's 1,500 a year. These issues are a very small percentage."

The system works

I have just received advice from my UK counterpart that the County Court has sent them a cheque in settlement of my claim issued through the Small Claims Court on 13 November 2008.

We had to go through the entire process with Larkins dragging the process out to the bitter end. After Judgement was entered against the Defendant (given in my favour) on 3 December, I had to "enforce" judgement through the issuance of a "Warrant of Execution". In effect this means I paid for a court-appointed bailiff to go to The Real World Rental Company's premises in Fulham and ask for payment.

This he did on 19 January 2009. Larkins declined to pay him, but the bailiff "levied on the goods" belonging to the debtor. Having read of a similar exercise by another of Larkins's victims, I was very sceptical that I would receive any monies.

In the interim I assume that the bailiff has revisited Larkins, and has been furnished with the funds to settle the claim, including my costs.

Others, who may wish to follow the same procedure should go to this website. The cost involved has been GBP115, which has been covered in the claim.

I am willing to provide detailed information to others who wish to follow this procedure. If I had been unsuccessful in this pursuit I was exploring the option of filing a "creditor's petition" for bankruptcy - making Larkins bankrupt. Again, I can provide you information on this process.

Rent with confidence?

When you rent a property through Holiday-Rentals you are given the option of signing up to a free service, called "Rent with confidence". Sounds good, eh? Actually it means very little indeed, as I have found to my cost. There are a number of others who have suffered the same fate.

I was interested to read that the review I wrote on the property at 63A Harcourt Terrace in London, was followed by another negative review, which had the familiar ring about it - the renter hadn't had his/her deposit refunded.

I pointed this out to Holiday Rentals, who continue to believe that Robin Larkins and The Real World Rental Company are highly reliable, despite repeatedly being advised that they continue this fraud.

Here are the reviews. Anyway, this property is now no longer listed through Holiday-Rentals, but whether that's because Larkins has been unable to get any takers, or whether Holiday Rentals have now finally realised that his fraudulent activities are widespread, and their continuation of allowing him to advertise could be in breach of the Fraud Act, is not clear.

Well, not crystal clear. They seem to have adopted the non-response attitude of their cohort, and they are still advertising some of his properties. I'm not sure why, but you can draw you own conclusions.

I was sad to hear from another victim of the fraud that she too had not received her refund on yet another Holiday-Rentals/Robin Larkins/The Real World Rental Company property. More details to follow.

And yet another victim has written on this site describing their scam.

And on and on...