Stay away from this apartment rental

[windy]

She has removed her posts from craigslist pulled down her website and even her photo can't be found. I would say that the bitch is shXXXing a brick.
Great post and make sure you keep us all updated. I was very keen to see the photo as a woman called Valeria tried to scam us last year. I would be keen to see if it was the same person.

 

[MizzMarr]

Hi Wendy. One of the other users (hobozero) saved off several of the photos. Their post is earlier in the thread, but for convenience sake the links are here:

http://loogla.com/florencia/1.jpg
http://loogla.com/florencia/2.jpg
http://loogla.com/florencia/3.jpg
http://loogla.com/florencia/4.jpg
http://loogla.com/florencia/5.jpg
http://loogla.com/florencia/6.jpg

Please let us know if she is the one and the same!! Cheers.

 

[pauper]

She has removed her posts from craigslist pulled down her website and even her photo can't be found. I would say that the bitch is shXXXing a brick.
Great post and make sure you keep us all updated. I was very keen to see the photo as a woman called Valeria tried to scam us last year. I would be keen to see if it was the same person.

Under what circumstances?

Here is a summary of all accumulated knowledge, with links to various pictures which have been posted on the thread (you will have to click on the green arrow to go to the relevant post to access links to photos):

So, in summary this thread is a warning about Florencia Marina Daud (aka Florencia Daud Othacehe). It is strongly advised that you avoid any kind of business dealings or financial transactions with her. If you do enter into financial dealings with her it is recommended that you proceed with extreme caution. She has disappeared with the deposits of several visitors to the city who entered into temporary rental agreements with her.

Florencia Daud
DNI: 26260151
CUIT: 272626015115 (click on the green arrow to see a picture from the website http://www.nic.ar/entidades.html)

She has gone under the names Valeria de Santos and Veronica and often uses the username flormarina on the internet.

The following quote links (the green arrow) will take you to photos of her:





Her mother has used a name similar to Maria Eugenia, picture:


She has had various businesses registered to her addresses:
Discover BA
Florencia Marina Daud ([email protected])
+1.5411480527
Fax:
Av Pueyrredon 2261
Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires 1119
AR

D&A Daud & Asociados
Av. Pueyrredon 2261 2nd floor
BUENOS AIRES - ARGENTINA
tel/fax +54-11-4805-2742

Recoleta Spanish School
Pueyrredon 2261, 2nd floor
Entidad Registrante: Florencia Daud
País: Argentina
Actividad: Otra
Domicilio: Chenaut 1967 4 A
Ciudad/Localidad: Buenos Aires
Provincia: Buenos Aires
Código Postal: 1426
Teléfono: 4776 3188
Fax: 4776 3188

D&A Daud & Asociados Buenos Aires, Argentina
Address : Av. Chenaut 1967 4 A, Buenos Aires 1426, Argentina
Phone No. : +5411-4776-3188

According to the Colegio Público de Abogados de la Capital Federal, she's licensed to practice law here in Capital. Click the green arrow for a picture from the website.

Other phone numbers she has used:
15-5346-4957
15-5259-1319

And email addresses:
[email protected]
[email protected]

She has advertised her apartments on craigslist
She appears in wikipedia
She has an account on EchangeVacances.com (click for pictures)

and has had various personal and business web pages of her own most of which have been taken down since these accusations have appeared:
http://www.buenosairesguest.com/
http://florenciamarina.blogspot.com/
http://daudlegal.com/

If you have been a victim of a scam as a visitor you can contact the following authorities:

Defensoría de Turista, 4302 7816. Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1835 (Museo de Bellas Artes "Benito Quinquela Martín") La Boca.
Mail: [email protected]

Comisaría del turista
Av. Corrientes 436
0800 999 5000 / 4346 5748
mail: [email protected]

If you have returned to your country and are unable to retrieve funds owed to you by identifiable persons as a last resort you can tell them you are going to contact AFIP (the revenue authorities) to have their tax records reviewed:
http://www.afip.gov.ar/contacto/
Centro de denuncias : 0800-999-2347

There is also another thread about the activities of Florencia Daud on TripAdvisor

 

[notebook.fix]

Good work! I've just emailed Facundo (in Spanish) to alert him.

For anyone interested:
America Noticias:
5032-2233
[email protected]

Relevant shows on America:
Informes especiales
Documentos America
I'm not really sure about GPS now but will leave it here anyway:
GPS

but I think THE person to get in contact with is Facundo Pastor
(here is his America page ) but the first link is a blog more up to date and has an email address for denuncias - [email protected]

I would recommend as many people here as possible email him, no matter how crappy your castellano and include links to this thread and the thread on TripAdvisor.

 

[French jurist]

Damn, I went to sleep 7 hours ago : 8500 page views,
I wake up now : 2000 more page views

This is becoming a famous story ! Any popcorn left ?

 

[Sockhopper]

quote=Oska;85563]Damn...these guys make all us Argentinians look like scammers trying to get advantage from tourists or expats.
Oska,

My impression is that very few of those scammed (myself included) feel that all Argentines are scammers. We feel the exact opposite! I want you to know that even if you don't believe me! Outside what too often occurs in these rentals, so many visitors are utterly amazed at how caring, civil, kind, helpful, pleasant, involved, rational, interesting and always deeply respectful of others Argentines are.

The problems that visiting renters face are due to two facts. This temporary rental industry completely unregulated. Second, tourists have pre-booked flights to go home and must return to their responsibilities. Landlords and agents know we can’t stay and sue or be there to testify at criminal proceedings months down the road.

The only solutions accessible to us are those we find ourselves – warning the public of the treatment we've experienced first-hand; asking and advising one another on how each of us might protect ourselves or help others to seek some form of official redress of this abuse. By sharing what we learn or know, we hope to become more expert at knowing what kind of people we can trust in this industry.

Imagine that all cars are sold without engines and tires. Then an innovative business comes along and sells complete cars but doesn't advertise how its cars are better! You see, no agent states head-on in its advertising that it holds the property owners it lists to a standard of good customer service. None dare to do that or state they do. They pretend that the one thing we actually need for these rentals to work is not what we need to hear about! They won't even tell us anything about the people whose homes we'll be staying in nor when an apartment that interests us was last rented or if it has been rented previously. If I ask that, the cold answer is that I am asking for confidential information. We can’t even google the landlord’s name because we’re not given that either. Thus, not only is this industry unregulated, there also doesn't exist even a voluntary Code of Behavior, Standards, and Property Conditions among associations of agents or landlords. There are no such associations.

I have never before posted what I find to be common personality characteristics of the unscrupulous landlords and agents I've used. I've decided to list these, below.

Middle-class. Well-educated. Professionally qualified. Extremely and atypically arrogant. Believe with a passion that they naturally deserve far more than they have (be they wealthy or pretend to be). Will go broke to sustain their relations with only influential people. Have traveled internationally. Irate that the newly captured tenant is getting too good a bargain so tell her that she’s forbidden to use the kitchen and that she must eat at nearby Chinese restaurants that are “good enough” for tourists! Intense anger with a foreigner who just listens to their long denegrations of Argentine lower classes, unmoved. Irritation with a paying visitor who says she needs the advertised 'phone and security box for which she paid a premium. A crazy belief that a foreigner who saves for a year to visit BA will not mind paying an extra $1300. for unwanted and non-contracted extra maid service for a month! A shocking conviction that if they just secretly 'phone the tenant's husband 9,000 miles away and tell him to wire $1300 to the agent's office and ensure it's there by morning if he cares for his wife's health, that it will be there even though he says he won’t send it! A righteous and furious sense of having been cheated by a foreigner when – shock! –not a centavo arrives all the next day. An inclination to bark (or brag??) about how 'barbaric' Argentines are that they don't even think of using wine glasses so why would a middle-class landlord provide these for middle-class foreigners? Repeated mocking of how naive you are to think that thieves won't break in and steal every last thing you brought to Argentina: to assume you may have anything left to take home shows how ignorant you tourists insist on being! And finally, the conviction that it’s right to plan in detail and carry out with rage and threats of immediate physical assault that very prophecy in front of you on your last day while hired professional thugs stand beside the landlord and a foot from your face. Then the demand for money if you want those thugs to be sent away. This way the landlord can hire the caterers for her next party so as to be respected by the visiting foreign dignitaries, politicians and industry magnates her whole being needs to impress. Humiliating tourists will put pay to any momentary idea they might have about complaining about this traumatizing and criminal treatment. There is clearly no need for any landlord or agent to think that their treatment of a tourist might ever be exposed or their reputation hurt. Fraud is that easy for the better people.

These things happened. To me. This is extreme behavior but it does show the attitude taken by unscrupulous middle-class portenos who have a chance to rent their property, are unhappy people, and when an unregulated rental industry is dropped in their laps. The players I’ve described are not impoverished, just desperate. You can't imagine the respect I developed for cartoneros after this as I watched them work so diligently and efficiently in their pristine white T-shirts. They're who I give things I don't need to take home to. I have fun wrapping things nicely and tucking in the odd surprise and leaving a note in crappy Spanish telling them how clean they keep this beautiful city. I just add this to the pile of bags.

I've always taken care to not describe the characteristic of the landlords and agents whose scamming I tried hard and calmly to stop or stall to no avail. So my apologies to you Oska and the several hundreds of portenos around the city everywhere I go who are so kind, respectful, and enjoyable to be with that I want to live in BA. I’ve never encountered a single one of the characteristics I’ve just described outside my past rental contracts. I’ve also found a very good agent and landlord. But it took me 3 visits and recommendations from forums to do that. I saw personality similarities between Bailey’s landlord and the unscrupulous landlords and agents I’ve had so for once I decided it might be okay to talk about the attributes and motivations of this unscrupulous group as I perceived them. Your opening sentence was so touching that it cinched my decision to not stick to just addressing people’s actions this time.

Of course, our rental complaints concern ACTIONS taken by property owners and agents who rent to us, not what induces them to cheat us or otherwise hurt our interests. If Bailey’s situation is to be redressed, and if paying visitors are not to be cheated etc, it is those ACTIONS that must be redressed, in this case, fraud. Responsible people don’t let their negative feelings as inevitable as these are at times for everyone dictate how horribly they can abuse their customers and the agreements they make. So long as nothing is done to correct this, there will continue to be impacts upon those businesses’ reputations.

 

[ghost]

The post from the yahoo group has been reproduced on the TripAdvisor thread, so I have taken the liberty of reproducing it here:

For the Hall of Shame. This movement is in growth mode. FJ how are your TV production skills doing?

 

[ghost]

FYI it looks like she also deleted her profile from her LinkedIn profile from Argentina but it looks like her LinkedIn UK is still up but not much on it.

http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/florencia-daud/2/a72/a65

I have serious doubts that she has any degree from the school in London she is claiming.

Somehow and in some way, as we dig deeper, I think that we will discover that she is not an attorney. Did not finish law school and can not be sanctioned by the local attorneys association because she is simply not a member.
Poseur, yes. Member, doubtfull.

 

[sesamosinsal]

Somehow and in some way, as we dig deeper, I think that we will discover that she is not an attorney. Did not finish law school and can not be sanctioned by the local attorneys association because she is simply not a member.
Poseur, yes. Member, doubtfull.

As of this morning, she is "active" according to the database available at the Colegio Publico de Abogados de la Capital Federal. Surely they require proof of education/qualifications, no? See attachment.

 

[sesamosinsal]

This morning I gave Ms. Daud a call at her Pueyrredon office ( +54 11 48052742 ). I figured we could chat about the temporary rental business here in Argentina.

Of course, she didn't answer the phone. She has, however, changed the voicemail. Before, it was a woman with a native North American English accent saying, "Please leave your name, number, and a message, and we will return your call as soon as we can." It wasn't Florencia because I had spoken with her on the phone last year, and I remember that she definitely had a non-native accent; I'm sure Bailey can confirm this.

Now, it's just an automated message from the telephone company saying she's not available. Something tells me that she's $hitting bricks.