CONCERNS HAVE BEEN raised over a fake hotel claiming to exist in south Dublin which is in fact a small house overlooking Dublin Bay.
The ‘Hotel View Villa’ claims to be situated on Booterstown Avenue in south Dublin and somehow “overlooks the Grand Canal”, according to the official website, despite being miles away from it.
Young men living in India have claimed that a recruitment agency told them they had secured work at the hotel and that they needed to pay up money for admin fees.
The owners of the house have nothing whatsoever to do with the website.
It is understood the hotel website was created in an attempt to trick potential workers into thinking it is a legitimate place of business. The exact address of the hotel is actually a house.
According to the hotel’s website, you can: “Stay at the Hotel View Villa and be right in the centre of it all. Our modern hotel overlooks the historic Grand Canal and is just a short walk from the famous St. Stephen’s Green area and Grafton Street, lined with trendy bars and restaurants.
“The Convention Centre Dublin, RDS, Aviva Stadium and the Guinness Storehouse are also nearby, making this hotel ideally located for business and leisure travellers.”
When TheJournal.ie rang the above number, we were not connected to a switchboard. Instead, a man answered the phone and asked us what we wanted. The line went dead when we told him we were a news organisation.
The website also contains a number of bogus testimonies.
They included one from a woman claiming to be called Alice Boyd. She says: “Had one night cruising with Hotel View Villa, it was one of the best moment {sic} me and friends had in Komodo. Huge wooden Phinisi boat, with attention to the details, the sun deck for sunbathing and stargazing at night.”
Two men had contacted a local area Facebook page in anticipation of their planned travel to Ireland. They had wanted to check with locals that the hotel was legitimate. They had looked up the hotel’s address on Google Maps and were surprised to see that it was just a house. As Google Maps photographs were taken in 2014, they had thought that the area might have been developed in the meantime.
The men, who we are not naming, said they live in Mumbai and had paid a recruitment firm the equivalent of €250 to cover their work permits and administration costs. Locals told them they had been scammed.
Local councillor Deirdre Kingston said she hopes gardai will deal with it.
“It just shows the lengths some people will go to. But they could have done their research. Overlooking the Grand Canal on Booterstown Avenue? I don’t think so.
“But in all seriousness, I’d like to express my concern that this is happening,that people are being potentially exploited by this scam. The gardaí should be notified.”
Local gardaí said they had not heard about the mystery hotel.
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