Basic v. Enhanced listing

Today we are pleased to role out some enhancements in our services. We are offering our new Bed and Breakfast members two levels of listing.  Basic or Enhanced.  More can be read about these services here: Basic v. Enhanced.

Allowing Cookies for Login

On our site, and most sites, you need to accept cookies to get logged in.  For most browsers, this will be correctly set by default.  If not, we created a page showing how to do this.  Click allowing cookies.

SPAM!

We have taken measures from day one to not have our site used by spammers to send more spam.  We don’t display B&B e-mails, we have a strong filtering system, we block IP addresses of spammers, and we are looking at putting a security code in place (AKA a ransom note).

With all of these things, some spammers are still managing to get the occasional message sent through our system.  We are taking this very seriously and are investigating ways to stop them.  If you have received a spam e-mail through our reservation inquiry form please know we did not endorse it and we are taking measures to even further tighten up our filtering methods/anti spam methods.

5 clicks and you are done

From the start of building our site, the Pillows and Pancakes team, has tried to make our B&B Control center easy to use.  The best example of this is our picture upload function.  We can take large pictures and compress them on the fly.  This means the B&B owner does not have to resize or compress pictures – these can be very challenging tasks.  Adding a picture to our site is only a fast 5 click process.
Pictures and descriptions go live the moment the B&B owner submits them to us.  We don’t have a middle man slowing this process down. We do review additions to ensure any vandalism is removed.

Police Investigate Scammer, Pillows and Pancakes helps

We had our day made yesterday. A Detective Constable contacted us regarding an overpayment scam. A search for information on a scammer lead him to our scam warning page. Here is the e-mail he sent us (personal details removed).
Dear Sir

My name is FNAME LNAME and I am Detective Constable from the QWERT and QWERT in England. I am currently investigating a fraud where a hotel on the QWERTY was duped into forwarding £2500.00 to a third party. I will speak to the victim tomorrow and arrange for her to forward the e-mails to you so that you can see exactly what has happened.

I am contacting you today because the person named on the e-mails which the victim has given to police is listed as:

Kelvin Jones
Kenfab International
52628 Fulton Road
Leonidas
Mi USA
tel 1 716 299 2044,
Fax 1 716 299 2044
He was using the e-mail address of kelvin_jones@uk2.net to contact the victim
I searched the internet for Kenfab International and was directed to your web site, having looked at your site I notice that you appear to have the same person listed but with different details, those being:

KELVIN JONES
KENFAB INTERNATIONAL
50 Argyle Street
G2 8LG,
Glasgow,
SCOTLAND.
Phone:+447031842884
Fax:+447876843164
kelvin_jones@katamail.com

I am enquiring what information you would be able to provide to me in relation to this male, I have called the number +447031842884 and spoke with a male who stated he was Kelvin Jones, he said that he was currently in the Bahamas. He denied being involved in any such fraud as the one I described to him.

He has stated that I can contact him on the e-mail address kelvin_jones@katamail.com which I shall do but I would like to be in possession of any information you may be in a position to share with me.

Regards
FNAME LNAME
Police Station