Red Hot Homes - Some Scams Dont Know When To Stop.

Well folks, we have sent out all the ferrets and weasels into the investment property robbery world on this one!

This is the low down on how particular individuals can come back time and time again to haunt the public, even using the same company name!

There are references here to several companies, some of which are no longer live on the web, but we have linked to some interesting comment where we can. If anyone has any complaints (Chris Devlin or Martin Devlin) please, do feel free to post. If we are proved wrong we will happily and publicly retract any postings. We are waiting by the laptop. As usual, the Investment Property Rumour Mill takes no responsibility for your opinions on what we write, but we will play fair.

This is the tale of some serial fraudsters that will stop at little to relieve you of your cash under the guise of a property investment. They return after at least 3 failed property companies, an after sales company that has fallen off the face of the earth, a police investigation, an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands and no end of complaints. Yes, at least one of them is back, Chris Devlin.

In the forums and bars it is well known that the Devlin Brothers Chris and Martin used to own Golden Coast Estates then Red Hot Homes, and also set up The Diamond Experience to take care of the after sales. (Basically tie you up with their lawyers, furniture people, money movers and so on, all designed to relieve you of as much cash as possible) Now we see two horrifying and galling prospects. List4Leads and the return of Red Hot Homes for more fraud.

Golden Coast Estates was set up some time ago now by the brothers, along with a partner Brian Nelson, (click the link and you will be taken to a forum posting from his wife about Golden Coast Estates.)

The posting itself appears to be a very frank and honest account of the situation.

So, after Golden Coast Estates ceased to exist, with Brian left to cover the debts, Red Hot Homes appeared, followed in tandem with The Diamond Experience. RHH proceeded to sign deals and collaborations here and there in the race to catch up with the main competition of the time, Macanthony Realty International, even to the extent of staff poaching and all sorts. Chris Devlin was at the front of the operation, driving the sales force, seeing that agents were signed up and generally creating hype. Some agents were mysteriously overpaid by Red Hot Homes, apparently at the time a gesture of goodwill. Little did anyone realise that it was merely a ploy to haul in more leads that they didn't declare sales on, no doubt sent on to being rinsed through a later scam, List4Leads.

From there we saw the cogs begin to grind to a halt, and as they did so alarm bells began to rang. Agents had been asked to invoice Red Hot Homes in the British Virgin Islands of all places, a handy little offshore jurisdiction for the amateur tax evader and scam merchant where little law applies and you can filter out money into seemingly nowhere.

Agents where looking for there money after confirming that clients referred had paid, the responses being that "We are waiting for payment from the developer", or "The charges that we split for the inspection trips exceed the commission we owe you, in fact you owe us money"

Eventually unpaid staff left, still unpaid to find other jobs, apparently RHH still ran from an apartment in Estepona or San Pedro on the Costa del Sol. The deal now though was to have clients send the money directly to Red Hot Homes instead of the developer. This way the money could be neatly stolen with the developer never being paid and all the cash neatly disappearing.

Since then, we have seen the attempted rise of List4Leads, owned by Christopher Devlin. This is a site that apparently will generate leads directly for you so you can sell your property. It is set up from the back of a Point2 franchise (A legitimate MLS type portal designed to give agents the ability to share properties and expand their site.) In this particular case, Devlin is using the List4Leads.com domain for the Point2 portal base, and then using List4Leads.info for his own site, hoping that no-one will notice. A whole bunch of spelling mistakes and poor formatting which would suggest stolen content, all in a bid to look bigger than it all really is. Payment for this "service" is by credit card that just happens to auto debit every month (how handy!) or, by bank transfer, but you have to pay up front for 3 months minimum. Ask yourself, what happens when the site goes down and they have an auto debit on your card?

The most astonishing thing though is yet to come. RedHotHomes.co.uk is back to scam more people!!!

The site is registered to a Ben Sykes, an SEO specialist in the UK. Ben is likely unaware of the previous activities of the Devlin's being as the domain at the time of writing is in his name. Nice try to deflect the heat this time eh?

As it stands at this moment in time, there are numerous errors on the site itself, even though it appears at the top of google, they have still left some of the pig Latin used by programmers in the pages to bulk the page out for testing.

Whilst browsing through the site and seeing Christopher's name appear, we then discover an endorsement from none other than Channel 4's Location, Location, Location presenter Kirstie Allsopp! (Note on the site they have managed to spell her name wrong, Kirsty Allsop, instead of Kirstie Allsopp. Another clever ploy Mr Devlin!

As for the whereabouts of both Martin Devlin and Chris Devlin, it has been suggested that Martin Devlin was arrested and later bailed on fraud charges. We will state this is unconfirmed here say at present, but are looking to confirm it shortly. As for Christopher Devlin? Well rumour has it from a couple of sources that he was being looked for at this years SIMA industry exhibition in Madrid. According to the forums, a detective Chris Gay is looking into fraud committed by the pair over Red Hot Homes.

Some simple advice.

If you are approached by one of these companies or individuals, beware!

Any investment you make will disappear.

Any service you pay for is unlikely to be provided.

If you are mad enough to work for them or apply for a job, you are unlikely to get paid.

Have you been approached or contacted by these scammers? Post below, we would love to hear from you.