Many times things like this are.
I first knew something was up way back at the beginning when I wanted to book a stay and I wanted to see what the rooms looked like and if they were large enough for my family.
I just wanted a price and a picture and I enquired about the menu.
I was told to ignore everything on the website as it is old and they have not changed it yet so I suggested that they get Rob to put them a website up on here as a lot of hotels do and show us all the specials he was telling everyone about.
If I was thinking of spending 200k$us on a place legit I would most definately spend a hundred or two dollars to market the place to tourists wanting to book from overseas as I did.Especially as he knew how lucrative the market is over here on this site.
As he never updated the site, I knew from THAT second something was up.
Why would you want to invest so much money time and effort into a place yet leave the old owners details and menus and website up?
The simple answer in most cases would be because, you know you are not staying, or you do not want to pay anyone to create a website as then that would be evidence you were running the place, and it suits them to have it look in the courts eyes that the owners were still liable and in charge of everything as it was their name on the documents the bills and the website.
To me it was obvious what was happening as I have seen it many times before but maybe others were fooled.Chitter chatter and golden tongue is all well and good but in business there has to be a line drawn where chat ends and papers get signed.
There was rumour a venture similar happened before I do not know how that ended but he did not seem to have any trouble setting up again in the same area so we just do not know!