Murat Guzel Murat Güzel Blue House Taksim Scam

BEWARE of Blue House Taksim

I rented a flat in the Blue House Taksim from Murat Guzel I moved out leaving the flat in perfect condition, but never got my deposit back. Mr. Guzel comes up regularly with new fake excuses why he can't give me my deposit back (for example he insits that it's not possible for him to do a Western Union transaction from Antalya and I have to wait until he's back in Istanbul).

He's using these email adresses: karambol@yahoo.com, samimir@hotmail.com, istanbulrent@yahoo.com, info@citysuitesistanbul.com, phone number:+90 505 3984355

this is also him:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49366903044 (check with the email/phone number)
and:
http://citysuitesistanbul.com/

here a snippet from the whois domain-registration info:
Administrative Contact:
guzel, huseyin murat istanbulrent@yahoo.com
altin bilezik sok. no:8/13
cihangir, beyoglu
istanbul, istanbul 34000
TR
+90.00905053984355

Edit on 17.6.2011:
I stumbled accross this forum entry from some other guy having problems with Guzel:
http://www.erasmusistanbul.net/forum/25-taksim-beyolu-region/1109-warning-murat-guzel.html#1114

If you have any questions feel free to contact me: emge74@gmx.at I'm still trying to get back to everyone sending me an email, just give me a few days

Edit on 26.9.2011

I just saw what Channels and Convergence posted in the comments and I think it adds to the readability if I include it within this post.

@ Sarah: Sorry you're upset about the warnings Channels and Convergence posts linking to this post (we're not the same person) but I think it's still better to upset some people instead of letting Güzel rip off some more.

@ Channels and Convergence: I hope it's ok for you if I include your comments in the original posting if not just let me know. Also if anybody has some photos of the place you stayed, feel free to transmit them by email to emge74@gmx.at. I'll check if theye're genuine and add them to to post as this place is the 1st hit for güzel and blue house on google.

Channels and Convergence postings & experiences with Güzel as a landlord:

I've talked a bit with Sarah and I hope she understands that I've gotten 9 emails from people thanking me for the 1 that she sent me. Also, I've gotten emails from 5 different people that haven't posted here that have had similar problems.
Since some of them don't have blogspot accounts, I'm going to cut and paste some of them here.

The names have been omitted and I've had to break it up into pieces because it's so long but here is one email I received:

""Hi . . . . .,

I hearby confirm that I lived in the apartment of a man who called himself
"Dr Murat Güzel" in Istanbul Akkarga Sokak No. 20 in Harbiye/Sisli.
On the Internet he sometimes calles himself "Dr Huseyin Murat".
On facebook he calls himself "Murat Adrian Güzel". He lives in
Istanbul/Cihangir.
I lived in the house from february 21st of 2011 until June 11 oder 2011.
I have a signed contract from him and also several e-Mails from him,
which confirm that I lived in his building.
During this time, I found Mister Güzel to be a liar, a cheat and a thief.
I continued living there, because I secretly fought against his misdoings
and because I didn't want to loose my deposit.
I paid 700 TL rent for a small room with a shared kitchen and shared bathroom.
There was only one Turkish man living there and he later reported
Murat to the tax police, because Murat doesn't pay rent for his buildings
and never gives receipts.
During the four month I lived there, four people were cheated of there deposits.
There were two german girls, called . . . and Yvonne . . ..
Both left because of the awful hygiene and because of the missing heating system.
On the pictures which I sent to Mister Paul you can see the mold in the building and
the cockroaches. Mister Güzel never turned on the heat in the building.
Both the girls were freezing to death and pleed him many times to turn on the heat.
He didn't even turned the heat on when it was snowing outside.
Most of the time we spent in my room for which I had bought a small heating system.
Both left for other building without getting there deposit of 300 TL each back.

"In Miss . . . 's room, another German boy moved in shortly after she left.
I was so disgusted by the room, that he left after three days. He booked the
room only having seen pictures on Craigslist.com.
The fourth person was my Jamaican flatmate . . . .. She only wanted
to stay for one month, but I made her signed a contract for three month
and she also didn't get her deposit back.

Furthermore there was a couple of an English man called . . . and an Italian
woman called . . .. They lived in a room next to the shared apartment for
two month. Then suddenly he wanted to kick them out, because the
had rented out their room via www.booking.com. After a long fight, he "allowed"
them to stay in his building in Besiktas.

While I was living in the house, I warned everybody who came to visit and
see the house about Mister Güzel.
The shared apartment was the most disgusting place I ever saw.
It consist of a living room with kitchen, a bathroom that is conected
to the living room and three other rooms. One of the rooms used
to be a balcony. But Mister Güzel (in all his greed) made the balcony
to a third room thus eliminating all opportunity for fresh air to enter
the appartment. He living room had no window any more, and
nobody ever opened the windows in the attached rooms, because
the heat wasn't turned on. So all the water in the air after having a
showed was trapped in the living as well as all the wett air from cooking.
That lead to an incredibly amount of mold at he walls. It was
disgusting and health threating. Everybody who lived there got sick.

After a few days the toilet broke and everything one flushed down
the toilet reappered in the shore. Mostly exrements.
OK, this can happen. But the bad thing is, that he blamed it on
the two German girls, because I said he found some tampons in
the sink. But he told me that the plumber got two big bags
of toilet paper, newspaper, some tampons and black naylon strips
out of the pipes. In my opinion, someone purpusely blocked the
toilet to get some revenge on Mister Güzel.
The girls lived there for two weeks. And he blames them
to having blocked the toilet with their tampons in such a small
amout of time? He also claimed the moist and the mold was
a result of the tampons in the pipes. He only wanted them
to pay for the repair and scare them so that they woulnd't
try to get their deposit back. He always tries to scare
people by threating with his lawyer or some friends at the
police. I believe both things are lies.
He told me he would never had mold in his apartments befor.
But if you looked on the pictures of the walls, you call clearly
see that the paint has been taken of the walls several times.

Through the Internet, I meet a man called . . . .
He was kicked out of Mister Güzels apartment in Cihangir.
So he is the fifth person who was cheated of his deposit.

And then there was the Spanish guy called . . .
He rented a place for a short vacation for a couple of days.
After four or five days Arturo complained about the missing
hot water at that time also about the bad shape of the place.
It wasn't what I saw on the Internet. He wanted to have
his deposit back and move to a hotel.
But Murat acted very, very strangely. He threatend Arturo
and said that he would know what Arturo did in Russia.
But Arturo has never been to Russia. Very strange.
And with the Russia threat he said that he would get
Arturo deported for what he was to supposed to have done.
Again, he claimed to have friends in the police.
As a son of Turkish father, it shames me that Mister Güzel
makes our police looked corrupt and that he makes people
have such a bad impression about Turkey.
After that threat, Mister Güzel asked Arturo whether
he was allowed "to come by". Both . . . and Mister Güzel
are gay and from what . . . told me "coming by" is code for
coming to have sex in the gay community. In my opinion
Mister Güzel tried to intimidat Arturo in order to abuse him and
to make him agree to sex.

While I lived in the apartment, that hot water supply broke down
for all together about 15 days.

He heating system was turned on the smallest setting available and
it was also freezing called. I turned it up one day and Mister Güzel
came to me and that that the fire department had called him and
that the gas pressure in the house was too high and that this would be
dangerous. In my opinion this was a lie. All our bills were included in
the contract and so he didn't want to loose money with heat.
Some other people in the house had a small electrical heating system.
They left the flat for a couple of days and when they came back
somebody had entered the rooms and kicked/damaged the heatings system.
Nothing was stollen. The only person with a motive was Mister Güzel.

And the worst thing of course is what he did to Hanif Paul and Nisha Paul.
He kicked a 80 year old man and his 65 year old wife out on the street
because they could walk up into the third floor. He kept their deposit of
about 300-400 English Pounds. Strangely on the next morning
their room was rented out again. To two guys from Iraq. I suspect
this to have been planned. He give them a an suitable apartment in order
to make them leave quickly. The wanted to stay for a month, so the
deposit was very high.
On hotel booking websites like www.booking.com Mister Güzel makes
his house look like a hotel. He calls it "City suites" and offers 24hour reception,
an elevator, laundry service and breakfest. Nothing of this exists.
In reality the house is just a very cheap dump.

After three month he finally did something about the cockroaches. The
came from his storage room and were crawling around everywere.
You can see them on the pictures. If you require any more pictures,
I can provide you with them.

Also every time you entered the shared bathroom, you had to wash away
at least 10 worms. They came out of the walls, were about 4 mm wide and
15 mm long. It was disgusting.

I swear that all my statement are true. I offer to be a witness in any trial
against this liying and cheating person, who destroyed the health of so
many people for eight years now.

Humbly

. . . . . . . . )"