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ABC News recently ran a feature on Vacation Rental scams, focusing in on "too good to be true" deals in the New York area.
Scammers use sites such as Craigslist or Backpage to advertise fake properties, usually using photos taken from real vacation rentals. They ask for a certain amount of money up front, either via Western Union or through an intermediate bank account and then, when you show up to avail of the rental ..... they are nowhere to be seen!
From the Scammers point of view, one of the advantages of sites such as Craigslist is the fact that they don't need to register and pay for an annual listing and hence can more easily "hit and run", before moving on to the next target.
ABC's recommendation is to stick with the "more reputable" vacation rental sites, like VRBO (or you can find others listed on COHR). With a little bit of due diligence, you can be more confident that the listings on these sites are genuine. For example, these sites charge an annual listing fee and many of them clearly show how long each listing has been active: listings that have been there for more than a year are unlikely to be spammers.
Also, many of these sites feature guest reviews: although it is possible to fake these, most sites take at least some steps to ensure the reviews are genuine.
Although not completely immune to scammers, you can certainly reduce the risk by sticking to the larger vacation rental sites.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Avoiding Online Vacation Rental Scams
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2 comments:
In Spain and many other European countries rental properties have to be licensed and checked by the local town hall or authorities. So you can ask for the license number and also check on the local town halls website if the property is on their list of licensed properties. In Spain this also means the properties have to meet certain criteria such as fire safety, water safety, cleanliness, pool upkeep etc. The local town hall will also be able to give you the owner or managers contact details so you know you are booking with the correct person. Also google the owner or manager and find out as much about them. Always confirm who you are paying your deposit too. Good luck. Best wishes, Fiona
The poster above said "In Spain and many other European countries rental properties have to be licensed and checked by the local town hall or authorities."
That is not true.
Europe being made up of different counties have very different rules which differ between each country. Even Spain with its different comunidades autónomas has different rules regarding rentals. So renting in say Andalucía is different to those found in Cataluña.
Use your credit card to ensure that payment can be recovered if need be. Paypal is not a good way of making payments.
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