rental fraud

[marybna]

http://community.homeaway.com/message/7370#7370#7370

Seems that someone is coping Homeaway ads and posting on craiglist as their own. Also one owner rented his house for a week and a renter was taking deposit on pay pal for it.

 

[dwig222]

I like VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner). They have lots of RP condos and you can buy insurance for pennies on the dollar. If there are any problems, all of your expenses are refunded. Craigslist is good for some things, but not a rental in another country.

 

[Terry C]

Some web sites lock images and text so it can't be copied and pasted elsewhere.

 

[jimmyfallon]

The vacation scammers are out there. I was aware of a Venezuelan based " Travel Agency" that promoted properties on Aruba "arranged" a reservation and took the renters money under the guise that they did everything. They issued a receipt etc. The poor renter arrives in Aruba to find no such booking!!! I have had to remove us from booking.com as we had all sorts of issues arising from Venezuela. We will no longer rent to a Venezuelan!!! Some of the properties hit in the scam were some well known timshares and private residences.My concern with the post is that it smears all private owners. I believe if a potential renter is smart there are many ways to determine if a rental property is real or a scam. For instance, checking with past guests, trying to contact owner directly and so on. Where possible, I always phone and speak to Vacation Rental enquiry and make sure they have tel number for me and our property/rental manager.