We offer all our owners free online booking software that allows them to take credit cards which connects to Paypal to process the payment. The owners have the option of charging an administrative fee that covers the credit card costs and I am sure the holidaymaker is only too happy to pay the extra for peace of mind.
We also guarantee the payment in case of any subsequent problems with Paypal but in the years we have been operating this we have never had a holidaymaker making a chargeback claim with Paypal. Thanks for your comment. Seems like you are taking some positive steps to protect payments. Hopefully other holiday rental portals will adopt such measures.
Validation schemes like the seal of approval scheme run by yourholidaymatters. Some good advice here. The whois tip is especially good because it provides a way to see who owns the website. I would always advocate paying with a credit card.
That way the consumer is protected and can charge back any payment. I would also suggest that consumers check with listing websites what checks they have done before allowing someone to advertise. It has aleways been my opinion that some of these sites, although clearly not involved directly, actually facilitate the fraud because their checks are simply not good enough.
That includes and actually is led by the really big sites; corporate giants that are interested in profit over and above consumer security. Pure Holiday Homes recently launched a scheme where they verify owners and highlight those owners on their website so that they stand out from the rest. This is probably a few years off yet though. Its still a real problem for people who want to rent a holiday home. K market prefer to book their holiday home direct with a bonded agent to prevent just this problem.
I would agree with all the points in this article. We have two rental villas in Northern Cyprus and frequently rent to people from outside the UK, so it would be particularly handy to be able to take credit cards from our perspective, as much as the buyer. Recently, we thought we had the answer, as one of the major holiday rentals websites now gives us the option of offering payment by visa or MasterCard even when the bookings are from our adverts elsewhere.
However, we discovered that the company forced our guests to pay an additional 4. If someone were to set up a reasonably priced system to enable holiday home owners to take credit card, they will be filling a very large gap in the market.
Alex, I agree that there is a gap in the market to be filled with regards to online payments for holiday rentals. Just spent 3 days trying to verify apartment. Owner only been advertising on website 3 weeks, lots of availability, very little detail.
Asked lots of questions and queried address, owner stopped communicating! Wish there was an easy way to verify, we may have missed out on the best apt. An owner should be prepared to answer lots of questions, especially if there is a lot of availability for the property, so I think yo have avoided being scammed This is our first year renting our property and we enter into long correspondence with our renters.
We went to stay in a holiday villa in Sayalonga in Spain in June Beautiful villa and the property managers very friendly but they had placed a gas cylinder underneath the BBQ that was too big for it so after it had been lit for awhile the rubber pipe leading from the cylinder caught alight! Luckily we were quick to act and got the fire out before the cylinder exploded. At the time we had 2 children on the patio near it so the outcome could have been very serious.
All would have been ok except on our return we did not receive out deposit back so we contacted the owner, from here the correspondence from him was extremely rude and blamed us for the accident and he never gave us an apology. I contacted the rental website where we booked and they said complaints needed to be dealt with through the owner!
Which of course was never going to happen. We wrote a review which never got put up or did I receive any response from when we asked what had happened to it. I would pursue an explanation from the owner for the deduction and the rental site for not putting the review up.
I searched and found a place on website removed by admin. I sent an email on their online email facility and waited for a response. I got a response from a private email with my original online email enquiry attached. So I thought this was all legitimate and continued through with payment. I had trouble with Western Union and requested a bank account to transfer into from NZ. I was sent a TSB account but the extra charges put me off.
ALARM bells and tracing emails has resulted in being stitched up. Have you pursued all possible avenues of raising a dispute with the website, as some offer a rental guarantee? Most will simply state they are an advertising portal, and not liable. Many of the leading advertising portals are in the process of launching online bookings and payment which should reduce such scams. We all have to start somewhere! Rent through a site that has an online payment facility — the background check on the owner is quite rigorous.
Hi Fiona, not being on a rental site for long is just one of the signs, when combined with others outlined in the post may warrant further checks. I agree, engaging with owners is a great way to get reassurance. We have recently been a victim of Internet Fraud when trying to book a villa in spain through site removed by admin. We used site removed by admin as we felt sure they were a safe and secure method of enquiring to Villa owners.
We received multiple replies and eventually settled on a Villa owned and managed by name removed by admin. We negotiated the price via one phone call and several emails before agreeing the price. We were then sent bank details to transfer the funds.
One week before going we contacted name removed by admin to enquire about arrival details and this time the number on the emails was dead. We found an alternative number through the web and finally got hold of him.
This time we spoke to the REAL name removed by admin rather than the con artists. I am not hopeful of getting the money back and i find it appalling that site removed by admin do not have good enough online security to stop their accounts being hacked. Being powered by site removed by admin i would have expected a high level of security and them to be able to spot a breach which could potentially cost thousands of holiday makers.
Please be aware of this scam and pay via Paypal or credit card. We followed every other piece of advise by calling and getting contracts but if the con artist is posing as the owner this advice is worthless. The only protection is to pay by a means which covers fraud!
Have you reported this to Action Fraud? You mention that there are also holiday insurance products available that provide more comprehensive protection against rental fraud, but this costs extra. Do you know which companies offer this, as Google has failed me? As always with insurance, check the terms and conditions and that the cover is suitable for your needs. I rented holiday let in Cyprus, last year , and I am still trying to get her to return my money.
This owner lives in Cumbria. Her statements on her web sites are untrue, and it is not till you arrive at the property did we find out how much she lied for instance she advertises that the property as having lifts, when you arrive it only has one lift, and that has been declared unsafe, by the Developer, as she is refusing to pay the service charge, this only a another problem she not inform us of the building site opposite, she had been reported to to her by another person, back in July Any advice on this would be helpful Anne.
Sorry to hear of your experience. There are two sides to every story and often in this situation the small claims court is one option. Hope you resolve the situation amicably. We rent out our condo in Orlando. Despite constant reminders, he has not paid his balance. His last communication said that he was going on a cruise, ending in Orlando and could he pay in resort. I replied, no, as the condo belongs to us.
Are we within our rights to do this? He will arrive at the resort where our condo is situated, and the staff there will have to refuse him entry. We have a phone number for him, but no reply there either. I would keep any evidence you can to support your efforts to communicate with the guest.
What do your terms and conditions say with regards to late payments? Hope everything works out for you. Some really great advice. My brother booked a villa through removed by admin for 7 of us…and it turns out that the guy ran off with our money.
We only discovered this when my brother tried to confirm directions. A responsible intermediary, in my view, would have proactively sought out renters who might have been impacted by the so called technical problem.
Hopefully the Christmas skiing clothes will still fit next Winter. Just back from a holiday from Isle of Wight, a group of 15, we reached the destination and realised that we were the targets of holiday booking fraud, stranded on an island with nowhere to go, one of our friends had transferred the money to the lady. She had talked on phone and looked genuine. Were are lucky that we got another accommodation, but not sure if we will ever get our money back.
Have negotiated to rent a cottage in Tuscany.. After some tooing and frowing we were able to reserve and then the site prompts for credit card details? Just had a call from the agent.. What site are you booking from — is it trusted? Why would they want credit card details and a bank transfer, seems strange. Credit cards offer more security but be wary of handing details over to strangers. But never received any apartment details or refund.
Basically website is fraud, reason of my post is to inform others about this scam website but also asking a question is there anyway I can get my refund. To all holiday makers planing to rent a property in Portugal for next year please be aware that from the 29 November a new national law will come out that prohibits any property to be rented without an official license, registration number and a AL signed installed on the front door.
Any advert online must have this license number and registration number. Hope this helped J. Marques Holiday rental property owner. List your property. This includes essential security and accessibility features. We use this information to improve our website and services. They also enable you to like or share something directly on social media. They also remember your selected currency, language, past searches and other preferences. This means we can improve our website, apps, and communications, and ensure we continue to be interesting and relevant.
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