How To Avoid Holiday Rental Scams

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Saturday, August 1st, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

In the past few weeks there have been numerous reports about holidaymakers being scammed when they come to book a holiday letting online. Generally customers are caught out when it comes to booking last minute and bargain bookings.

To help make sure you don’t get scammed when booking your holiday abroad, here are a few things to check before you book that villa that sounds too good to be true.

When you are viewing possible properties, one way to tell if the property is legit is by seeing how long the advertiser has been using the site. Many holiday rental websites list how long the home owner has been a member of the website which should allow you to have a pretty good idea of their experience in home rentals.

Generally on many holiday sites, you contact the holiday home owner by email or an online enquiry form. However, if you can phone the home owner, you will be able to get a better idea as to whether the home is genuine. By talking to the owner over the phone, you should be able to ask some questions regarding the local area. Remember, if they really are a valid holiday home owner, they shouldn’t have a problem talking to you.

While talking over the phone, ask some tricky questions that would catch out any bogus owners.One good thing to ask them is whether they have holiday home Insurance as almost all holiday home owners will have taken out some overseas property Insurance if the property is overseas.If their property is in their home country, they would generally have some sort of holiday cottage Insurance, obviously this is all down to what type of building it is.

An important factor is a booking contract. When you enquire about the property, the owner should send you a booking contract to sign which will inform you of the terms and conditions, if you don’t receive once, then this is a sign of a dodgy dealing.

Now for a couple of tips that should help you avoid getting scammed when you go to pay.

Normally, holiday home owners will request payment via electronic bank transfer or personal check, so if these are the only payment methods, don’t be turned off. The problem with these methods is that once the money has been received and cashed, there is almost no protection for fraud.

If you are able to, use other payment methods such as PayPal. PayPal also offers a 45 day cover so if you suspect fraud, you will still be able to claim money back. Another payment method would be by credit card, which tends to be the best, because you get much better cover. The biggest problem with this form of payment is that it costs the money receiver to obtain the funds.

Holiday home owners will generally request a 25% deposit and then 6-8 weeks before your visit, you’ll have to pay the rest of the money. If the full payment is requested, you should be concerned about fraud. Of course if you were getting a late booking, then the owner most likely would request full payment.

Overall there is not a huge amount of protection when booking via a holiday rental site because they tend not to be Atol or Abta protected. However, many holiday rental companies offer scheme to protect you against fraud up to a certain amount.

Hopefully these tips will help you when you go to book your next holiday rental. If you are a holiday home owner and reading this, use this guide to help your customers feel more reassured when dealing with your property.

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