Booking a Villa or Apartment That Doesn't Exist

Don’t be scammed while you’re looking for the perfect place to rent out for your holiday. It’s easy to get caught out online by emails from companies offering too good to miss deals and sites that offer unbeatable bargains. But with holiday lettings, you could be getting way less than you bargained for if you don’t do your research before you hand out your credit card details.
The Most Common Scams
Results of a survey carried out in 2010 by The Association of British travel Agents (ABTA) and GetSafeOnline revealed that a frighteningly trusting 67 per cent of people hadn’t even heard of one of the most popular holiday scams - the non-existent holiday rental scam. This is even more worrying when you add to that the fact that around 22 per cent of people surveyed had actually received unsolicited texts, phone calls or emails purporting to offer a fabulous holiday deal or villa rental – from a company they had never heard of.What Can Happen?
In what’s been called the ‘Morairaway’ scam, in 2009, many British holiday seekers were scammed out of their hard earned cash by companies claiming to be offering holiday villas for rent in Spain through two of the UK’s biggest online villa rental portals. Of course, the villas didn’t exist and although some of them will be part-refunded, they’ve all lost money and had no holiday.This scam, which was believed to be one of the biggest ever, highlights the need for people to be vigilant when booking a holiday rental. The villas were mainly booked through an online agent called Holiday-Rentals.co.uk - they were themselves duped by the company offering the fake villas and have now agreed to pay limited compensation to the people taken in by the scam. Another villa rental site, holidaylettings.co.uk also offered the properties.
The site operating the scam was based in Spain and has now disappeared without trace. It’s not just an isolated case, either. In a similar scam, Britons were conned into booking villas in Cyprus through an online scam.
Luckily for some of the people caught out by the Spanish villa scam, Holiday-rentals.co.uk offered a guarantee scheme that covered consumers for losses up to £3,300 – excluding the cost of any flights and car hire booked in order to get to the non-existent villas. The company isn’t legally liable for the losses incurred as they were simply advertising the villas on behalf of the bogus companies. In this case they have also offered a reduced amount of compensation for customers who booked villas through them who weren’t covered by the guarantee.
It Pays to Pay securely
The company that offered the fake Spanish villas should have aroused suspicion through their payment methods if nothing else - Morairaway.com asked for payment to be made at least 60 days before departure by money transfer or banker's draught. This should have rung a few warning bells with suspicious consumers.In the Cyprus scam, 90 per cent of victims paid for their holiday using PayPal – which is becoming a more and more respected legitimate method of paying for goods online. In this case, at least, consumers were covered by PayPal’s own guarantee as long as they complained within 45 days.Avoid Being Caught Out
The Morairaway scam is a difficult one as people used a trusted site to access the Morairaway website and had no reason to assume that the company was bogus or the villas non-existent. But in some cases it’s more obvious. Don’t ever respond to unsolicited offers by email, text or any other form. If they sound too good to be true, they probably are.Check the details of any holiday retailer that you don’t recognise. Remember that a legitimate company doesn’t need to sucker you in with a pop-up advert, and if you don’t recognise the company name or you can’t find them on a basic web search, they probably aren’t legitimate anyway.Try to speak to the villa’s owner or their agent directly if you’re renting privately. Ask for letters of reference or testimonials – most villa owners will be only too pleased to oblige.
Re: Builder's Scams
Don’t fall foul of Arren Safavi from Lancashire decking. He looks and acts all professional however once the deposit is paid that’s him doing a…
Re: Sky TV Scam
I just received a call from someone saying from Sky not sure if it was genuine. Asked me for my address. Then my bank details, then my password for my…
Re: Scams And Seniors
Scammed out of £12500 by a builder who has been to court several times. I paid by my debit card, have I any chance of getting compensation. I am…
Re: Builder's Scams
We have been scammed by James Hookey & Libby Hookey... advertised for a roofer on fb, Libby contacted me to say James can help... he came quoted,…
Re: Sky TV Scam
I received a call from ‘Sky’ this week saying I had overpaid and was due a refund. This seemed fairly plausible as the day before I had telephoned Sky…
Re: Builder's Scams
Don't use Martin Jacques from swift cavity clear or swift building services based in Manchester.He did a awful job of my garden and charged thousands.
Re: Bank Identification or BIN numbers Scam
Okay I just don’t want to euryeurueiieoeoe you talking about to sleep or sleep no sleep sleep no cap on sleep and…
Re: Builder's Scams
I have been scammed by a man called James hookey, and his wife Libby hookey, from face book, asking for recommendation, for patio, The wife sends a…
Re: Vishing Scam
Had a text message this morning form a mobile number saying that I’ve missed a delivery and that I needed to pay 1.50 to R.M. Lucky enough my iPhone…
Re: Builder's Scams
DNF Builder and Plastering, based in North East (Newcastle/Gateshead/South Shields/Sunderland), run by David (Mancunian) and Ian. ***Do not…