Every year they are “in search”. Fraudsters, who offer to rent a house or an apartment for summer, do not actually lease this property. They just need that gullible tourist transfer the money. After transferring of the deposit or the full cost fraudsters simply disappear. And tourist has nothing: no money and no home. And tourists, who come to the place, are standing at the door of allegedly rented real estate and understand that the real owner do not know about it.
First of all: the largest part of the proposals for apartments, houses or cottages in the Internet is from major landlords; whether it is the organizer of travels, intermediary agency or private landlord. The risk to meet a fraudster is really small. Luckily throughout property market house lease fraud is an exception. However it happens.
Offers from fraudsters on renting houses look very tempting: Excellent property in a prime location at a price that is definitely lower than the prices in the nearby houses or flats. Often pictures and descriptions are different from the real objects. This information is just stolen from the major travel portals. Advertisements of fraudsters are usually placed on free portals of property leasing; it may be a small tip in the internet or in the newspaper or just personal E-Mail message sent without request.
In most cases fraudsters insist on the rapid transaction of the entire rent, promising at the same time to make discounts next time. Very rarely is shown the real account for the translation. Most often you are offered to make payment through cash transfers, for example, Western Union. After receiving the deposit or full amount fraudsters disappear. First of all, it is risky for tourists to book apartments, houses abroad on their own. In this case for the criminal it is easier to hide. It is safer to book a house through a travel agency or through an intermediary, or in person from the landlord. Cottages-for-holidays.com publishes, for example, only messages of tourist organizations, intermediaries or individuals, the real existence of which is verified. Therefore fraudsters have no chances to place here their false advertisements.
If you found the advertisement about house leasing on other portals or small ads in you newspapers, or received a proposal to rent a house or an apartment via e-mail to your mailbox. In this case it is often difficult to know whether this is a real proposal.
Below we give a list of questions and positions that can be entitled as "Guaranteed property rental":
1.Where did I find an offer?
If you have received via Email an extremely advantageous offer without your request, you must be careful. Or if an ad is placed on a free portal for renting of vacation property or on a portal with small ads. In this case you can ask the owner of the portal to check whether the address of the advertisement is real. The risk is naturally increases if you received an Email-offer or found proposal on portals for housing rentals, where the ads can be placed free of charge. Few of the fraudsters pay for placement of the advertisement. On cottages-for-holidays.com and on other portals of Guide to the Network are checked even private property owners.
2. Who is it - the owner or mediator?
It is more reliable if you book your house or apartment through a travel agency or a tour operator. They have official certificates. The more anonymous an advertisement is and the less information about the owner of the apartment will be shown, the greater attention should be paid to the conditions of the deal.
Major resellers or the owners of houses, flats send proposals and confirmation of property rentals with full and verified address data.
If you wish to book a house or an apartment from a foreign owner on your own, you must make sure that this person really exists. Available information includes phone number, mobile phone number or only free anonymous email address such as, hotmail or yahoo with no other address data - it looks suspiciously. In Western Europe almost everyone has a bank account. Therefore, we must be very careful if the agent insists on transferring money through Western Union or other method of transferring cash.
3. What I want to rent?
Are there any pictures of the same property on other portals, Internet pages, and probably with absolutely other data and prices? You can rarely find in the Internet two similar objects. And if the apartment owners place their ads on various portals, there cannot be much difference in price.
4. Whether any unusual conditions are offered?
"Luxury property during the high season with a high discount ...". If you have received such an offer, you need to think about it. No one leases cheaply real estate, which is in great demand. Why would the owner do this? And generally it is considered that: it is better to stay away from too attractive offers. They are sometimes not so real, but very attractive.
What to do if you became a victim of a fraudster?
If after paying the deposit or full amount of the house rental you suddenly cannot find the landlord, you have probably been cheated. Inform the police!
Recommendations on how rent a guaranteed real estate for summer:You must look for real estate for summer on reliable and proven portals in the Internet. Proposals of the organizers and owners of houses are more reliable. Be careful if you find too attractive offers abroad from private individuals. Such proposals, at times, may be not so much real, but very attractive. On www.cottages-for-holidays.com and directly on the Accommodation page you are guaranteed to find accommodation offers as well as be able to rent the property you like for vacation.
