Take great care before you advertise : Holiday home website payment scams for advertisers

In April 2006 a jmlvillas.com advertiser contacted us by email regarding the problems she had with a "competitor" site. We are copying below a transcript of her email removing her identity and the identity of the website organisation in question.This advertiser is a genuine advertiser on jmlvillas.com and her property listed since August 2005.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006 11:44 AM Subject: scam targeting property owners

Dear Sir/Madam, I am one of your clients: ID XXX. I have just fallen pray to a scam targeting holiday rental property owners. I was approached by a company called www.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com offering:

Dear Holiday Home Owner, Agent or Manager,

XXXXXXXXX.com are offering you the chance to advertise your vacation accommodation on our fantastic, user friendly website. We only choose the very best accommodation from around the world. We consider your property to be of this required high standard. We welcome B&B, Villas, Chalets, Gite, Caravans, Cottages and Hotels alike!

For a limited time, we are offering you the chance to advertise your property for 12 months FOR JUST £25 (approx $50 USA).

WHY IS IT CHEAPER THAN USUAL? We usually charge £75.00 for a year\'s advertising but have selected certain areas of our site that are not as full as we like and are simply offering a significantly reduced, 12 month advertisement to owners in these areas! You can upload as many properties as you wish (£25 each) and if you have any friends with properties, please feel free to email us with their details so we can consider them too! At the end of the 12 month period there will be no obligation for a further year, although we do hope you will stay with us!

Existing customers will be offered a renewal in 2007 on the website for just £40 per property but again, there is NO obligation.

If you are interested, please either reply to this email with your contact phone number or, to get started straight away, simply click on or cut and paste the link below into your web browser, log in with the username and password given below and enter your credit or debit card details, then press "go", you will be notified immediately if your transaction has been successful. On receipt of payment we will contact you by email with a username and password for your advertisement as well as instructions for uploading your property details to our website. Your advertisment will be as per a full priced advert, i.e, fully managed by yourself, 6 colour pictures, unlimited text, free inclusion on the home page and free inclusion in specialist listings, i.e. ski etc.

For a limited time we are also offering owners of rental properties free inclusion in our "members only" Holiday Swap (Vacation Exchange) scheme. The usual price of the Holiday Swap 12 month membership is also £75.00 so you are saving even more money!!! Don't delay, reply today and get swapping properties and renting out your holiday property

MAKING A PAYMENT - WE ACCEPT CREDIT/DEBIT CARDS, PAYPAL, CHEQUE OR POSTAL ORDERS!

IMPORTANT: without your email address we cannot process any payments so please ensure this is completed on the payment form.

USING A CREDIT/DEBIT CARD ONLINE:

log on to: https://worldaccess.worldpay.com/XX/XX (copy and paste this link into your browser)

username: XXXpayment password: XXXXXX

PAYING WITH PAYPAL: if you have a paypal account, you can pay us direct with the email address: info@xxxxxxxxxx.com

PAYING WITH A CHEQUE/POSTAL ORDER: If you would prefer to send a cheque or postal order please make it payable to: XXXX XXXXX XXXX Ltd and post to: XXXXXXXX.com, X XXXXX, XXXX, postcode, UK. We regret that only payments in Pounds Sterling can be accepted in this way.

If you would like further information please email us.

We look forward to working with you soon.

Regards Xxx Xxxxx Customer Services Dept

XXXXXXXXXX.com t: +44 (0) 800 XXX XXXX (from inside the UK) or 00 44 XXXX XXXXX (from outside UK)

The website itself looked very impressive and genuine, they even answered my queries about their service. They offer lots of ways on how to pay them - Chq, Paypal, World Pay etc. After I paid the money absolutely nothing happened. They have a customer service number which answers but they offer to get back to you and, of course never do. By now they have also stopped me from accessing their website.

No doubt they are still running, conning property owners and netting millions.

As they give other genuine sites like yours a bad name I was wondering whether you could warn your other clients so that more people do not become victims of this scam. I have reported them to Watchdog and if they get lots of other complaints they might investigate.

Yours sincerely Jxxxx Sxxxx

We replied and offered to submit the details to a warning page for her and we received the following reply.

06 April 2006 10:30

Hello, Thank you very much for your reply. Sorry that you had trouble getting through.

They contacted me by e-mail saying that they are making a reduced offer because they do not have enough properties in my area (Costa de la Luz). I then asked them questions about their business, checked their site and checked their customer services telephone number. It was answered as 'XXXXX'.They took a message and I was called by Xxx Xxxxx. (Customer Services Dept)

I paid £25 by Visa ( I am in the process of trying to stop the payment).

I was told by (another major advertising portal name removed) that some of their clients have also been scammed.

I am glad to report that in the last 2 days or so they have actually been taken off Yahoo and Google.

Regards Jxxxx

jml Property Services (Jeffrey Milner Ltd - established in 1979 in England) went into the self catering online advertising business for owners of holiday properties in 2001 when we set up euro-rentavilla.com. At that time there were not many sites offering this type of service. Since then there are numerous sites worldwide. Many have come and gone and Philip Suter personally was offered "Free advertising" for his holiday home property in 2004. Six months later the site was gone! Our original site euro-rentavilla.com has been re-branded as jmlvillas.com and a great improvement on the original variations.

The original euro-rentavilla.com site is very much still alive and directs traffic to jmlvillas.com (you are in fact on the euro-rentavilla.com site at present) and we re-branded with a much more user friendly name to take on holiday properties world wide. If you decide to use additional web site portals take some care and check out their PR ranking and how long the organiasation running them has been established for.

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Scamster targets holiday property owners - TheMoveChannel.com has heard of a scam that is running around the holiday lettings industry. June 2005

An e-mail based scam from what seems to be a professional con-man is doing the rounds aimed at holiday property owners.

Many holiday property owners let out their property via third-party internet advertising firms and one such, Rentalsofspain.com is advising its property owners of a scam that’s starts as an enquiry from abroad.

The initial enquiry is fairly straightforward, although slightly tricky in that it purports to come from an agent who claims to have guests for the property. It asks for a ‘grand total’ price for the property for the weeks indicated.

After a while, this is followed by a confirmatory e-mail, thanking you for your assistance saying he has taken payment from the guests and adding a rider that the guests need car hire from a specialist firm. He says he will send you credit card details that will cover the cost of the property and the car hire and asks that you deal with the total sum and send the balance of the money to the car hire firm.

Don’t do it! - Like all scams that ask you to collect money on somebody else’s behalf, you will be left out of pocket (and maybe your bank account details stolen as well) when the original payment does not materialise or is reversed by the bank

These con-men are very clever, and no doubt there are further episodes to this story, but as the scam is going round right now, we at TheMoveChannel are warning to leave this enquiry alone from the start to avoid getting pulled in by the scamsters guile.

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CLICK HERE for Rental Scams in Holiday Home Letting

CLICK HERE to return to Information for Property Owners at jmlvillas.com

or CLICK HERE to return to Check List for Owners at euro-rentavilla.com site

or CLICK HERE to Return to "Advertise on jmlvillas.com"

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Advertise your holiday vacation home property at - jmlvillas.com No Commission or booking fees for owners or renters

• Web site advertised in Holiday Magazines internationally 

• 6 photos per ad - change them whenever you like

• You load up your own details -including availability, prices & photos.

• You change your details and prices and availability whenever you want by using your own password.

• Live link to your personal website

• Excellent search facilities

• Main European and worldwide iholiday destinations covered.  If the country is not already listed - we will add it.

• Advice for property owners and renters on the site

• Payment accepted by secure credit card on line

• FREE ADVERTISING in addition on local sites when a property is located in England, France(English and French), Scotland, South of France and Wales

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS