So my husband had the great idea to take the family to San Diego for my birthday (4th of July). All excited I decided to attempt to find a vacation rental. We recently stayed in one over the Mother's Day weekend as we took a short trip to Flagstaff, AZ (about 2.5 hours away from home). We stayed at the Comfi Cottages we loved it!! It was so much better than a hotel!!!
Attempting to find a rental first I went to Craigslist. And found a handful of rentals that fit what we were looking for. The very first one I contact had pictures posted online of the place they were trying to rent, it was perfect. I contacted them and actually negotiated a lower rate. They then sent me pictures of the outside of the condo, we were excited everything was perfect it was right on the beach, it had exactly what we were looking for in size, bedrooms and price. But then I started to look a little more closely at the details of the pictures and the details of the description. Some things were not adding up.
Thanks to my real estate knowledge I went to Google Maps and punched up the address that they gave me. It was the correct outside but when I dug a little further into sales records I realized that this could not be what they described in their ad. The building is a 3 story condo and it has 6 units in it. The ad stated that it was a penthouse suite and that is was the entire 3rd floor, red flag number one. Number two was the ad said it was 2300 sq ft but in the sales records nothing was over 1200 sq ft. Red flag number three the ad stated in the dining area there was seating for 12, but the table only had 6 chairs and red flag number four the description stated that there was a wrap around balcony, in the pictures there is no balcony on any of the units.
So at this point I was a little upset and dug a little bit further and took the email address of the person that sent me the information and entered it into Google's Search. I came up with a story from Florida where a couple paid for the condo that they thought they were renting and got to the location and there was no condo there. They had the scammers email address in the article. To my surprise it was the same email address that I had been corresponding with. This happened April of this year. The email address goes back to INDIA.
This was crazy to me that scammers are taking advantage of the vacation rental business now. I did find the real property management company that is handling that building and to my surprise they do actually rent them out as vacation rentals. I did let them know what had happened and the agent told me that they have had that problem and have been trying to stop them for a while.
Well I decided not to let this end my search for a great vacation rental so I found another 2 properties and contact them and wouldn't you know number 2 and 3 where similar issues. Number 2 wanted me to wire the payment Western Union, uh no!! Number 3 was just too easy to realize that this was not her place she was renting.
So in attempting to plan my fun birthday trip to San Diego I have had 3 attempts in 2 days of someone trying to scam me. I did report them to the FBI's internet crime division, who knows if anything will happen. So I have learned my lesson when dealing with Vacation Rentals and have put together some pointers when looking for a vacation rental.
1.) Always get a phone number and email address. Talk to the person renting to you over the phone. Ask questions about the area they should know this area well.
2.) Do some investigating take the address and enter it into Google Maps, look at the property is it the same as the pictures. Does the property match the description?
3.) Go to the state or county sales record and see who owns the property, is this the same person contacting you? If it is a property management company is a legit check out their website, read the reviews of the properties do they have valid contact information (call the numbers on the website). If you are still uncomfortable check with the state Real Estate Board to see if the agent contacting you has an active real estate license.
4.) Take a few lines of the ad or description and go to Google Search enter "then paste the copied text into the search and enter "again then hit search. A lot of times the scammers just copy and paste from other ads. How many ads do you find that come up with the same description? I did this for the first one and it was word for word matching another ad that did actually match the description.
5.) Do not ever wire money!! The first ad that I was dealing with wanted me to pay them via PayPal so be cautious and know for sure what you are renting before you pay via credit card or PayPal. The great thing about this is you can always dispute it. But never under any circumstances wire the money. You can't trace it and you cannot get it back.
5.) And last if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!!
Buyer beware scammers are everywhere now!!!
On another note we are still looking for a vacation rental for the 4th - 7th if you have one available that is a minimum 2 bedroom and sleep 6 that is close to the beach please contact me.
Skye Hawk
Owner, Sr. Virtual Specialist
REPA (Certified Real Estate Professional Assistant)
REW (Certified Real Estate Webographer)
Office: (480) 463-4971
Toll Free: 800-403-2430
Fax: 866-625-8864
E-mail: Skyeh@atyourservice-va.com
Web: www.atyourservice-va.com
Skype: AtYourService-VA
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