An owner notified us of the elaborate telephone scam outlined below back in 2014. Whilst this is a few years old now, there are many similar scams doing the rounds today which have the potential to cost cottage owners significantly. Please take a moment to read up about this scam, just incase you are ever caught off-guard by a similar phone call.
In this particular example, a gentleman calling himself James was phoning cottage owners, claiming he worked for Independent Cottages (and he claimed the same for other advertising websites like ourselves). He offered a special promotion for just a small charge of £5-£10 and stated that this would put the owner’s advert at the top of the search results within the region for a limited period of time.
It was reported that ‘James’ spoke very well (English accent), was exceptionally professional and had a good sales pitch. At the time, he was also reported to be very knowledgeable about the owner and their property and the company he was supposedly representing.
It would appear that the motivation behind this scammer was to gain the owners credit/debit card details and then fraudulently use them. One owner reported that they did indeed take out the ‘special promotion’ from James when he was targeting a different advertising website, only to then have their account wiped out as they paid by debit card!
Please be aware of this type of scammer. Whilst it may appear in different forms in the future, it is a very plausible scam (very affordable, tempting and professionally executed!) and one that is likely to continue to catch holiday home owners out.
Tips to help you spot a scammer
Unfortunately there will always be fraudulent people out there trying to scam cottage owners either by email or phone, so we have put together some tips which should hopefully help you avoid getting caught:
- If someone phones trying to sell you something you are tempted to buy, take the caller’s name, company and telephone number and call them back. This will give you the opportunity to make sure they are a genuine employee/person. If they won’t provide you with a number, be very suspicious and also be wary if anyone gives you a mobile number as a point of contact!
- Look the company up online to establish if it exists and double check the telephone number you have been given to ensure it is genuine. You may also want to call the company and check if this person does indeed work for them.
- When purchasing something over the phone or online, use a credit card with fraud protection. If you use a debit card, the funds will come straight out of your bank account and it could be difficult or impossible to recover the money.
- Only ever make payments online from secure websites. More often than not, browsers will warn you if a site is not secure but always double check the site is ‘https’ and ideally has a padlock icon (depending on your browser) before entering your card details.
- Make yourself aware of the different types of scams out there in the holiday rental market. New scammers are continually raising their ugly heads so make sure you are forewarned. Other popular scams to be aware of are Overpayment Scams – one with a long history in the self-catering market but still catching owners out; Phishing Scams and similarly named Vishing Scams.
If you have any additional information you can provide regarding this or any other scammer, please leave a reply below so that it can be shared with other cottage owners.
Over the last 12 months we have received 2 scams that were practically identical.
The first one occurred last year when we first advertised our holiday home and we were novices as holiday home owners.
We received an email from someone who claimed he was French. He stated he wanted to book a week’s stay and that he would send us a cheque in Euros for a significant amount than the rent. He told us that we should bank the cheque and deduct the rent and then send the balance to his agent, who would arrange travel and accommodation for him when he arrived in England.
We were very nearly duped by this scam but luckily when we submitted the cheque to our bank the bank clerk alerted us that it was almost certainly a scam and he would not accept it.
If we had followed the ‘Frenchman’s’ instructions the money being sent to his ‘agent’ would have been deducted from our account, the Euro cheque would have then subsequently ‘bounced’ and we would have lost approximately £2000.00.
This year we received an email from a man claiming to be an American who again repeated the same scam as the ‘Frenchman’.
On this occasion we informed him that for foreign travellers we only accepted cash on the day that they arrive at the holiday cottage.
We never received a reply.
Hope this is helpful.