Direct Holiday Lets Blog

The below message was sent to a number of owners and looks very suspicious. This could be yet another scam attempt.

Property: View ID: 331
Full Name: Greg Hooper
Email: englandgreg16@yahoo.com
Phone: +49-163-5151210
Message: Hello, How are you doing Renter? We are coming to France for Tourist vacation stay with my family soon. Does your holiday home is free from October 1st to 7th for 1week? Am interested in renting for 1week and how much is the cost for 1week renting? Kindly get back to me with rent price for 1week so i can book and pay on time. Regards, Greg Hooper.

The following 2 scam attempts were sent to a large number of owners on the 26th, 27th and 28th of July 2011. If you received either of these emails, be advised that they are most likely scam attempts.

The sender contacted many different owners using identically crafted enquiries and is why we have flagged these as dubious.

Property: View ID: 183
Full Name: Harry Smith
Email: harrysmth47@gmail.com
Phone: 2109014837
Message: Hello, I am interested in renting your property,kindly contact me soon via email. Regards

Property: View ID: 1062
Full Name: James Francis
Email: mrandmrsjames32@googlemail.com
Phone: 20 633 85714
Message: Good Morning , I’m James I will like to know if your property is available Checking Date : 15 oct 2011 Checkout Date 22 oct 2011 2 people . Looking forward to read your good news. Thanks Mrs & Mr James Sent via DROID on Verizon Wireless

Below is the latest scam attempt that has hit the Direct Holiday Lets site.

Full Name: Brian Dempsey
Email: brian.dempsey90@gmail.com
Phone: 07632117422
Message: I am interested in renting your holiday home for 1week starting from August 20th to 26th for our family summer holiday. What is the final asking price of the renting? Kindly get back to me immediately as i am ready to book and pay OK. Thanks, Brian Dempsey Family.

This “person” sent many enquiries to users within minutes mainly to owners with properties listed in France.

Take care.

Below is a copy of an email that over the past two days has been sent to quite a number of owners with properties in a number of countries. Please treat as a scam attempt.

Full Name: David Francis
Email: davidfrancis11@ymail.com
Phone: +1386-490-1783
Message: Hello , Am David Francis from Florida USA and i will like to know if your property is available from : Checking Date : 1 Nov 2010 Checkout Date 30th Dec 2010 2 Adults : 0 children Let me know if the property is available or not and don\’t forget to include the price if the property is available Thanks David Francis .

Firstly, I would like to wish all of our owners and renters a happy christmas and very healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year. I hope you all have a wonderful time.

Now on to my favorite subject. Scammers.

It does appear that the more successfull that Direct Holiday Lets becomes due to our excellent rankings on the major search engines, the more we will all become targets to internet scammers looking to rip off holiday home owners.

Although we do not receive too many scam emails(and all listing sites do) I have decided to create a brief guide on what to look for and how to deal with such attempts.

Please read our “How to identify and deal with scam attempts” page so that you are aware of what these look like and how to approach them.

I wish everyone every success in the new year.

Happy New Year!!!

Rob