HOLIDAY SCAM

Holiday misery for the scam victims who believed they had booked a villa through Owners Direct. Families pay for accommodation only to discover, at the last minute, it does not exist. That means finding somewhere else to stay and meeting the cost. Three weeks ago Natasha McDonald, her husband and three children were standing outside the villa in Puerto Banús, near Marbella in southern Spain that they had booked for 10 days at a cost of £1,600. But there was no sign of the owner, or the keys. The villa company website was down and, in despair, the family trudged off with their bags to a hotel for the night. Only the next day did the McDonalds, from south London, discover they had fallen victim to a cruel scam in which crooks hijack the emails of villa owners who advertise through Owners Direct and its sister site, HomeAway.

All the time that Natasha had been emailing with the “owner” with mundane inquiries such as: parking, wi-fi, and the deposit she had, in fact, been dealing with a fraudster posing as the owner. It is highly unlikely she will ever see the £1,600 rental cost ever returned or the £2,900 she had to pay in hotel bills. Natasha is not alone. Since Guardian Money first featured the story of a family whose holiday was wrecked in this way, more and more victims have come forward and not just British holidaymakers.

Owners Direct and HomeAway (the brand used more commonly outside the UK) is the world’s biggest villa rentals company, with more than 1m listings in 190 countries. It has emerged that thousands of holidaymakers from all over the world have fallen victim to the scam. Jillian Roberts contacted us after she was scammed out of the £4,000 that she paid for a family villa in Marbella. She only discovered what had happened a few days before she was due to fly out. Liz Bancroft from east London was due to be spending this week in the Alps after paying £2,700. Like Roberts, she was forced to find alternative accommodation. Money is also aware of American tourists travelling to Umbria in Italy who found the villa owner knew nothing of their booking.

Nearly all complain about the poor response from HomeAway/Owners Direct, which says it cannot be held responsible for villa owners who fall for “phishing” attacks. But the victims accuse the company of failing to address what they claim are serious flaws in the way it operates. Sarah Allen, who lives in the Middle East, learned she had been scammed the day before she was due to fly from the UK to the south of France. Like Natasha McDonald, she had found a villa via the Owners Direct and, like her, had used the “contact the owner” facility to inquire whether it was available. Again she got an email from what she assumed to be the owner and, following the usual discussions about security codes etc. paid €5,940 (around £4,800) by bank transfer. She got an email the day before they were due to fly claiming (falsely) that the owners had a buyer now for the villa and could no longer rent it. “I felt sick. We were already checked in for our flight and my parents were on the way. We agreed to try to see if we could find alternative accommodation as it seemed we would otherwise definitely lose our flights and our parents would be stranded,” she says. When she got through to Owners Direct she was told by its “trust and security” department it would try to contact the owners and phone back.

“He phoned back to says he could not get hold of the owner. At that point the phone was cut off, and he did not bother to phone again.” They found a last-minute replacement but Allen says she spent most of the holiday trying to establish what had happened and if she could get her money back. “The owner has been helpful and called in IT experts to get to the bottom of what happened. He told me four other families had sent money for non-existent bookings. “I reported the matter to Action Fraud and my bank, and am waiting to see if any of the money can be traced. If Owners Direct is aware of such cases, it should be giving very clear advice to would-be travellers about the insurance options, but I saw nothing.”

The pair was two of several readers who contacted Money after we highlighted the plight of JL from Warwick who lost £2,790 in identical circumstances. Campaigners in Indonesia have also contacted us to say the fraud has been going on as far back as 2010. The group of villa owners, some who claim they have had their Owners Direct accounts hacked five times, believe the numbers are the tip of the iceberg, and claim both HomeAway and security authorities such as Action Fraud are failing to take the problem seriously.

Culled from Guardian