Villa Accommodation

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Top tricks for avoiding vacation villa fraud

Booking directly with all the owner carries some risk - but you can find simple ways to protect yourself.
The safest strategy to book villa accommodation is by a tour operator together with a package holiday, because operator needs to take responsibility for that booking and guarantee that you will never lose money. When you book directly with all the owner, it can be cheaper, but there’s a better risk of fraud and

will also be harder for getting redress if things go awry. However, these pointers will help design your booking safer.

The property

Check how much time the villa is advertised - most of the joining date from the advertiser emerges on the website. The longer it has become on the books, the additionally likely it is to get genuine and legitimate.
Check reviews by other renters, either within the site you happen to be booking through (they are often on both). Good reviews could be faked - watch out for those that aren't but glowing accounts; bad ones tell his or her story. Clearly, it's unlikely that your good villa/helpful owners could possibly get many, if any, bad reviews.
Use maps.google.com to make sure that the location from the villa, and, upon having located it, you may well be able to use Street View to find out that the exact property matches up together with the pictures posted online.

The owner

It is all too possible for fraudsters chatting properties they don't really own on villa rental sites, have a booking, and disappear together with the money. Speak to your owners within the phone - their number really should be provided (and note that the landline provides more security than the usual mobile). Ask for specifics about the property and also the area, and gauge how knowledgeable and trustworthy they seem to get. Ask them for their postal address, too - choosing unwise to sign a binding agreement with anyone whose address you don't know.
Check those details about the internet to view if you may get any more information about owners, or trace any complaints about them.
Use your judgment. If there is something regarding the website, the house description, or owners that you aren't happy about, or if the cost seems too good for being true, don't book. There are lots of other villas around.

On site

Check the exact property very carefully on arrival, ideally in the company in the owner or managers. Alert the crooks to, and take photographs of, any damage.
Be sure to acquire any security deposit back on leaving the villa. If any deductions are designed, look for proof (i.e. receipts) with the cost deducted.

Paying

Be a stickler for paperwork. Do not send money without receiving, and checking that you're happy with, the written contract. Be very cautious with security deposits; ensure how the terms for returning or calling around the deposit do understand, and that this amount is just not disproportionate - 10 per cent with the rental could possibly be reasonable, over 25 per cent is clearly excessive. Some sites provide you with the option of getting damage-waiver insurance, that might cost about £25, as an alternative to paying in initial deposit.
When paying of the deposit and balance, always avoid wired money transfers by the likes of Western Union, that could be untraceable. Credit card payments are safest. PayPal may provide some protection if the account is linked to your credit card for instance Visa, the credit card issuer is liable for that fraud - providing you don't "load" your PayPal account with money debited to the charge card before you pay for your villa. Some rental sites including possess a protection scheme which reimburses customers when it comes to fraud - browse the small print before you decide to book, however.

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