How to spot fraudulent enquiries
When you're receiving enquiries for your holiday home directly to your email inbox, it's important that you're aware of how to spot potentially fraudulent, or scam, emails. Although the majority of enquiries sent through holidaylettings.co.uk are genuine requests from holidaymakers, you still need to be vigilant when checking and responding to your enquiries.
One of the most common scams is when a holidaymaker pays by cheque for a sum in excess of what you charge. You are then asked to refund the difference upon receipt of the cheque, which will not clear, thereby tricking you out of money.
Also, take a look at our advice on how to protect yourself from phishing schemes, where personal details such as passwords are gained for fraudulent purposes.
Holiday Lettings has a variety of security systems in place to monitor and catch these kind of scam emails, but unfortunately scammers are very clever and we may not be able to catch all of them. Therefore we urge you to remain vigilant when dealing with your enquiries.
Clues to help you identify a scam enquiry are:
The enquirer asks to pay by cheque, sends too much money and asks for a refund of the difference.
The enquiry is written in poor English and overly formal; however, please note that you may receive legitimate enquiries from a holidaymaker for whom English is not their first language.
The enquiry includes a lot of the holidaymaker's personal circumstances which are irrelevant.
The enquiry may be for a noticeably long period of time.
The enquirer wishes to pay by Western Union, bankers draft or cashiers cheque.
The enquirer asks you to phone them but the number they provide is a premium rate number. Such numbers often begin in 09.
