Almost got caught out by a fraudster pretending to hire out a villa. Villa was on AirBnB.co.uk. Appeared legit though the price was less than could be expected. I made contact through the site and then they called me up on mobile phone. We agreed a price and then they sent me contract details and bank details for transfer.
All looked thoroughly professional and the guy even sounded professional. Earlier the property had dropped off the site with the guy claiming they were making some updates to the information and it would be back up shortly. He then called me at 11pm asking when payment and contract would be sent through, this sent alarm bells ringing and I looked it up online to see that many had been robbed, see this link:
Airbnb scammers con £1,000s from british holidaymakers | This is Money
I would never make payment without making some thorough checks and the property had not come back on the site, neither did the property tally up with the feedback of the AirBnB user (who had some good feedback). Seems their account had been hacked and a fake property posted - though AirBnB just took the property off without informing me of it.
Guy gave me details of a TSB bank, so I called them up to report fraud and they said they we were too busy! I was like "I am calling to help you guys out here!"
All looked thoroughly professional and the guy even sounded professional. Earlier the property had dropped off the site with the guy claiming they were making some updates to the information and it would be back up shortly. He then called me at 11pm asking when payment and contract would be sent through, this sent alarm bells ringing and I looked it up online to see that many had been robbed, see this link:
Airbnb scammers con £1,000s from british holidaymakers | This is Money
I would never make payment without making some thorough checks and the property had not come back on the site, neither did the property tally up with the feedback of the AirBnB user (who had some good feedback). Seems their account had been hacked and a fake property posted - though AirBnB just took the property off without informing me of it.
Guy gave me details of a TSB bank, so I called them up to report fraud and they said they we were too busy! I was like "I am calling to help you guys out here!"
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