Problems with renting apartments

The owners who have business in tourism and rent their  private apartments often have to deal with some problems like fake owners that offer their apartments and take their profit. How they do it?

Internet - opportunity and threat

Internet and global access to information, has made a huge step forward to offer accommodation facilities to visitors, and eased the visitors search and finding the optimal location and reasonable price for accommodation. But on the Internet is lurking a danger.

Some people offer other people's capacities as their own, often taking money in advance. This is pure online crime and very dangerous scam in which directly are harmed users, guests, and renters, and indirectly services, owners agency, portals and web sites, ie. specialized services that loose credibility and trust. We all know that credibility and trust are very important in industry of tourism. Those frauds can be happens in famous global services such as Booking.com, Airnb, HolidayLettings, Tripadvisor, House trip, as well as the local portal. Online frauds are faithful companion of the virtual world, and particularly are vulnerable sites which don’t have accurate information’s, and do not ensure and check them more thoroughly.

Virtual Advertising

Internet is so spread out that almost all of us bought, sold, commented, assessed something on line. Those people who want to make frauds on the Internet have considerable leeway and some proven ways to attempt fraud. First they opens a public e-mail accounts with false information, then registers on specialized sites for advertising with that e-mail, and at the third step, advertise other people's property, as their own. No too much math, just superb insolence and criminal behavior that is very difficult to trace.

You can imagine the feeling of the owners when saw how their own properties are offers without authorization from some strangers. The only thing in this case is left is to immediately report abuse to the police and authorities, as this is often the only way to come to the cheaters and prevent further abuses.

The web portals and agencies stated that is impossible to check every offer they receive for advertising. However, larger and more professional agencies have more developed procedures of checking the advertisers, and frauds are much rarer. Smaller sites, portals do not have resources and times for checks, which can be very tempting for hackers.

How to avoid this kind of problems?

–        The first suggestion is that the owners of the internet sites and portal have to search for prove and evidence (copies of categorization, account numbers or other data), and have to develop a system of protection. In this way, visitors and potential users could see the official data on the advertiser.

–        Some services for the booking of accommodation, such as Airbnb, who are aware of the frauds on the Internet, ask from the guest to pay the entire amount of the reservation in advance, and the corresponding money sent to the owner only after feedback from the customer. This mechanism is almost ideal protection for all participants in the chain. The guests are protected from false information’s, if apartment was not as he had seen on the web, may seek and obtain a refund.

–        Those who wish to use the services of web advisers and portal should check the experiences of others with that site. These sites allow commenting and posting ratings and reviews from others guests and travelers, it is worthwhile to read the same and find out what you be expected. Owners can use GoogleAlerts to monitor the advertising of their own accommodation through this service.

–        The recommendation is worth gold. As in many other areas, as well as in the business of renting apartments, the recommendation is something that many people like to hear and to get it, in order to reduce uncertainty and risk. Involvement of proven  agency for renting apartments will save time, nerves  and money.