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.
