Lay My Hat

I seem to be getting a few text scam enquiries at the moment. The most recent one was the old 'your location seems to be wrong can you confirm the position' with a link that I used to get via email but I've also had texts asking me to email availability for certain dates to a specific email address (usually an outlook one) presumably to start a conversation outside the usual methods. These all seem to have what appear to be area codes from the USA. As 95% of my guests are UK based this immediately puts me on my guard. I'm just not bothering to reply....

You are wise not to. Prospective guests very rarely make initial contact via text and if your listing site communicates in this way always log on to their site to check - but not via a link in the text. If you were looking to rent a holiday property would you text the owner? Okay putting it another way, would you text the owner unless you were the sort of idiot the owner wouldn't want to rent to if you were genuine? I've had people phone me, and even Skype me without warning to verify that I am the person whose photo appears on the listing, but no genuine enquiry for me has ever commenced with a text of any description. Scammers use this means to avoid their scammy emails being rejected via the listing sites. If your phone number is published then that is the path of least resistance.

I've had 3 in the last month. Ignored them all as they gave an email addy to contact them on.

Mousie
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I have had genuine text enquiries, quite a few in fact. However none of them have included a link thankfully. I would draw the line at that point, marking one with a link as a scam enquiry.

Mouse wrote:I've had 3 in the last month. Ignored them all as they gave an email addy to contact them on.

Mousie
x

Yup. If you are in possession of an email address why text? S-c-a-m