Find American Rentals
Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 9:01 am
Could be perfectly innocent, but a few alarm bells for me.
This was a phone call rather than an email, but I was initially spoken to by someone who sounded like they worked in an offshore call centre, and later the call was picked up by someone who claimed to be the manager of the site.
findamericanrentals.com
Bear in mind my cottage is in Cornwall.
They gave me their URL and asked me to log in. They look to be trying to compete against HA, etc. by making a big deal about 'no booking fees' and mentioning websites who do charge booking fees (VRBO, HA, AirBnB, etc.). They guided me to Cornwall, and there is a handful of properties there, but the listings look very odd.
1. In the descriptions for each property, every single word is capitalised. So The Descriptions Basically Look Like This. Every one of them. I looked at several properties from several countries and They Are All Capitalised, Every Single One. I Mean, No One Writes Up Their Property Descriptions Like This, Let Alone Everyone????
2. None of them have any bookings showing in their availability section. I took a couple of examples, and went to their own websites (they seem to be real properties), and sure enough as you'd expect, they all have SOME bookings, but none are showing on findamericanrentals.com.
3. No owner has a photo, just the generic greyed out head. Surely SOMEONE would have uploaded a photo?
4. The caller told me that the annual subscription ($199 for a basic listing, and $299 for a premium listing) were on half price offer to me, but then mentioned that he would guarantee in writing a 10 times return on that fee in bookings.
Something's not right here. Anyone else been contacted?
Could be one of two things:
1. They harvested a load of properties from some other site (and their capture tool has failed to get calendar info, and has capitalised every word), and now need to build on their database by attracting genuine owners.
2. They want the half-price subscription from as many people as possible before they disappear into thin air.
This was a phone call rather than an email, but I was initially spoken to by someone who sounded like they worked in an offshore call centre, and later the call was picked up by someone who claimed to be the manager of the site.
findamericanrentals.com
Bear in mind my cottage is in Cornwall.
They gave me their URL and asked me to log in. They look to be trying to compete against HA, etc. by making a big deal about 'no booking fees' and mentioning websites who do charge booking fees (VRBO, HA, AirBnB, etc.). They guided me to Cornwall, and there is a handful of properties there, but the listings look very odd.
1. In the descriptions for each property, every single word is capitalised. So The Descriptions Basically Look Like This. Every one of them. I looked at several properties from several countries and They Are All Capitalised, Every Single One. I Mean, No One Writes Up Their Property Descriptions Like This, Let Alone Everyone????
2. None of them have any bookings showing in their availability section. I took a couple of examples, and went to their own websites (they seem to be real properties), and sure enough as you'd expect, they all have SOME bookings, but none are showing on findamericanrentals.com.
3. No owner has a photo, just the generic greyed out head. Surely SOMEONE would have uploaded a photo?
4. The caller told me that the annual subscription ($199 for a basic listing, and $299 for a premium listing) were on half price offer to me, but then mentioned that he would guarantee in writing a 10 times return on that fee in bookings.
Something's not right here. Anyone else been contacted?
Could be one of two things:
1. They harvested a load of properties from some other site (and their capture tool has failed to get calendar info, and has capitalised every word), and now need to build on their database by attracting genuine owners.
2. They want the half-price subscription from as many people as possible before they disappear into thin air.
