newtimber wrote:Unfortunately, compromised email accounts are the main way that people are scammed. Your details can be registered with the tourist office, you can have a good website with a domain registered for over a year, but if someone gets access to the email account and tells guests to pay into their bank account instead of yours, all this is in vain.
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Ultimately, it's using a secure online booking system with payment by credit card that is going to provide the guest with the best security. The guest is not going to lose any money and it's not going to be worth the effort of a fraudster hacking an owner's site or the 3rd party booking site - there are easier ways of getting card details than this.
There are easier ways of getting card details, I'm sure, but it certainly does happen in this way. Cloned booking systems are rife. I've seen a complete and very accurate airbnb clone a year or so ago. And cloned properties on established booking systems are also very common. The main problem round here is duplicated properties, rather than compromised email accounts.
Compromised email is a problem too of course. But not all CC systems are secure either.
It's very difficult to know what to do, to best help a guest to be wary of scams without putting them off completely, and this is a useful conversation for thinking about these issues
From the point of view of our market - if they've booked a holiday for ten people at New Year (which is the typical scam round here as it's massively oversubscribed) ...whilst it's true that they will get their money back from a CC company, they are likely to have to pay very seriously for accommodation, even if any can be found at all. It would completely ruin a holiday. And it happens, from time to time.
So I prefer to emphasize contact and establishing that I am an actual person, rather than getting too much into payment methods and security. I encourage people to contact me during the booking process, for a chat over some details.
I do accept cards via PayPal but I add a charge, and after a talk, many opt to waive this. Also, as we are a single large place, I do worry a bit about chargebacks. I'm not sure what the latest is on protection for a holiday home paid for via PayPal anyway, there were some questions over it the last time I checked.
It remains a really difficult area. Airbnb doesn't really work for us at our size, but I think they have this part very well thought out.