ownersoverseas.com aka ownersnetwork.co.uk

Post scam emails to warn other rental owners, or if you are not sure if an enquiry is genuine, put it up here and see what others think.
JonCee
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Location: Gower Peninsula, Wales, UK
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ownersoverseas.com aka ownersnetwork.co.uk

Post by JonCee »

Totally unsolicited, I received a phone call this afternoon, followed up by an email message.

You know what it's like; you're in the middle of something else, and hoping the caller is a prospective booking, you're caught a bit off-balance when it turns out that someone's calling to offer you extra business should you want it, and all you have to do is.......

A strong Indian accent from a guy whose phone number is allegedly in Liverpool (UK), but whose name is "Matt Parker" is enthusiastically telling me how it is that for £149 (for the 1st year) ownersoverseas can guarantee a minimum of 8 bookings per year (the maximum apparently is 'unlimited'!), then he says to me "so how many bookings do you have in a year?" and I reply "100%" (he's already asked me whether I deal with booking.com which I've confirmed, as I have for other holiday companies) but he's seen my webpage and says that he's not surprised as my place looks nice, but he'll email details of what he's said to me anyway (here I expected him to ask for my email address, but instead he just mentions part of it, and not long after we've finished talking, the email us already in my inbox!)

Afterwards I Google ownersoverseas[dot]com, and it's only then that although I'd suspected the whole thing was a scam, there are lots of webpages saying they're good/bad/a scam/not a scam, etc, but it's really looking at their twitter and facebook accounts and seeing that they haven't posted anything since the beginning of 2018, plus looking at Whois that alarm bells begin to really chime (after all, who else do you know whose Registrant Contact Name is Data Protected Data Protected; whose Organisation's name is Data Protected, and whose address is Street: 123 Data Protected; City: Kirkland; State: WA; Postal Code: 98033; Country: US? Better still is their email address, which is noreply[at]data-protected.net! - ever get the feeling that a) they don't want to be contacted? and b) that they ain't in Liverpool (UK) after all?!

Finally, if you really really want your holiday property to be discovered, would you deal with a Company that had a very high, or a very low, ranking?

Of course, I know that ranking ain't everything, but with booking[dot]com having a Global rank of 95 and a 5 star rating, and ownersoverseas[dot]com having a Global rank of 8,117,099 (with half-a-star rating), I know which Company I would rather act on my behalf, and for whom my money would better work.

Since all of the above occurred earlier, I have blocked the caller on my mobile (still trying to do so on my landline), and have set up my emails to automatically delete any emails from both [at]ownersoverseas[dot]com as well as from [at]ownersnetwork[dot]co[dot]uk - from where the email was sent (the latter being just another email address for the former!)

(If I've gone a bit overboard with what I've written, I apologise, but I've always believed in finding out the facts before saying anything!)
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

if you really really want your holiday property to be discovered, would you deal with a Company that had a very high, or a very low, ranking?
As a general observation, I would say that depends. I get most of my bookings from a site that is ranked rather low in the world (mine) but is focused on one area. I have also been trying out airbnb this year and not had a single booking or enquiry. A more useful metric would be if you take the traffic a site receives and multiply by the percentage of that traffic that is looking for a place like yours.
Paolo
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AndrewH
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Post by AndrewH »

paolo wrote:A more useful metric would be if you take the traffic a site receives and multiply by the percentage of that traffic that is looking for a place like yours.
I have always had to use a 'trial and error' method with listing sites. Is their a technical way of knowing how much traffic a site receives? I am not sure if there could be a method to isolate out of that holiday properties which are somewhat similar in appeal to ones own.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

It's a theoretical metric, we can't know how much traffic a site receives, you just get a skewed idea with Alexa for example.
Paolo
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