Lay My Hat

Hi all this one might have been a scam, might not have been, but I erred towards caution:

Last minute HA enquiry for same day arrival for four nights, the only four we had unbooked in the calendar for months. We don't take automatic same day bookings so they emailed to ask if it was possible as they were coming to the area that day, if not they'd be happy to arrive tomorrow, and gave me a UK mobile number to call. Grammar fine, all seemed okay (only anomaly was the email was addressed to 'Dear Sir / Madame' which would usually say scam but everything else including the wording and the layout seemed entirely normal so thought maybe they were just being formal/polite...)

Tried number, 'not possible to connect call'. Checked email address which was apparently a small island in the Pacific. Looked at HA profile which showed they'd reviewed only one property, in the US two days before. Perfectly nice and well written review. Called HA who confirmed this person had not booked that property through them and only record they have is they booked another property two years before which was cancelled by the owner for non-payment.

All that rang alarm bells, and suddenly them happening to be in the area for four nights without accommodation for the only four nights we had available seemed a bit suss. Told them we weren't available.

As I say, could have been fine, but I didn't want to spend my bank holiday weekend worrying!! Int to see what others would have thought / done?

louiseddie wrote:Tried number, 'not possible to connect call'. Checked email address which was apparently a small island in the Pacific. Looked at HA profile which showed they'd reviewed only one property, in the US two days before. Perfectly nice and well written review. Called HA who confirmed this person had not booked that property through them and only record they have is they booked another property two years before which was cancelled by the owner for non-payment.

I just hope I would have had the good sense to do what you did.

Perhaps they were looking for an instant freebie with some story, when they arrived, that they couldn't pay you until the end of their stay, but with the secret intention of moonlight flitting. I believe there are people who do this kind of thing for a lark and think themselves clever if they succeed.

Looks to me like you dodged a bullet there louiseddie. Better safe than sorry.

Gut feeling + good detective work = good outcome for you.

I’ll echo AndrewH: "I just hope I would have had the good sense to do what you did."

Yes, I think I may have had a lucky escape, thanks guys. It was the unusual domain name on the email that first made me question, otherwise I don't think I'd have investigated it that far and would have taken the booking. If it was a scam I'm still not sure why the message was so personal, though as you say better safe than sorry if the instinct said 'no'!