Tourist Housing Fraud. How to give security to your guests when booking.
Summer has arrived and with it the desperation of leaving the confinement of home and this crazy year that we have lived, people want to travel and be able to stay in a place that offers them security, but above all a lot of comfort. We are currently experiencing a situation a little different from previous years, many demands, cancellations, insecurities, in short, a very atypical summer for the tourism sector.
Currently there are many people who take advantage of this situation, and use gadgets to deceive both tourists and hosts. In this month of August there have been many complaints that have been presented by tourists who have been deceived by false notices of vacation rentals, which is very serious and has led to distrust of the sector.
Given this situation, from Chekin we advise you to give your guests the greatest possible security and tranquility at the time of booking, with the greatest possible transparency. To do this, follow these tips:
1.- You must indicate on your advertising website the exact address of your accommodation, as well as contact numbers to which people can call directly and communicate with the host. Knowing that you are speaking directly with the host and that the location of the accommodation is correct gives a bit of peace of mind.
2.-You must have your web portal with a comments section where your previous guests can rate you, and give an opinion on their stay. Interact with your guests. This generates security for the tourist.
3.-Do not ask that the payment be made in full in advance or that they do it online, if you are a small accommodation, this may be suspicious for the tourist.
4.-One of the technological tools that are currently used is the 360 online vision of accommodation. This could be an option for you.
But now, scams are not only produced by the tourist but also by the host and this is where we want to emphasize more, how is it possible that they scam me? Yes, we are not talking about the furniture thief, who also happens a lot, we are talking about real scammers, so we want to share with you some of the situations that could arise so that you are alert to future situations.
Most common scams.
- Scams to steal information: It is one of the least used, they aim to steal the identity of the owner or host of the home for some purpose. The most common are, defrauding guests financially, using personal information for other fraudulent activities. If this situation occurs, we would already be talking about a crime with legal and even criminal consequences, so the owner who suffers them is not so helpless.
- Fishing: This is a very new modality, and widely used consists of stealing your financial and personal information, to impersonate your identity before guests, and divert any resources that may become of your business. This can happen when you register on a page. Make sure you have a strong password on all the pages where you have your property advertised and protect your guests’ data.
- The False guest: Many times we do not know how to identify this type of scammer, and what they are looking for most of the time is to obtain money at all costs, steal money, through fraudulent payment methods, or by cheating the host to then threaten to affect your online reputation. How to detect these types of scammers?
- A message with bad spelling, bad punctuation and very badly written. In these cases it is important to check the domain of the person who writes the most common are gmail, hotmail if they are people who are going on vacation, if it is for business the domain must be a company domain. Also check that the guest’s name and email correspond. If there is something wrong with the data, it may be fraud. Typical scam email addresses contain random uppercase letters, multiple numbers, low bars, and the use of the letter “x”. It’s basically a nonsensical character set. For example: “nxJyleqR_6MoDq@syg6.gidjex.com.”
- The stay is not for the person who is booking but for a friend. If you receive these types of reservations, it may be a good idea to add a deposit or create a strict cancellation policy to avoid scammers.
- He claims to have paid more than the accommodation cost. A widely used method in which they ask to be reimbursed the additional supposedly paid, the dangerous thing about this, is that many times they show you proof of fictitious transactions and the owner falls into the trap, by not verifying their account directly.
- Ask them to send you the key to the accommodation by post: This was a method widely used previously when technology was not so advanced, today with automatic check-in and remote access this should not happen to you, only send the keys when the guest has arrived at the property. Or in cases where the payment is already verified.
- Extortion. You pay me or I put negative comments on your portal: It will seem crazy, but it happens a lot. We know that maintaining a good reputation is hard work and that it takes time, so when this type of thing happens and we do not have the tools to report it can become a headache. There are already some platforms, such as TripAdvisor, that have a way to report scams of this type of practice in vacation rentals, both before receiving the negative comment and once received. On other platforms, on the other hand, anonymous comments are allowed, and that is where these types of scams proliferate. In these cases, it is best to make what is happening public, announce that it is a scam and that someone is trying to damage your reputation. Gather as much positive feedback as you can, so that new visitors can see it.
- Turn off the Wi-fi: One modality that is very fashionable is to turn off the WIFI of the accommodation, for what purpose, in order to demand a claim, due to deception of services not provided, there are cases where they can request compensation from Airbnb.
There are many tricks that scammers invent in order to obtain money on someone else’s account, and nowadays with the internet and with the advancement of technology, many times it becomes very easy for them to achieve it. That is why we ask you to be very attentive to all the messages that reach you, investigate before any transaction and protect your access codes to your systems very well. Don’t take anything for granted and if something seems suspicious, don’t do it. If you want to see more tips of this type, do not hesitate to access our blog here.
