We've been renting properties for years when we travel to NYC for vacation - first through Craigslist (which was always a bit sketchy) and then we started using Home Away, which was a step better because we at least knew the apartments we were renting were registered with the website. But when we were just in South America visiting our daughter, we had 2 different experiences: in Brazil we rented through Home Away and the owner only spoke/communicated via email in Portuguese, which neither myself or my husband spoke. It was risky because when we arrived, we were hoping everything was according to what google translate 'said.' However in Argentina, we used a rental company called Oasis Collections, which has staff that operates as the intermediary between the owner and us. We felt much safer using them because we were able to book with their English speaking staff which gave us a sense of security and the peace of mind that our apartment would be what we were expecting. It's always risky, but we preferred renting with Oasis as opposed to renting directly through the owner. Just wish they had offices in NYC!

She's from Quebec, Montreal? Really? Then I guess I live in Washington, Seattle.

Where there's a buck, there's a half dozen scammers.

I would love to hear more on this story because there is a similiar but different scam going on with VRBO in which is owned by Homeaway. The scammers are somehow accessing the owners emails and having direct control of the inquiries that are going through VRBO. Carl Sheppard has not helped either the owners or the travelers that this happened to. Go see the article that Chistoper Elliott just wrote about, I believe, in November and more and more are coming forth. This article Carl Sheppard suggests buying the carefree rental insurance, however several travelers did and they wouldn't cover it do to phising.

Based on my family's miserable VRBO.com experience, here is what can go wrong:
~ Rental contracts skewed to the homeowner
~ Pre-paid
~ NON-refundable, even in the event of an "adverse condition" of the property
~ Often no local professional property manager to solve "adverse conditions"
~ "Adverse conditions," where YOU, as the renter, paid in full and arrived, but the home was inaccessible (unplowed snow, landslide, bridge out, etc) OR the home was unsanitary (rats, roaches, unclean). These scenarios will NOT be covered by the VRBO.com insurance, the homeowner may chose to NOT give you a refund, and your credit card may DISALLOW a credit b/c of the tight contract that you signed. "Nonrefundable" contracts are, yes, nonrefundable.
~ In the end, VRBO.com may not allow you to write a truthful review of your experience with your unethical homeowner, b/c you didn't actually get to STAY in the property that you couldn't access. So you can't even warn other consumers, except in venues like this one.

We rent vacation properties all over the world. Our experiences have mostly been good ones when renting via VRBO and Homeaway, BUT we had a dreadful experience near Asheville, NC in October 2009. We booked the property eight months in advance. The photos and description were wonderful. We flew four thousand miles to find the property was very remote and on a rickety, one lane dirt road in the mountains (conditions not mentioned in ad). The property was filthy with garbage left rotting in the kitchen, pet stains on all the carpets (and they described the property as pet-free). The odor was sickening. All the beds were slept in and wet towels on the bathroom floors. The owners had been there several days before, staying the weekend and left it a mess! They tried to pass the blame and string us along saying the home would be cleaned - could we come back the next day - but we were completely put off by the whole experience. We finally threatened to call the sheriff. We were given our money back and stayed in a hotel for nearly three weeks. We ended up spending a lot more money at the last minute because of these dishonest owners.

We contacted VRBO but they were of no help. We put the owners out of business ourselves by going through the BBB and posting photos of the horrible property online. At least they weren't able to rip anyone else off.

I handle a rental home for my neighbor, who lives many hours away. All of my customers have been satisfied (they told me so), and many have very pleased. The owner advertises on VRBO. I would just like to point out that not all VRBO rentals are scams. Unfortunately, it seems that some are. It really angers me that a few bad apples are giving the rest of us a soiled reputation. As far as I can tell, there really isn't any way to completely verify if my property is legitimate. It is, but it would be hard to ascertain that 100% in advance. As I handle only this one home, I am not set up to accept credit cards. I only take checks, with full rental price due at 2 weeks in advance. On the rare occasion, I will accept cash upon arrival, but only for repeat customers. I guess it just boils down to buyer beware. How sad.

After 22 years of renting properties in Florida. We pride ourselves on the fact that we have NEVER had this type of problem. It take years to develope this type of business. We inspect all of our properties and hold a license that insures cleints that book with Fenworth are guarantee satisfaction or money refunded. It was only time before someone figured out how to cut and past pictures onto these type of sites. This is only the begining. We do very little advertising because we do not have thousands of properties. Our inventory is about 600 and we guarantee you will never have this type of problems, they are clean and well maintained properties. I can not understand how anyone would send money to people that do not have a license to do this type of business.

These scams are really unfortunate. Not only to they have direct victims but they also hold other travelers back from enjoying vacation homes. This can be avoided using DepositGuard. Our service routes the renters payment to a neutral trust account with JP Morgan and releases it to the property owner only after the traveler arrives and finds everything OK. It just makes sense when you are paying for something in advance that you have never seen.

I really have enjoyed reading this piece and I felt as though it highlighted concerns regarding the vacation rental scams. I also find it to be unfortunate to those who've have been swindled out of their funds because of scams like these. However, I am happy to say that I love what the “Today Show” is doing, thereby exposing those con artists.’ But I really hope folks take heed to what's in store for them if they choose to wire money across the board to a stranger without any thorough research; indicating the who, what, where, when and why factors. This a major concern. Other than this- even if it's a fact that the Multiple Dwelling Law took effect on May 1, 2011: it doesn't necessarily mean the crime will stop. I guess this is something that we all must consider.

This just happened to us over the new years with a property in Key West. We show up, the home is boarded up and the website has been taken down.

We had US bank accounts (with names and account numbers attached), email addresses, various paypal accounts (verified seller, too) and phone numbers (still works today). Key West police sent us to FL state attorney. State Attorney sent us to San Francisco PD (where we booked it online). SF PD sent us back to Key West PD (who would not take our statement, but did indicate this was a perfect crime as nobody will pursue it). SF PD finally took our statement but we dont believe anything will come from this. Booked through pay pal and our credit card company has been great in getting us our money back. We used some existing paypal funds, and paypal will not help us whatsoever in getting those funds back because they say it is not a "physical good."

Pretty frustrating, but at least our credit card company helped us out. Its amazing that there is no law enforcement going after these guys!!!

2 months ago I was a victim of a vacation rental scam while renting a property through VRBO.com. Please read my full story on the HomeAway Community board:

After posting that story, 22 other victims of the same scam contacted me just during the month of December (all customers of VRBO.com and HomeAway.com).

Carl Shepherd keeps advertising in the media safeness of HomeAway web sites, which gives their customers a false sense of security. In reality web page like HomeAway is a paradise for scammers, because property listings have full information about a property (including pictures + address easily deductible from google maps), so it is easy for a scammer to pretend to be a real property owner, but HomeAway has little to none security built into communication between property owners and renters, saying that they are just a middleman.

Harriet, if you are reading these comments, would you be interested to do a follow up story presenting the victims side?

I guess I cannot put a link in the comments. My story on HomeAway Community board is called "Scam - everyone should read this!"

Thanks for the great article. I think purchasing Travel Insurance from a reliable National Insurance company can be so handy in situations like this. www.firstknightinsurance.com

Scams are common in any online business where money is transferred. Vacation Rentals are no exception. We have been owners for 4.5 years and I'm happy to say that we've never had a major complaint and we've always resolved lesser problems immediately. Last night, a guest checked in and discovered that our extra air bed was damaged (something we didn't catch and a previous guest didn't tell us about). We fixed that problem within 30 minutes. There are many more good owners with integrity offering rentals than there are bad.

For our guests protection and ours, we only accept credit cards and Paypal. Money paid with these methods give the buyer recourse if they have been scammed for at least 60 days from the date of the charge (maybe someone else can elaborate on that?) I personally wouldn't pay for a rental any other way and definitely wouldn't ever send money western union or any other anonymous way.

VRBO and Home Away are among the major sites and don't tolerate scams. The recent problems came from owners clicking on a pfishing email that gave scam artists control of their emails. That was not the site's fault, but perhaps they should consider including coverage for that built into listing fees? The cost wouldn't be much spread over tens of thousands of owners.

We recommend that travelers stick to the well established rental sites to locate rentals and to choose owners who have a history of rentals with great guest comments and reviews. That is how you will find a good rental.

When we travel, we much prefer to rent a private rental with all of the comforts of home as opposed to a hotel room. You can often get a great rental for the same cost as a hotel, especially when you consider that you would need multiple hotel rooms for a family or a larger group.

Wishing you happy and safe traveling, Bob

There’s a simple solution, and one that we can say will put an end to scams. When money is controlled by a third party and held there until the renter arrives and can verify the property, scammers don’t play. DepositGuard is used as a 3rd party payment system, avoiding guest risk and providing peace of mind to all involved. Check out the service at www.depositguard.com.

Safe travels - Georgia