Beware of Phishing 'Vacation Rental' Sites

A nationally recognized reporter, writer, and consumer advocate, Ed Perkins focuses on how travelers can find the best deals and avoid scams.

He is the author of "Online Travel" (2000) and "Business Travel: When It's Your Money" (2004), the first step-by-step guide specifically written for small business and self-employed professional travelers. He was also the co-author of the annual "Best Travel Deals" series from Consumers Union.

Perkins' advice for business travelers is featured on MyBusinessTravel.com, a website devoted to helping small business and self-employed professional travelers find the best value for their travel dollars.

Perkins was founding editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter, one of the country's most influential travel publications, from which he retired in 1998. He has also written for Business Traveller magazine (London).

Perkins' travel expertise has led to frequent television appearances, including ABC's "Good Morning America" and "This Week with David Brinkley," "The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," CNN, and numerous local TV and radio stations.

Before editing Consumer Reports Travel Letter, Perkins spent 25 years in travel research and consulting with assignments ranging from national tourism development strategies to the design of computer-based tourism models.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Perkins lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife.

See recent posts by Ed Perkins

A reader recently reported losing a large pre-payment on a vacation rental in Paris. She was the victim of a phishing scam she later found was widespread.

She started off doing everything the right way. She booked through VRBO, part of the world’s largest vacation-rental listing group, and also checked the listing on other sites. She exchanged emails with the agency representing the property and the individual property owner verifying details of the rental. She Googled the name of the property owner and found he was legitimate.

But then she made the big mistake: paying for the rental up front with an electronic bank transfer.

By now you’ve guessed that the pre-payment to an account at Barclays vanished from the Barclays account instantly. When she asked her bank to trace the payment, it could do no more than verify it arrived at Barclays. And her bank not only confirmed the scam but also told here to close her account immediately and open a new one to prevent the scammer from back-tracing the payment to her former account and draining more funds from it.

Clearly, this reader was the victim of a phishing scam: Someone obtained an email address closely resembling a property owner’s, adopted a phony corporate name, opened a bank account in that name, and posted what looked like a genuine website. She ultimately found other victims of the same crooks.

Individual consumers have almost no chance at recovering any money from a scam such as this. The only protection is to avoid paying cash—by check or electronic transfer—to any agency you can’t fully verify. The only way to prevent a potential scam is either to pay by credit card and take advantage of the legal protections credit cards enjoy or buy travel insurance that protects you against fraud. That’s why so many renters now demand that owners take credit cards, and why so many now do.

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