Would you be able to identify a fake enquiry for your holiday rental property? We all get spam emails from time to time but it’s good to be alert when your business is at stake.
Scam emails tend to be identifiable by one or more of these elements. Would you spot them?
1. Is the English good?
You’d expect the English to be reasonable if a genuine British holidaymaker was emailing you. But you wouldn’t expect a high degree of formality. This can indicate a scam email so check carefully. A simple enquiry should also normally be to the point rather than containing lots of details that simply don’t matter with regard to the booking. Both can indicate a foreign scam email.
2. Call me on this number!
You will get genuine emails where the person asks you to call them. But watch the number they provide – if it begins with 09 it is a premium rate number and that indicates a scam rather than a genuine enquiry.
Urgency is another area to be aware of. If someone enquires about your holiday let and asks you to call them or visit their website as soon as possible, it could well be a fraud.
3. Other suspect areas to watch for
Occasionally someone might ask to rent your holiday let for a longer period of time – say several weeks. This is great in the majority of circumstances as you’re guaranteed a longer booking. However in some cases emails like these are scams. Always ensure such a request is legitimate before agreeing to it.
As with any other booking you’d need to ensure any stay is paid for in full before the stay begins. Make this clear and accept nothing but your usual payment terms and facilities.
4. What are they asking for?
You won’t just get emails about your holiday rental that look suspicious. Phishing emails are just as hazardous if you don’t know what to look for. Some of these emails look fairly good on first glance, but a closer look can reveal a number of giveaway clues.
For example, your bank would never ask you to confirm or update anything via an email. No matter how good the email looks, you can always spot a phishing scam.
Firstly, hover your mouse over the link they provide and look at the address that appears in the bar at the bottom of your screen. Chances are it will be nothing like the company purporting to have emailed you. Make sure you don’t actually click on it – hovering over it will give you the info you need. In addition the email address it looks to have come from is often different as well, providing another telltale clue. These phishing emails also generally don’t address you by name. They send thousands of emails out all addressed to ‘Dear Client’ or ‘Dear Customer’ and catch the few people who don’t read them properly.
In short, keep your wits about you to ensure you never get caught out.
Thank You, We never know when someone is being genunine