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NIGERIAN VACATION RENTALS SCAM
Be aware of this scam originating from Nigeria with UK ties.
These cockroaches are targeting vacation home rental HOME OWNERS. | 
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11,557 Vacation Rentals
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VACATION RENTAL SCAM TARGETING RENTAL OWNERS
Please be aware that scams DO take place on the Internet, so you have to do your
due diligence when engaging in ANY transaction on the Internet. There are
basically 2 types of scams pertaining to the Vacation Rental Industry; those that
target vacation rental home owners, and those that target vacation rental seekers.
This is a typical scam targeting the VR home owner. GO HERE to learn about the
scam targeting vacation rental seekers.
These scammers are predominately based in Nigeria with ties
to the UK. Forget political correctness, this is a fact. and it's
also a fact that Nigeria is a shitty hell hole of a country with a bunch of low
life scoundrels living there... And the UK is quickly becoming that way.
Here is how the scam works... These cockroach scammers will "book" your rental
home by first arranging with you via e-mail on its availability. They will then
send you a check, either a cashier's check or a real check that they stole
from some other victim of theirs. They will sometimes write you a check in an
amount that exceeds the agreed upon rental price.
For instance, they will book your unit for 1 month and send you a check for
1 full month. Then they will contact you and say they can not stay the full
month, but only 2 weeks, and they will ask you to refund the extra 2 weeks
of money that they sent to you. Or, they will send you a check for a significant
amount over your agreed upon price, and contact you saying they are sorry,
they accidentally sent you too much. So now, because you cashed it, you feel
guilty for having cashed it knowing that it was more than the amount you had
agreed upon.. so you are more eager to correct the mistake when it's discovered.
They will then urgently plead with you to refund the extra money, usually via Western
Union. Sometimes noting family emergencies. They will call you and e-mail you,
their English may be bad and broken and they may say religious praises like
"God Bless" often in their mails.. etc..
In short, you have their check, you cash it at your bank, it clears. You
go to your bank and ask specifically if it cleared or not, they will tell you
yes, all is ok, it cleared.
Meanwhile, this person is hounding you every minute and putting a LOT of
pressure on you to quickly refund the amount of money that he overpaid you.
And telling you to send it by Western Union.... DON'T!!!!
It may take SEVERAL WEEKS for the truth to come out, but here is what will
happen. You refund the scammer 2 weeks of rent money... maybe you feel good
about it because you negotiated with him and only refunded 10 days worth of
the money as you keep 4 days of it for a penalty for breaking their length of
stay. So now, you are OUT that money.
Then, eventually, your bank will figure out that the check that once cleared, no
longer clears. The scammer may have stole the checkbook of Mr. A. And sent you
one of these stolen checks. Well, it clears initially... but eventually, Mr. A
realizes that someone stole his checkbook, and there's cashed checks he never
wrote. He notifies his bank, then his bank gets the money back from YOUR bank
account... possibly MONTHS after you initially cashed the check and it cleared.
YOU end up paying the price for this fraud.
So bottom line....
1) You should never accept or cash a check for an amount more than is owed to you.
Simply do not cash it.
2) If you do cash a check, never immediately issue a refund to the renter until
after you verify the check is valid, this may take a month or more.
3) If you FEEL pressured or that you are being scammed, you probably are.
Free-Rentals.com does not assume ANY responsibility for transactions you make
with rental seekers as a result of using this website. You take full responsibility
in all your dealings with vacation rental seekers, and this is expressed in our
terms of service.
That said, Free-Rentals.com is doing much to combat these type of scams. First,
we block all inquiries from Nigeria... screw that country. Second, whenever you
get an inquiry, we are able to determine the IP address of the sender, and we notify
you of this information, along with what country they come from. So, if you get
an inquiry and the rental seeker claims they are from one country, but our
system shows they are not from there, but from somewhere else more sketchy like Sierra Leone,
or basically anywhere near Nigeria... then that is a red flag for you. Third, we have
worked with the FBI in the past to help catch a scammer, and we have direct contact
with the FBI should we come across future problems. And lastly, we have developed
technology to be able to pick up on which listings are real and which are most likely
posted by scammers, and we immediately delete any listing that appears to be bogus.
Please see the following web page for more information:
http://www.pillowsandpancakes.com/scam-warning.htm
http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com
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