Vacation Tours USA - Vacation Summer Rental Scam

Watch out for the summer rental vacation scam. Vacation Tours USA warns us of the most popular vacation scam. People will post vacation rentals on craigslist and online classified sites. They steal pictures from vacation rental sites like VRBO . They also lower the price so many people will respond to it. Imagine 20 people sending them a few thousand dollars via wire.  Once you respond to their ad, they will send you a contract to fill out and some fake keys.  It also asks you to wire all the money or a large deposit via Western Union or Money order in advance. They use fake names and ids to pick up the money. They use temporary emails signed up for at the library. This way they can't track the email to the scam artists computer. The only way to avoid this is use real vacation rental sites and use credit cards.

Fly by night travel agents will also take your money via wire for plane tickets, hotel and car rental.  They will pocket your money and book nothing for you. Your only recourse would be if you paid by credit card. Its a epidemic at this point because its a very easy scam worth thousands of dollars. Once the wire or money order is sent, its very hard to track down.

The only way to stop these scams is to use credit cards, Paypal or pay in person. Avoid online classified ads.  Make sure you talk on the phone when making reservation, email is not enough. Only make a deposit, never pay the entire amount in advance.  Search the address to see if other people are renting the same house. The larger the amount of the transaction, the more careful you should be.
See other scam warnings at this Vacation Tours USA site.