Safety tips for renting a Vacation Rental

Our web site has listings from many different vacation rental owners and while most of them are genuine, but there is an occasional scammer. We manually review the contents of our site, but we don't guarantee any of the information on our web site is accurate or up to date. It's important for you, the tenant, to be careful when dealing with vacation rental owners directly. Before paying for your rentals, we want to bring your attention to some red flags that can help save you the frustration of a rental scam.

Tips for safer renting:

• Does the owner have a web site? Many scammers don't have web sites and it increases their risk of getting caught if they do.
• Ask the rental owner for referrals from previous guests
• If there is a homeowners association, contact them and verify that the owner is really the owner
• Make sure there is a written signed contract before sending payment. The contract should detail the dates, costs, cancellation/refund policy, any deposits, taxes and cleaning fees. Without a signed rental contract, do not assume the rental is yours.
• Be careful about an offer that seems too good to be true. If the size of the property of the price is unusual for the area the property is located, proceed with caution
• Rental owners that don't accept credit cards will usually accept a personal check. Most scammers will require a cashier's check, money order, or money gram. This is a RED FLAG. You must proceed with caution or consider another rental if the individual insists on cashier's check, money order, or money gram.

The Best Protection is PAYING BY CREDIT CARD!

• When paying with a credit card, your credit card company will provide you fraud protection. Even if you have to pay more for a credit card transaction, it gives you peace of mind.

Have suggestions on how to improve our fraud alerts page? Please contact HotStays.com.