+357 26 945222

Tips for avoiding holiday villa fraud in Cyprus

By in Holiday Blog with 0 Comments

Renting a villa is one of the most flexible ways to holiday. The safest way to book holiday villa accommodation in Cyprus is through a tour operator as part of a package holiday, as the operator has to take responsibility for the booking and guarantee that you won’t lose money. When you book directly with the owner, it may be cheaper, but there’s a greater risk of fraud and it will be harder to get redress if things go wrong. However, these tips will help make your booking more secure.

holiday villa

The Property

1. Check how long the holiday villa has been advertised – usually the joining date of the advertiser is given on the website. The longer it has been on the books, the more likely it is to be genuine and legitimate.

2. Check reviews by other renters, either on the site you are booking through, or on TripAdvisor (they may be on both). Good reviews can be faked – beware of those that are nothing but glowing accounts; bad ones tell their own story. Clearly, it is unlikely that a good villa/helpful owners will get many, if any, bad reviews.

holiday villa

3. Use maps.google.com to confirm the location of the villa, and, once you have located it, you may be able to use Street View to see that the property matches up with the pictures posted online.

The Owner

4. It is all too easy for fraudsters to list properties they don’t own on villa rental sites, take a booking, and disappear with the money. Speak to the owners on the phone – their number should be provided (and note that a landline gives you more security than a mobile). Ask for details about the property and the area, and gauge how knowledgeable and trustworthy they seem to be. Ask them for their postal address, too – you would be unwise to sign a contract with anyone whose address you don’t know.

holiday villa

5. Check those details on the internet to see if you can get any more information about the owners, or trace any complaints about them.

6. Use your judgment. If there is something about the website, the property description, or the owners that you aren’t happy about, or if the price seems too good to be true, don’t book. There are lots of other villas out there.

Paying

7. Be a stickler for paperwork. Do not send any money without receiving, and checking that you are happy with, the written contract. Be very wary of security deposits; ensure that the terms for returning or calling on the deposit are clear, and that the amount is not disproportionate – 10 per cent of the rental might be reasonable, more than 25 per cent is clearly too much. Some sites offer the option of taking out damage-waiver insurance, which might cost about  €25, rather than paying a deposit.

holiday villa

8. When paying the deposit and balance, always avoid wired money transfers by companies like Western Union, which may be untraceable. Credit card payments are safest. PayPal may provide some protection if your account is linked to a credit card such as Visa, the card issuer is liable for the fraud – as long as you don’t “load” your PayPal account with money debited to the card before you pay for the villa. 

On Site

9. Check the property very carefully on arrival, ideally in the company of the owner or managers. Alert them to, and take photographs of, any damage.

10. Be sure to get any security deposit back on leaving the villa. If any deductions are made, ask for proof (i.e. receipts) of the cost deducted.

Via Telegraph

Share This