Booking a summer holiday? Then watch out for fake websites that could cost you dear.
One family arrived at a villa in Tenerife to enjoy a winter break in the sun only to be turned away because the owner knew nothing about them.
“When we arrived on Christmas Eve there was no transport at the airport waiting for us, so we got a taxi to the villa and the reality set in that we had been scammed,” said Paul Brownett, of Leicester.
The extended family group, including a six-week-old baby, had paid £1,584 for the villa rental plus a £500 security deposit.
They then had to pay another £1,450 for alternative apartments for their holiday, which weren't easy to find at this busy time of year.
They’d booked through LuxuryCanarianRentals.com, which claims “we believe in honesty, accuracy and commitment to perfection”.
It also claims to have more than 2,600 satisfied customers – even though the website was only created in September.
That’s not all that’s suspicious.
The site offers a “Peace of Mind Payment Protection” policy, yet will not accept credit card payments. It says you must wire money directly to the supposed villa owners – a highly insecure method of paying with no way of recovering your cash if the deal goes wrong.
The site also carries pictures of what it claims is “Our Team”, including Mirabel Morales, the supposed property manager of the Brownetts’ villa.
But an internet search shows that the picture used is really that of Tanya Benenson, who works for American broadcaster NBC.
I’ve emailed the website and am not surprised to have received no answer.
*Spanish police say they’ve smashed a gang that’s netted £700,000 in holiday villa frauds.
Five homes were raided in and around Madrid and Valencia, officers seized computers, mobiles and bank cards, and arrested 15 Spaniards, three Romanians, one suspect from Uruguay and one from Colombia. Seven cars and a boat were also seized.
"It will take several months to work-out the exact number of victims and where they each came from by going through all the documents the investigating team have," said a spokeswoman at the Valencia regional headquarters of the National Police.
The villas that were offered for rent were in the Canary and Balearic Islands.