How to avoid scams when renting out your tourist accommodations on the Internet

It is very common that, if you have more than one property, you rent out one of your apartments as tourist accommodation during periods of high demand, as it is a secure, stable, and relatively easy source of income to manage. However, it is likely that, at some point, you will encounter someone who wants to carry out anonline rental scamthrough various very common methods. Therefore, you need to be aware of them and be very cautious to avoid major problems.

Most frequent scams when renting your apartment as tourist accommodation

It is common to hear stories about guests who destroy or remove furniture, but today we are going to deal with something different: the scams that will try to extract money from you at all costs, seeing the most frequent scams when renting a flat.

Phishing

It is one of the most common scams, and it consists of information theft to impersonate you and pass yourself off as you, in order to extract money from your guests. Normally, this type of scammer will attack your account directly, stealing your password and contacting your tenants directly, and will contact them to provide them with a different account number to make the transfer of reservations.

Scam of the “false guest”

In this scam, the scammer initiates the booking request process when, in reality, they are not going to stay at the property, causing you to lose money for the specific period in which they made the reservation. To do this, they use fake checks or send you screenshots of afalse transfer, which will ultimately not arrive. There are several factors to consider to avoid this scam:

• Avoid bookings with strange emails and poorly written messages.
• Review all reservations in which the stay is given to a third party, or is made at the last minute.
• Be wary of those who offer you extra and irrelevant information without having requested it, and want to pay you more than you are asking for the flat.
• Check that their messages about the characteristics of your apartment match, it being common to send mass emails to scam many owners.

Identity impersonation

Unlike phishing, where they impersonate you, it is also possible for scammers to impersonate a former tenant, claiming something that happened a long time ago and asking you for money. To solve thisrental scam, simply check the data of the old booking and make sure the person contacting you is the same.

Blackmail through online

In recent years, it is also common to see tenants threatening landlords with negative reviews (on TripAdvisor, for example), if you don't give them a discount or pay them an amount they request at the last minute. In addition, if you work with Airbnb, they also tend to disable the Wi-Fi in your apartment and request compensation from the platform, something that directly affects you.

How you can avoid scams and fraud when renting your tourist accommodation

Avoiding these scams mentioned above is vital to avoid major problems and maintain the reputation of your tourist accommodations, something very important when it comes to getting new tenants. To do this, you must be aware of the following factors:

• Have, if possible, your own website, difficult-to-hack passwords and take care of the devices used to access the owner's account.
• Investigate in depth each tenant interested in staying in your apartment.
• Do not reach agreements with tenants who promise you payments by check or transfers that take time, but close reservations once the money has arrived.
• Provide the tenant with several contact channels to avoid possible identity theft.

Given the opportunities that exist in the online world, many people have the ability to put into practice this type of scams in rentals on the internet, so you should have special caution, take time to investigate tenants and secure reservations to avoid scams. If you need to install a lock for your tourist apartment, at Raixer we offer that service, guaranteeing the security of your home at all times.

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