Safest ways to pay for a vacation rental?

8/28/2016 7:38:37 PM

PayPal always. Also do your research. Try and speak with the advertiser on the phone, check the address of the property on Google street view and search details of the property online (search the property description, the advertiser’s contact details, FB profile, property photos in Google Images).
Just don’t pay by bank transfer, or any way the payment cannot be traced.
And honestly: Craigslist is a hub for scams. Not all of course, but your best bet is paying for a property on TA, HA, Airbnb etc using PayPal through their online payment platform, or if the advertiser takes direct payment, check their longevity and reviews on the site.
Don’t be tempted by too good to be true prices either, because they probably are just that.

8/28/2016 12:55:47 AM

Answering Question B, to transact safely, use a platform with an escrow system.

A reversible payment (credit card, PayPal), especially from someone in another country, brings the merchant a nontrivial fraud risk. A non-reversible payment (Western Union, MoneyGram) exposes the consumer to a parallel risk.

This is why you hear time and time again to not conduct long-distance transactions (such as sight-unseen rental) over Craigslist. By far the most common way to get around this is using an escrow agent, a third party (like Amazon or Airbnb) who holds the consumer’s payment and disburses payment to the merchant, usually reducing the risk of fraud to near zero. Barring this, I don’t think there’s an easy solution.

8/27/2016 10:26:21 PM

It sounds fishy to me too. Not as fishy as Western Union or MoneyGram, because I could just guarantee those are scams. For a transaction done on a site that doesn’t offer assurances of their own (so this wouldn’t apply to AirBnB) I don’t think I would do anything other than a credit card, which I could reverse-charge for fraud.

Hard as it is to believe, these scammers often use the same alias and the same address multiple times. Google to see if there are complaints at scam sites. You can also use 411.org or similar to see if the name on the bank account matches the person living at the address—not surefire, but a help.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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