Heads Up for DVC Rent/Trade Board Users - an open discussion

[CarolMN]

What if an owner were to provide a screenshot of their dashboard showing the confirmed reservation? That would show that they have it booked through DVC rather than it being an RCI reservation.

There is more than one report of a scammer out there who is/was doing just that - sending screenshots of reservations.

There's plenty of things people could do...they could cancel a reservation....but at some point you have rules, confirm what you can, and the rest is trust between the parties. There's a rule against renting RCI here, you get proof of a legit reservation, and then if a renter shows up and there's the RCI fee they can report the person on here resulting in them being banned or unable to rent anymore.

You're correct. There are lots of ways owners can scam renters (and vice versa). Our experience says that not allowing the DIS to be used to rent 7 day weekend arrival reservations is the best way to balance DIS DVC owners' interests with renter "safety" without unduly burdening volunteer moderators.

Owners can always choose to cancel a reservation and offer the points for rent or transfer.

P.S. I very much doubt that a scammer or non-DVC owner cares if they get banned
from the DIS, especially after they have the money.

 

[JETSDAD]

There is more than one report of a scammer out there who is/was doing just that - sending screenshots of reservations.

They could still provide the confirmation number to link....I just mean that would show a DVC reservation rather than RCI.

 

[Evita_W]

I'm not following the logic in this. Are you saying that you would like to see owners limited to either a thread for transfers or a thread for rentals, but not a thread that offers both?

No, I just see threads with multiple confirmed, prebooked reservations available. I am thinking a limit of one confirmed, prebooked reservation per thread would result in less of the booking on speculation that they can rent out a busy time frame. Sorry, I didn't make myself clear on that one, I totally reread that post and realized I said the wrong thing.

 

[Chuck S]

Under the rules, you are NOT allowed to offer Points for Rent AND Reservations for Rent in the same thread. You also are not allowed to offer more than one existing reservation in a single thread. Nor are you allowed to change a Points for Rent Thread into a Reservation for Rent thread. These are the types of things that fall under the bullet points in the first post of this thread regarding altered threads. You are allowed to offer points for both rent and transfer in the same thread.

• There were also many warnings issued to DVC Members who altered their approved threads to render them non-compliant with board rules. A few even lost access to the R/T Board as a result of repeated violations.

 

[RoseGold]

There isn't an easy way to tell the difference between a fixed week and a week from an RCI trade. (Disboards R/T Forum does not accept those).

If you cannot use a fixed week, you can still cancel it and rent the points, though.

This seems pretty simple to handle, as only a handful of DVC properties even have fixed weeks.

I thought the RCI transfers were always OKW/SSR? Those can’t be a DVC fixed week anyway.

And DVC fixed week has very specific timing that only lasts a month, which I doubt matches whatever timing RCI is using.

 

[princesscinderella]

This seems pretty simple to handle, as only a handful of DVC properties even have fixed weeks.

I thought the RCI transfers were always OKW/SSR? Those can’t be a DVC fixed week anyway.

And DVC fixed week has very specific timing that only lasts a month, which I doubt matches whatever timing RCI is using.

I was thinking a similar thing and that we could have a special tag/rental category that the paid rental plans have that is verified fixed week. Maybe it costs $79 so it’s in between gold/platinum tier. It’s very easy to look it up the deed on the OC website to verify that we are indeed owners of a fixed week when we purchase the plan. That way mods would know it’s already vetted as a verified DVC owner when approving rental threads as all the work is done upfront when the plan is purchased.

 

[Chuck S]

I was thinking a similar thing and that we could have a special tag/rental category that the paid rental plans have that is verified fixed week. Maybe it costs $79 so it’s in between gold/platinum tier. It’s very easy to look it up the deed on the OC website to verify that we are indeed owners of a fixed week when we purchase the plan. That way mods would know it’s already vetted as a verified DVC owner when approving rental threads as all the work is done upfront when the plan is purchased.

It is extremely unlikely that a R/T Board category/plan will be made for fixed week owners, or that fixed week rentals will be allowed on the R/T Board, at least at this time. Fixed week owners have the ability to receive points and rent them if they can not use their week. DVC Mods are quite busy as it is. Remember we are all volunteers, doing this in our spare time. Let me share with you the general steps involved in approving each Rent/Trade thread that is submitted into the approval queue.

1) If a poster has not purchased a plan, we have to manually count their posts on the boards for the last 6 months, seeing if there are at least 8 threads in at least 4 of those months, with an overall total of 50. If not, the thread is declined and a notification sent. If the thread passes, then on to the next step. 2) It is then reviewed to make sure the title and content comply with the board rules. If not, it is declined and a notification sent detailing why it was declined. 3) We then have to add the approved thread to a master alphabetized list for the year, that includes the user name, date, link to thread, post type (ie, Points for Rent #1) whether or not they have a paid plan, what kind of plan, and the expirations date of the plan...again all a manual process. The entry looks something like this:

MickeyMouse 04/18/21 Thread Link inserted here PR#1 No PLAN 03/21/2022

Note that if it is the poster's 2nd, 3rd, and so forth R/T thread, the entry is then copied one more time into a page listing 2nd, 3rd and so forth entries.

4)Copy this entry into a list of threads for the month in which it is posted. 5) Thread is approved and made visible to everyone. 6) A notification PM is sent to the poster and the DVC Mod team informing them the thread has been approved, and reminding the poster to follow all board rules or the thread will be removed and still counted against the total number of threads their plan allows for the year.

This is all done manually. As you can see, it can be time consuming.

Lather, rinse and repeat for each submission. Allowing for fixed weeks and verifying the poster is indeed a fixed weeks owner would add several additional steps to verify the owner has a fixed week. It would mean getting the posters real name, which mods currently have no access to, going to a county comptroller website, entering the info, finding the contract, reading the sales agreement,

And what if the county doesn't allow access to the documents? As far as I can tell, not all counties let you read the actual document, as they do in Florida.

Add to that, we DVC R/T Mods also have mod duties on the general DVC Boards, but we do also have a wonderful mod specifically for the general DVC Boards, @Sandisw, that does not have R/T mod duties.

 

[princesscinderella]

It is extremely unlikely that a R/T Board category/plan will be made for fixed week owners, at least at this time. Fixed week owners have the ability to receive points and rent them if they can not use their week. DVC Mods are quite busy as it is. Remember we are all volunteers, doing this in our spare time. Let me share with you the general steps involved in approving each Rent/Trade thread that is submitted into the approval queue.

1) If a poster has not purchased a plan, we have to manually count their posts on the boards for the last 6 months, seeing if there are at least 8 threads in at least 4 of those months, with an overall total of 50. If not, the thread is declined and a notification sent. If the thread passes, then on to the next step. 2) It is then reviewed to make sure the title and content comply with the board rules. If not, it is declined and a notification sent detailing why it was declined. 3) We then have to add the approved thread to a master alphabetized list for the year, that includes the user name, date, link to thread, post type (ie, Points for Rent #1) whether or not they have a paid plan, what kind of plan, and the expirations date of the plan...again all a manual process. The entry looks something like this:

MickeyMouse 04/18/21 Thread Link inserted here PR#1 No PLAN 03/21/2022

Note that if it is the poster's 2nd, 3rd, and so forth R/T thread, the entry is then copied one more time into a page listing 2nd, 3rd and so forth entries.

4)Copy this entry into a list of threads for the month in which it is posted. 5) Thread is approved and made visible to everyone. 6) A notification PM is sent to the poster and the DVC Mod team informing them the thread has been approved, and reminding the poster to follow all board rules or the thread will be removed and still counted against the total number of threads their plan allows for the year.

This is all done manually. As you can see, it can be time consuming.

Lather, rinse and repeat for each submission. Allowing for fixed weeks and verifying the poster is indeed a fixed weeks owner would add several additional steps to verify the owner has a fixed week. It would mean getting the posters real name, which mods currently have no access to, going to a county comptroller website, entering the info, finding the contract, reading the sales agreement,

And what if the county doesn't allow access to the documents? As far as I can tell, not all counties let you read the actual document, as they do in Florida.

Add to that, we DVC R/T Mods also have mod duties on the general DVC Boards, but we do also have a wonderful mod specifically for the general DVC Boards, @Sandisw, that does not have R/T mod duties.

That is definitely a lot of work! Thanks so much for detailing this for us and all your hard work Moderating enabling us the ability to rent our points out.

 

[RoseGold]

The only way to book at 11-12 months at CCV/VGF/Poly/RIV is a fixed week. If you have that booking at over 11 months, it has to be fixed week.

So just sell at 11+ months and it’s self-verifying.

Charge money for the posting, self-verifying, win-win.

 

[BWV Dreamin]

So if I have a 7 day reservation that starts on a Monday thru Thursday, I would still be limited to renting it out 30 days before check-in?

 

[Chuck S]

The only way to book at 11-12 months at CCV/VGF/Poly/RIV is a fixed week. If you have that booking at over 11 months, it has to be fixed week.

So just sell between 12 and 11 months and it’s self-verifying.

Charge money for the posting, self-verifying, win-win.

But what if the fixed week owner decides to offer the week after the 12/11 month mark? Perhaps deciding in March that they really can not go in December for some reason? IF they are offering their week during the 12/11 month mark, this is the equivalent of booking a highly desirable room on speculation, especially when they have the option of cancelling that week and renting the points for other reservations. There is no advantage to the DIS or the mod team for allowing that, nor in creating a cheaper, new rental plan to allow that.

 

[Chuck S]

So if I have a 7 day reservation that starts on a Monday thru Thursday, I would still be limited to renting it out 30 days before check-in?

Yes, unless the Platinum or Premium plan is purchased. That applies equally to ALL pre-existing reservations. Remember, though that Disney and other travel entities count night and days differently. We are talking about on the restrictions is what the industry calls 7 night/8 day reservations. Arrive on a Sunday, check-out on a Sunday, for instance. Like a "5 day cruise" is really 3 full days at sea, 4 nights, plus a day for departure and one for return.

 

[CarolMN]

Just curious: If rentals of fixed weeks were allowed (and I completely agree with Chuck on the probability of that), why should a plan to offer them cost less than a plan that allows any other reservation to be offered more than 30 days in advance?

 

[princesscinderella]

Just curious: If rentals of fixed weeks were allowed (and I completely agree with Chuck on the probability of that), why should a plan to offer them cost less than a plan that allows any other reservation to be offered more than 30 days in advance?

I think that the fixed week plan could be offered for less than the other one by just a bit because you could make it so that they can only have 3 listings a year similar to the silver plan but with the ability to rent the fixed week.

 

[CarolMN]

I think that the fixed week plan could be offered for less than the other one by just a bit because you could make it so that they can only have 3 listings a year similar to the silver plan but with the ability to rent the fixed week.

But why is renting a fixed week different than any other reservation offered more than 30 days in advance?

Neither gold nor silver allow reservations more than 30 days in advance. I don't see a logical rationale for giving fixed weeks special treatment.

 

[princesscinderella]

But why is renting a fixed week different than any other reservation offered more than 30 days in advance?

Neither gold nor silver allow reservations more than 30 days in advance. I don't see a logical rationale for giving fixed weeks special treatment.

I think the guaranteed nature of the the fixed week makes it different. Especially for hard to get view/rooms at hard to book times. I’m not suggesting you price it lower than gold or silver, but to create a new tier category between gold and platinum that’s more limited in general points rentals. It would give confidence too to the renter that they are renting from a verified fixed week owner.

 

[Chuck S]

It would give confidence too to the renter that they are renting from a verified fixed week owner.

That is a valid point, but in the end, renting a fixed week from an owner is still a matter of trust. The owner could still cancel the reservation at any time, the owner may have the reservation suspended for getting behind in dues, or they could sell the contract. So all the risks of a fixed week are still there for the renter. It would actually be a sense of false confidence.

Also, our boards allow the owners to offer their points to rent in advance of the start of 11 month window, so a renter could ask an owner to book a reservation right at the 11 month window, and likely be very successful (at least in a more normal year) in getting the reservation they want, without being limited to exactly 7 nights.

 

[RoseGold]

I don't see a logical rationale for giving fixed weeks special treatment.

Because they are special products, usually the most peak times and rooms. This is valuable to owners and renters.

If they’re listed at over 11 months, just verifying the reservation exists is self-proving. It’s an email.

Any DVC rental has the same risks that owners could cancel reservations. That has nothing to do with the fixed week.

 

[Chuck S]

Email confirmations can, and have, been forged before for scam purposes.

 

[mort1331]

I just want to say THANK YOU to all the MODS.
The example above shows how much work goes into this. I have been fortunate to be able to use the boards to rent my additional points over the last few years.
I think all the above changes are fair for all. You wont please everyone, but to stay within the rules that is what you need to do.
Keep up the great work, and again
THANK YOU ALL