Possible scam experience

[Dracula]

Hi all,

After renting DVC points uneventfully for a couple of years, both through David and by myself, I think for the first time I was involved in a scam. Since I exceeded my new post allowance in the rent/trade board here on DIS through October and I cannot post here until then, I posted an offer on a large social network and within hours got a request for 500 points covering a couple of reservations. In good faith I made the reservations and submitted the confirmations. Email address matched the email address provided for one of the reservations. The next day, having not received payment through PayPal friends and family, I wrote an email and promptly got an answer saying that PayPal blocked her account since $8500 was such a large amount. So she offered to send a check by snail mail instead. Since two weeks have passed by with no check, I canceled the reservations and the emails stopped. During this time we exchanged emails every three days or so, with me advising the check has not come and the supposedly fake renter asking me to be patient.

So what I think happened is that a third party connected me, a valid owner, with a valid renter, impersonated both in front of the other, forwarded my reservations to the real renter and collected payment, while delaying payment to the real owner. Since I canceled the reservations I have no loss other than the stress and wasted time. I can also not be 100% sure this was a scam since I have been unable to get in touch with the real renter; the phone numbers provided for the reservation go straight to robot voicemail, and the numbers I got by googling the names and address go to a regular voicemail, with no reply. However, this has all the appearance of a well-engineered, identity-theft scam that defrauded a renter of $8500. And since it is possible the third party signed a fake contract in my name, the real renter may still come after me for compensation.

Given this scenario, is there really a mechanism by which renters and owners can have confidence dealing with each other? How could this have been avoided, other than obviously going through a broker? How do brokers protect against that, since they also need to provide a confirmed reservation before collecting payment?

Many thanks to those who comment and respond!

 

[smholloway1]

Oh, man. I don't have anything helpful to add, but wanted to say that I saw this exact type of scenario play out in a DVC rent/trade Facebook page I follow. There are truly some awful people out there.

 

[CarolMN]

To minimize your risk in dealing with strangers, my advice is to connect through the DIS Rent /Trade Board and as part of your due diligence, read at least some of the posts made by the other party on the various DIS forums.

No matter where you find your renter, don't deal exclusively via email. Exchange phone numbers and snail mail addresses & actually talk to the other party.

Sadly there really are some sophisticated cheats out there now. They seem to prefer working on venues that allow free listings. I read about a few like you described on other boards - they were quite creative with cut and paste features. Don't think the owners involved lost money, but their reputations took a hit. IIRC, scam was discovered before the renter traveled, but not before money was lost. Very sad.

The DIS R/T Board rules are enough of a hassle to discourage a lot of those people, but there are no guarantees. Lower prices come with risk.