Vacation Rental Scam--I don't think so!

One of the many Key West Roosters

My family loves Key West, FL. We happened upon it during a cruise where the only thing going well was that we were with a bunch of great friends (who would have imagined eight foot waves in the Bahamas?). Our day trip in Key West, on my birthday to boot, was the salvation of that vacation. We have been back several times, always staying at the Sheraton Suites, which is a nice hotel, but not close to Duval Street.  In October, we decided to go to Key West for New Years Eve and to rent an apartment within walking distance of downtown. We are not novices to renting apartments for vacation, having done this our recent two-week vacation in three different European countries. And, my 19 years as a Consumer Protection Investigator taught me to triple check any contract.

We were surprised how incredibly popular Key West is for New Years. Most of the places we contacted politely controlled their laughter while letting us know that they are booked for New Years by July. Undaunted, we continued to look and found a perfect place-3 bedrooms, close to downtown, modern beautiful decor and a reasonable price. What's not to like? We had done it--found a "perfect" place in spite of the competitive demand (Sign #1). The emails had some misspelling (Sign #2) but were very courteous and professional. They had a website with two other properties so seemed to be a business. Racing off to work, I implored my husband to make the Paypal deposit as directed by the "business" and use a credit card of course. When he went to make the deposit, he noticed that the email address was a personal gmail address, not a business email address (Sign #3). Luckily, that sent up a alert for him and he called Key West City government to see if they required a license for rentals and if this "business" had one. The answer was yes followed by a no (Sign #4). Since we had been provided with an actual property address, I then found the owner of the property and called her. I was surprised that she actually picked up the phone and then not surprised when she immediately told me not to make any payment, and this was the second call she had had in a week on the scam.

Disgusted but determined, we continued our search. I was impressed by the helpful nature of all the condo owners we called--truly in the Key West spirit--they were tremendously helpful by giving me referrals which resulted in finding rooms in a wonderful hotel, The Palms Hotel, and having an amazing New Years trip.

Thinking of renting an apartment for a vacation? Do it! It's a great way to integrate into an area and have more space/amenities than some hotels. But be cautious and do your research:

• It it sounds too good to be true, it is. Look somewhere else.
• Check the rental licensing laws and make sure your company has one.
• Check the property records to locate the owner of the property. These records are generally public information and can be found by searching property tax records.
• If the name of the owner is not the same as the company, try to locate the owner and ask if the rental is legitimate.
• Check complaint records on larger rental companies to ensure they don't have a negative history. 
• Check out the rentals on the larger, well known sites such as TripAdvisor, VRBO and Airbnb and be aware that CraigsList, while a good site overall, contains a lot of vacation rental scams. 
• Use a credit card, not your debit card and by no means pay by cash, money order or check until you get to the rental and inspect it. 
• We saw 4 classic signs of a scam before confirming that it was indeed a scam. If you see 3, cut your lost time and look for another place.