Scam attempts and how to deal with them

Firstly, I would like to wish all of our owners and renters a happy christmas and very healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year. I hope you all have a wonderful time.

Now on to my favorite subject. Scammers.

It does appear that the more successfull that Direct Holiday Lets becomes due to our excellent rankings on the major search engines, the more we will all become targets to internet scammers looking to rip off holiday home owners.

Although we do not receive too many scam emails(and all listing sites do) I have decided to create a brief guide on what to look for and how to deal with such attempts.

Please read our "How to identify and deal with scam attempts" page so that you are aware of what these look like and how to approach them.

I wish everyone every success in the new year.

Happy New Year!!!


Rob

Home and Away Acquires Owners Direct

Evening,

Wow, I cant beleive it. U.S based Home and Away Inc have now purchased http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/ which is their fourth holiday listing site acquisition in less than a year!! Read it officially here http://www.homeaway.com/index.cfm/tgt/od_press_release_100207

This means that they now own a whole host of holiday rentals sites inlcuding holiday-rentals.co.uk, vrbo.com, abritel, cyberrentals and many others.

My thoughts on this are how is this going to affect the online holiday rentals market? And more importantly from an owners point of view how is this going to affect you?

As a lot of you know that Direct Holiday Lets is still a relatively young site as it was only established in early 2007, but already we have almost 200 properties listed which is great(big thanks to all you owners).

My main concern though for an owner of a properties listed on one of these "mega sites" is "Will they ever be seen??". Afterall, when a holidaymaker has the choice of hundreds if not thousands of properties in there chosen country or region how do you know whether yours is going to get the exposure you want and not lost in that proverbial haystack?

I think that having too many properties listed on a listing site can also have an effect on the holidaymakers whole search experience.

We already know that a lot of the big sites have special deals for placing your property further up the listings or making them more prominent on the site but WHAT NEXT with these "mega listing sites"? Well, you know about Google Adsense dont you and cost per click? Yes Mr and Mrs owner, have your property listed across our 500 sites pay per click style!!

Think im kidding? It could be the only way you will be able to have your property consistently viewed on these sites in the near future. Pay more dear owner and someone will actually see your rental property!!

Im proud to say that Direct Holiday Lets still only costs 35 GBP per year for the first property and 25 for each subsequent property. Now, that I think is great value! Oh and your property will be found!

Just a thought!

Rob

Special offer - 6 months free listing if not successful

Hello,

Good afternoon from sunny spain.

I thought I would take a few minutes to let you all know that we are now offering all owners 6 months FREE listing on Direct Holiday Lets in the event that you do not acquire any new bookings through our site after registering and paying for a years advertising with us.

So, this means that If in the unlikely event that after a year you have not had any bookings via our site, simply let us know and if we are satisfied that this is the case, you will receive 6 months advertising completely free.

If you have any questions in regards to this, please contact me via our contact form on the site.

Happy renting.

Rob

Holiday rentals listing sites and the dreaded spammers

Morning All,

I just wanted to talk about the increasing amount of spam being posted on the net not to mention an increase in phishing and scam email activity and how we all need to be on our guard in fighting this menace.

Its only natural that Direct Holiday Lets will also become a target for such attacks and recently the contact forms have been abused by these scum bags(yes you, you know who you are!) Although we are able to combat this to a degree, a few of these emails will get sent to the owners. Please be carefull when dealing with any enquiries.

Fortunately enough the scammers and spammers do a lack.....how can I put it? A brain. Most of the scam emails that have been sent via our forms look like they were written by my 2 year old!!

Things to look out for in scam/bogus emails:-

Written in all caps(Spammer obviously doesnt know how to turn this off)
Terrible punctuation(Never went to school)
Start by introducing themselves and include their age(Probably lieing like the rest of us on that one eh?)
Stating that they are away on business at the moment(meaning that they are unable/reluctant to speak to you by phone)

Once again please be careful. If you are in any doubt about an enquiry, please contact me as I am happy to help you and advise the best I can.

Well, thats my rant over with for today. I hope you are all doing well both owners and renters and that you have a pleasant spam free day.

Rob

Florida portal site added www.directholidayflorida.co.uk

Hi All,

Another update to say we have now added the Florida portal site that contains lots of information on florida including articles, news and books. The site can be found here holiday rentals florida. Any owner with a property in florida who has it advertised on directholidaylets.com will automatically have it advertised on this site also for free.

The same applies to owners of properties in spain and france who have already advertised on directholidaylets.com. As stated in our previous posting we have also started two other portal sites www.directholidayspain.co.uk and www.directholidayfrance.co.uk

All of these sites will be updated some more over the coming few weeks. Please take a look.

Have a great day.

Robert

2 new portal sites added for France and Spain

Hello All,

I just wanted to let you all know that we have added another 2 websites to the Direct Holiday Lets network of sites. holiday rentals spain site and holiday rentals france site.

These sites serve a number of purposes. Firstly it gives all of you advertisers of holiday rentals in France and Spain the added bonus of having your properties shown on another website of ours at no extra charge. Secondly, the two new sites will help to attract more viewers to the main Direct Holiday Lets website giving all of our rental properties even more exposure.

The sites also provide lots of information on their respective countries including news, articles and books and will be of interest not only to holiday home owners but also to people currently living in France and Spain or planning to make the move.

I hope you all find these sites of great use. There will be more and more content added over the coming weeks.

Good luck.

Robert

Online Scams - Please be carefull

Hello Everyone,

Once again, I know that a lot of you are aware of online scams and that its very important to keep your wits about you when dealing with all enquiries.

I just wanted to make everyone aware of the following email address which is being used by an abuser of our contact forms and who you may have been contacted by. The email address is tbrown_work@yahoo.com

This "person" has been trying to scam a few of you by pretending that he has paid too much money and that you need to send him the difference back. Needless to say if you are contacted by this individual do not entertain him.

Always clarify that payments have in fact been made into your account and that funds have cleared etc before ever paying anybody any money back. Its also advisable to get them to fax a copy of their bank transfer receipt to you as proof that money has been sent. In all cases when dealing with online payments get as much information as possible from the enquirer.

If you have any worries or concerns about any of the emails that you receive please let us know.

Thanks

Robert

Featured Listings

Hi All,

You can now make your holiday rental stand out from the crowd by having it as a "featured listing".

This means that for a monthly fee you can have your property occupy one of only four featured listing slots on the site. These slots are prominent on the main page as well as many sub pages and show properties regardless of whether a visitor has done a search or not.

There are two options to choose from. Shared featured listing and Exclusive featured listing.

The shared option means that your property will be rotated within one of the slots with no more than 2 other properties. The exclusive option means you have the slot to yourself and your property will not be rotated but will be fixed.

These options give your property even more exposure on the site enabling you to gain more enquiries and bookings.

Please see http://www.directholidaylets.com/featured-holiday-rental.html for further information or email us.

Robert

Direct Holiday Lets Directory

Hello,

We now have a directory of travel and holiday home related businesses and websites at www.directholidaylets.com/useful-links.html

If you have a business or know of a business or website that you feel could be of great use to all of our owners and visitors to the site, please feel free to email us with your suggestions.

Of particular use are property management companies, airport transfer companies, locksmiths, plumbers, pool cleaning and builders etc.

We would like to list as many as possible so get your thinking caps on and send us your suggestions.

Thanks

Robert

Website design for holiday rental owners

Hello Everyone,

Just another posting to let you all know that we are now offering a new web design service for all of our current owners.

How would you like your own private website to show off your holiday home/homes in order to gain even more bookings?

There´s no doubt that having your own private website to showcase your holiday home is a great way of gaining the edge over your competitors.

Our package includes:

Professionally designed website
1 years website hosting
Domain name/web address of your choosing
Your site will be fully optimized for the search engines
Email address
Email contact form for all those enquiries
Availability Calendar

All this can be yours for just a single one off payment of £249.

We also offer the hosting of your website and your domain name for just £20 per year. This represents fantastic value, and we are confident that you will not beat this price anywhere.

Further details can be found at our web design page here

Have a great day, and hopefully I will speak to some of you in our forum

Robert

Forum now added

Hello,

I have now added a forum to the website that can be found by clicking on the "Our Forum" link in the main menu or by going directly to www.directholidaylets.com/forum/

Please feel free to register in the forum and share your ideas and experiences with each other.

If you have any suggestions on making the site better in any way, please use the support and feedback forums.

Robert

Bogus Email Enquiries

Hi,

I know that some of you owners have been renting holiday homes for sometime and are aware of the amount of hoax/bogus emails that can appear in your inbox from time to time.

I just wanted to take a minute to suggest that everyone be carefull when receiving email enquiries. Some bogus emails are quite obvious and others not so.

If the enquirer doesnt want to speak to you via the telephone directly and gives you some kind of pathetic excuse about not being able to deal with you other than via email, please dont deal with them as they are more than likely not genuine enquiries.

We do our best to deal with any abuse by using the "captcha" letters and numbers on the forms but this will only prevent automated spam attacks. We are unable to prevent people entering information manually.

If you feel that any email that you get is bogus, please contact us using the contact form on the website and we will deal with the issue the best we can.

Many Thanks

Robert

2 Month Free Holiday Home Advertising Trial

Hello,

Good news. We are now offering a free 2 month holiday home advertising trial for all new registrations on the Direct Holiday Lets site. Hurry though, as this is a limited offer and wont be around for ever.

In order to receive the trial, all you need to do is register on the site, log in,click on "edit my details", then enter the promotional code(stated when you log in or at http://www.directholidaylets.com/admin/register.html)

Then add your property with description, photo´s, rates and availability and once done click on "activate". You will then see a link "click here to claim your free 2 month trial". Just click on it and your done.

Hopefully within your two months you will receive many enquiries and bookings and will decide to pay the small yearly fee and extend your advertising for further 12 months. And dont forget, we are still one of the cheapest holiday home advertising sites around!

We are currently receiving around 10,000 visitors per month which is growing all the time(We are still only 3 months old) and there are many enquiries and bookings being made for our existing customers. Why dont you join them and give us a chance to show you that advertising with us should be a major part of your advertising strategy?

Whats stopping you?

Happy Renting!

Robert

Bed and Breakfast Advertising

Hi,

Just a quick update to let you all know that you are now able to advertise your bed and breakfast rentals on Direct Holiday Lets at the same price as holiday rental ads.

You just need to add your properties as usual via your admin area. When adding a bed and breakfast property your rate options will change to price per night or per person.

If you are the owner of a bed and breakfast I hope you enjoy this new aspect of the site and are very successful with your advertising.

Robert

Sorry but we are no longer a free service

Hi Everyone,

Im afraid that advertising on directholidaylets.com is no longer free, meaning that any properties you wish to add from now on are charged at ₤35 per year for your initial property and then ₤25 for any additional properties added.

We beleive that ₤35 a year to advertise your holiday home rental is great value when compared to other similar web sites charging in excess of ₤100 per year.

We are now growing at a rapid rate and are receiving in excess of 6000 unique visits per month meaning that your properties are getting plenty of exposure to holiday makers. Considering that the web site is only around 2 months old this is a great achievement, but are looking to reach around 10,000 for next month.

Increasing traffic to our web site on the internet is always an on-going challenge that we are working hard to achieve as we know that it is vital to have a good level of internet viewers in order to gain the enquiries and bookings that we all want.

Please dont forget to keep sending in your emails to us letting us know whether you are happy with the site and whether it is living up to your expectations or not.

We are always happy to hear from you all.

Best Wishes

Robert

Some changes including viewable stats and search functionality

Hello Owners,

Just to let you all know that you are now able to view the amount of viewings that your properties have had including the number of email enquiries sent to you.

You can find these stats by logging in and and clicking on the "stats" link which appears next to each of your properties.

We have also added some other simple changes to the site including the ability to now search by property id from the search fields which makes it easier for viewers to find a property instantly on returning to the site.

If you have any queries on how to use the website or any suggestions as to how we can make your experience on Direct Holiday Lets more pleasant please email us using the contacts page on the website.

Have a great day.

Robert
Direct Holiday Lets

Rates can now be added in different currencies

Hello All,

I am happy to tell you that you can now add your rental rates in euro´s, dollars or uk pounds.

This was something that we were aware of and obviously needed to rectify in order to make your adverts more user friendly.

Please log in to your account on the website in order to change your rates if you need to.

Robert
Direct Holiday Lets

Testimonials and other bits and bobs

Hello Everyone,

As Direct Holiday Lets is still in its infancy and yet still growing rapidly in terms of properties added daily, search engine rankings and daily website hits It would great if you owners would take a minute and give me your opinion of the site so far and how easily you find it in terms of ease of us, funtionality and general website content and appearance.

It is so important to us that we get your feedback so that we can constantly update the website and make your visit to the site as stress free and as pleasant as possible.

Please email us at info@directholidaylets.com with your opinions and suggestions. Also if you have had success in renting your property via this site why not tell us about it by emailing us. We can then add it to our testimonials page. We would love to hear from you all.

On a final note. Please make sure that your adverts are complete. I have encountered numerous adverts with property descriptions such as "Sleeps 4, nice views and five minutes to beach"!!! Come on. Even I can be a little bit more creative than that. Im pleased to say though that this is definetely the minority. Most of the ads on the site so far have been done very well and include some great pictures.

Its also good to see that you have been adding properties in different parts of the world which is fantastic.

Good luck to you all with your advertising. I would love to hear from every one of you in the near future.

Robert Griggs
Owner - Direct Holiday Lets

Bugs to be fixed in website

Good morning all,

Just to let you know that we are aware of a couple issues.

One of the issues we had was with the sending of username and password details both when signing up and also when going to the owners page and clicking on the "Request Password" link.

Emails should be received fine now. If you wish to receive an email reminder to keep of your password details please click on the "Request Password" link on the owners page.

The other minor issue that we are having is with the title(displayed in the big blue box at the top of the page) being displayed incorrectly when doing a search. The database search is correct and all properties are being found that match the search criteria its just the title that is being displayed incorrectly sometimes.

This will be fixed shortly along with any outstanding issues outlined in this and other previous posts.

Have a good day.

Robert

Coming attractions

Hello All,

Just to let you know that we are aware of some minor issues with the Direct Holiday Lets website and will be making some changes in the coming weeks. We will be adding:-

Property and Enquiry Count- Within your login area you will be able to see how many times your property has been viewed and also how many enquiries you have had.

Holiday Home Owners Forum - We feel that it would be very beneficial if all of our owners could discuss different topics together and share each others knowledge in renting your holiday homes. This will be coming soon.

Adding different currency rates - I appreciate that listing your properties with rates only in euro´s is not practical and that you also need to add rates in pounds sterling and U.S dollars also. We will be making this change shortly.

If you have any other advice for us on how we can make the website more user friendly and easier to navigate please do not hesitate in contacting us via our contact form on the website. We are very happy to hear what you think as we realise that your views are of the upmost importance in helping us to evolve the website.

Fancy writing some guides? If you would like to write an area guide for the area that your holiday home is in we would be very interested to hear from you. What better place to get information for an area than from someone who owns a property there? Please email us if you would like to contribute this to the site.

I wish you all the greatest of success for the future.

Happy Renting!!

Robert Griggs
Owner - Direct Holiday Lets

Free holiday home advertising

Hello,

Another update to the Direct Holiday Lets blog.

The website is now up and running fully and holiday home owners from all over the world now have the ability to upload their properties to the website free of charge. Initially we are looking for around 100 self catering properties direct from owners to list.

If you would like to use our site http://www.directholidaylets.com in order to advertise your holiday rentals and generate more enquiries, bookings and rental income please go ahead.

You have the ability to upload up to 10 photo´s with full description and availibilty calendar. You also have full control of your ad 365 days a year 24 hours a day.

Dont miss this opportunity as in future we will be charging.

Happy renting!!

Robert
Owner - Direct Holiday Lets

Our first ever blog

Yep, this is it. The direct holiday lets first ever web log.

We aim to update this log on a regular basis with holiday news, website updates and special offers among other things. So stay tuned.

The direct holiday lets website should be fully up and running in around 1-2 weeks so get your digital photo´s and text ready as the first 100 properties can be added for FREE. It doesnt matter where your holiday rentals are as we are advertising properties worldwide. Just go to our website http://www.directholidaylets.com to register.

We beleive that our holiday home advertising is going to be of great value to our property owners and will help in generating more bookings and enquiries which in turn will lead to more rental income.

We will soon be adding holiday destination guides and also owner guides with everything from marketing your property to decorating it.

So keep checking this blog on a regular basis. Hopefully it will become a great source information for all of our existing and new customers alike.