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