Have we been scammed (VRBO)?

[EightFingers]

We (thought we did anyway) have this VRBO all arrainged to the point of actually emailing the owner and getting confirmation.
Now we get this email:
___________________________________

Hello,

This email address was recently used to send an inquiry to property listing #168945 on VRBO®.

Headline: “Ocean Steps Away 3/Bdr3beautiful Home Very Near Seashore, Pool"

Location: Keaau, Hawaii

It is possible that you may have been the victim in a situation involving the breach of an owner’s personal email account. While we understand that this is no consolation, please be aware that there was no security issue at VRBO.com. The listing was legitimate and the inquiry was properly forwarded to the email address the owner provided to us. The security issue occurred on the owner’s personal email account which seems to have been compromised by a phishing attack. We have no control over the security of an owners personal email account. When we learned of this breach we moved promptly to suspend the owner’s listings and put them through a process to reinstate their listings on our site with a safe email address.

Once their listings are reactivated we will notify you and you can then reinitiate contact with the owner through our inquiry system. That notification will come directly from VRBO.com. At that time we will provide you with instructions to view property #168945 again on VRBO.com.

Since we are not responsible for the security of an owner’s email account, this situation is not protected by the HomeAway Carefree Rental Guarantee, and since we have no liability in this matter (we refer you to Section 1.1 and 8 of the Terms and Conditions you agree to when using our site), we recommend that you attempt to resolve this matter with the owner.

Sincerely,

Diane
VRBO.com
Trust & Security


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Not real sure what all this means (scam?), but we will call the owner and see what's up. Guess it's a good thing we paid our deposit by credit card.
Good thing we have time to book something else!

[mdd7000]

Hope you get it settled out.
Oceanfront is an understatement for that house.
On big waves - you, and the house, get wet.

[EightFingers]

Actually, that would be exciting, since we don't own the house! Do you know if this really IS a VRBO?
Anyway, we'll try to contact the owner later today, and if that doesn't resolve anything we'll contact our credit card issuer.
Is it too late to ask if anyone can recommend a VRBO in the HPP area? March 9th thru the 21st.
Googling VRBO complaints I was horrified as to the quantity of them. we used VRBO two years and we were really happy with it. I guess now it's not so great. Funny, they have no customer service number to call......

[mdd7000]

It really is a vrbo - and been quite busy the last few months.
Owners were there for a number of weeks recently and did all kinds of updating too.

[EightFingers]

That makes me feel a little better. It's possible his email account got hacked and that was it. We did a LOT of checking before we sent our deposit and everything looked OK.
I guess it could be an elaborate scam where someone hacked his email, and set up a bogus VRBO.
Still, I want to "assume the best".

[Andrew]

I read the response from VRBO as not saying that the vacation rental itself is a scam but that the owner of the vacation rental had their email compromised by a phishing scam hacker.

Here is what is IMPORTANT for you: You mentioned having made a deposit with your credit card. Did you do this via email to the vacation rentals owner? IF SO the perpetrator of the phishing scam may well have your credit card information. IF YOU DID make your deposit vua email call your credit card company immediately and explain what happened and that a hacker may have your CC info. Stop the account and have them issue new cards ASAP

Andrew

[EightFingers]

Andrew, that's what I'm thinking as well. We paid our deposit several months ago. We've communicated with the owner via email (gave us the address and a lot more info).
If a hacker got our c.c. info, I think we would have seen some bogus charges show up by now. So far, nothing funny has shown up on our statments.

[konadave]

I maintain websites for a few VRBO accounts. Just recently one of them was getting scammed and I informed them of it. We are not quite sure how the scam was going to work but I recommended they cut the potential customer off and do not reply to them.

It started when a customer was trying to use a credit card to leave a one night deposit for a week stay. The credit card was denied due to an incorrect billing address. The owner had several phone calls and e-mails with the customer and felt they were legit. So I had them try a different website and credit card gateway to see if the other gateway would accept the card. It didn't. Then overnight the customer attempted to use numerous credit cards all using the same billing address. Each card was denied for the same reason. Eventually one card went thru and the customer told the owner they would bring cash for the remainder of the days when they came out and pay them at that time. What was suspicious was the one card that went thru had a different billing address in Washington State. The customer claimed they were in Canada. Their IP address was in Chicago. The billing addresses were businesses that when called didn't know who the credit card holder was. Twelve different cards were tried so I blocked their access and the owner refunded the deposit and reported them to VRBO.

Not sure how the scam was going to work but even the owners can get scammed thru VRBO.

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[Kapohocat]

As an Onwer's rep, I got a fax scam where they picked up my number's from VRBO contact page.

The fax to the house # I finally got to stop just by receiving the fax, the one to the cell continues to be an issue.

[EightFingers]

Update:
No scam thank goodness. The listing was hacked and destroyed. I was able to talk to the owner directly and he assured me there was no problem and we are good to go.