Fraudulent 'Owners'

WOW!!! This is some debate going on here.

If I might be permitted to throw in my bit.  I cannot see what all the fuss is about.  I give my details out almost everyday on the internet when either registering on a shopping site or a membership site.  How do I know that any of them are not real and are just there to rip me off. 

I have been booking holidays on-line for 6 years and on every occasion it was a different property because I like to visit different parts of Spain. So I dealt with 6 different people.  None of them offered me any kind of security that the property did exist. Not that I asked either.  Perhaps that's because I trust people.  In each case my money was paid up front at between 4 and 6 weeks prior to my travelling.

I now own a villa on the Costa Tropical.  I use a website that takes a commission on every booking.  Not had much success with them though. But I will say this.  I am allowed to withdraw my money from their account BEFORE the guest has taken their holiday.  I have to pay an additional fee for this but I can do it.  My point is that there may not be any sure fire way of preventing a fraud so trust must come into it somewhere.

If all trust is removed from the world what state would we be in.  Yes of course we have to be careful but to start implying that chelseaphil's site may be 'dodgy', because that is how I have read some of the postings here.  Is not fair.  He may not have got it quite right with the request for utility bills and or escrituras but for goodness sake at least he is doing something about it.

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We are not suggesting that chelseaphil's site is dodgy at all, just that  we would not send our details to any one.  As the site has been running so long people would trust it was genuine, but IF a fairly new site started and requested this information would you give it?
Do you persoanally visit the properties you advertise? Any legitimate owner we shouldn't have any objection to this, maybe happy to show you the deeds etc.

It is my current employment that deals with this and along with banks there are other checks we do to check the identity ie experian and DVLA checks, although I am aware that this isn't something that is available to just anyone. Even then as you say one can always slip through. but you would't believe how many are detected.

Once you have a copy of a utility you have a "template" and this can easily be doctored by any one with the most basic computer skills. At work we have been warned about sites and give a list of them, where any one can buy fraudulent bills etc. infact you name it you can buy it. All we are saying is someone could provide you with fraudulent documentation and you have no way of checking it.

If I was paying a large amount for a holiday I would only do it on a credit card so if nothing else I would have the cover from the card provider.

I think we probably use the same site as Marksfish and we are happy with it, before we bought we booked many holidays through it too.

All we are saying is we would not send such thing to a fax or email address, but that is our choice.

Maybe I see too much through my work, makes me over cautious.

We will certainly give it lots of thought and let you know if we come up with anything.

 

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What about a nota simple instead of an escritura?  A nota simple is a document of public record isn´t it?

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