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Owners Direct/Holidays Abroad - Beware Scam

usignuolo Posts: 1,923 Forumite

30 August 2014 at 10:29AM edited 30 August 2014 at 10:44AM in Overseas holidays & travel planning

Papers reporting significant scam with Owners Direct/Holidays Abroad Villas. Scammers have managed to hack into the website and so intercept bookings, offer discount for payment upfront and then when bookers arrive, owner knows nothing about it.

Police are issuing bland statements which basically mean they are not interested in investigating and more worryingly, the rentals are being paid into a UK Barclays account and Barclays is refusing to cooperate with defrauded customers on grounds that all its bank account holders are covered by confidentiality/data protection and also their account holders have to prove their identity to open an account (so cannot be fraudsters!).

Owners Direct says it is 0.1% of their database but it is beginning to look like a lot more.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/holidays/article-2695530/Fraudsters-stole-hen-cash-Owners-Direct-property-rental.html

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Owners Direct/Holidays Abroad - Beware Scam

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