Hi Everyone,

Hope you all survived the Memorial Day weekend. Last week I blogged about how one of my properties was still not booked, so I decided to open it up for nightly rentals.  In the end I got a bunch of calls and inquiries for nightly bookings, and of course many of them were offering the “I'll do you a favor and take that vacancy off your hands for the deeply discounted price of $100 for 4 nights.” In the end I ended up NOT booking it. I couldn't believe I had Memorial Day open!  So I called a friend in Atlanta and offered it to her (for free). She and her 2 daughters happily used my property. She asked if I needed anything done, and really I didn't, but when she got back she reported that she did some deep cleaning, and picked up a few odds and ends at the store for me. Even though I didn't rent it, I was happy to give it to a friend to use and also quite pleased to have some eyes on it right before my heaviest booking season.

I also want to share something that recently happened to me. Last week I got an inquiry from a person from the UK inquiring about my cabin in the Smokey Mountains. There were none of the “obvious” red flags, other than the fact that she was from the UK. But let's face it, the Smokey Mountains are not really on the top of the “must visit” list for people in Europe, so, in my opinion, that was big red flag in and of itself.

In the comments section of the inquiry, she simply wrote “Can you confirm availability and price?” As you could imagine I was thinking this was definitely a scammer, so I was admittedly rather curt in my reply, just responding yes I have it open and here is the rate—nothing friendly or fluffy. I fully expected her next response to be “send me your mailing address and I'll send you a certified check…blah…blah…blah.”

But I was wrong; she employed a different tactic. She replied, “Thank you for confirming price and availability for the above dates. How do I secure the booking?”  I figured I'd engage further if not for anything else but simply as a test to see how far this scammer would go. My response was, “We take credit cards for payment. You would have to arrange a time to call us and give us your credit card information. Just curious, what brings you from the UK to Tennessee?”   I used this approach knowing the scammers never pay by credit card.

Lo and behold, she replied again! This time she explained that she was visiting friends in the US and, they'd be traveling around for a few weeks. Their friends here in the States highly recommended visiting the Smokey Mountains. Shortly after she emailed the explanation, she called and paid in full by credit card.

It's pretty bad that I have become so guarded and worried about scammers that I almost didn't even reply to her first email. I would have turned away a very qualified renter.

Lessons learned: Don't assume, but proceed with caution.

Happy Renting ~

Christine Karpinski