Other things
We're keen to develop this aspect of the site, so if there's any advice that you'd like to share with the world, drop us a line.
Free Accommodation
Every thought of swapping some time in your place for a similar amount of time in someone else's place? There are a number of listings sites for such things among them being:
Lay My Hat. Mainly aimed at swapping self-catering places.
Innkeepers Exchange. Quite a wide variety of places from B&Bs to hotels.
Frauds & Scams
There's quite an industry in these so do watch out. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Some examples of the formats used are:
- My uncle in Nigeria (and it's almost always from there) was king/president/etc. and I need your help to get my inheritance out of the country. Follow these up and they eventually ask for bank account details to deposit the money; the same details can be used to withdraw it so be wary!
- I'd like to book 5 rooms for our Christian conference in your B&B for three weeks. Sometimes these sound OK, but in due course they say they're sending a cheque for much more than the booking would cost and could you use the extra to book cars or buy mobile phones for them all. Foreign cheques take months to fully clear so you'll be writing a cheque out before their one clears.
- My niece was terribly injured in 9/11 (or whatever the latest tragedy is), can you spare some money for her? Some of these sound very genuine but that's just to make you feel awful about deleting the e-mail.
- Your bank/paypal account is being suspended unless you log in and confirm your security details. Never do this by clicking on an e-mail link; always type in the address yourself.
Some basic things to do are:
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if it's from Nigeria, just ignore it. Presumably some Nigerians do come on holiday and it must be virtually impossible for them to book anywhere but 99.99% are frauds.
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if it's from someone representing an organisation or a charity then the e-mail should be from joe@organisation.com or similar, not a yahoo or hotmail e-mail address.
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if they want a refund from a cheque, just say no: even if it is a bank cheque.
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don't go buying mobile phones for people!
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if you do accept bank transfers, quote a deposit account rather than a cheque account. It is possible to use the same details that you quote for deposits to withdraw money (this is how most Nigerian scams work) but not from savings accounts.
The problem is that some quite genuine enquiries initially sound very similar. For example, what would you do if you received an e-mail from the theatre group "Les Affranchis" who wanted to book 10 rooms for two nights? It sounded very like the first e-mail from the Christian group but in fact was a real booking.
