UKC

Has anyone had any experience good or bad booking a holiday through this website? It would be for a cottage in the UK.

In reply to ranger*goy:

I have used them to book places in Spain and Sicilly 4or 5 times, no problems. Try and speak to the owners if you can, although I haven't always managed to, and still had no probs.

Gary.

In reply to ranger*goy:

Used it several times for trips to Spain, no problems whatsoever.

In reply to ranger*goy:

Used them a few times before. No problems.

In reply to ranger*goy:

We've let (as opposed to rented) apartments through them quite often. Never had any problems.

In reply to ranger*goy:

Yes, I've used them with no problems. They were helpful in arranging some slightly different dates with the owner.

In reply to ranger*goy:

I am sure the majority of people who advertise on this site are genuine, but it is one of those fraud hot spots that keeps on coming up. I think it appears in the consumer press because not only do the fraudsters rob you of your money, they take you well deserved holiday too. The general advise is to do your homework. Google maps the location and figure out the local area. Then contact the owners and ensure their story tallies.

Good luck!

In reply to ranger*goy:

I used them for a villa in Mallorca and never got the £600 deposit back after returning to the UK. The owner kept saying he had money problems and would pay me back soon.

I'd never use them again.

In reply to ranger*goy:
Used them for a cottage in Ireland last year. Paid a deposit on booking, the balance in cash on arrival which suited the owner fine. Excellent communications with the owner. Left very positive feedback on the site. Easily found the property on Google Earth and everything tallied.

In reply to ranger*goy:

Used them many times, all over the world. Ever now and then we have a little worry that we're going to meet robust gentlemen in leather coats who relieve us of everything we possess, or find that the house is not there, not built, under the approach lights of a runway. All unfounded, and never had a problem.

Worst case, a place that was over-run with flies, courtesy of a slurry tank in an adjacent farmyard: it was also so hot upstairs that it was incompatible with human life - entire family sleeping on mattresses in the sitting room as a result (it was during one of the epic French heat waves though.

In reply to ranger*goy:

We let our place in France using Owners Direct, think of it the other way for a minute.

We own a fairly expensive house 1,000 miles away that we have furnished using good quality furniture (John Lewis standard) we then let people have the keys for this house on the strength of a couple of emails and at £250 deposit.

It calls for a lot of trust both ways but overall it works very well, my suggestion would be phone the owner and have a chat about the house and the area for a few minutes, you will very quickly get a feel for them and will know if you are happy to proceed.

Of course there a rogues in every industry but we have also rented many properties and have never come unstuck that way either.

Remember the vast majority of people are honest and want you to enjoy a holiday if you go the their place.

In reply to Andrew Lodge:

Exactly - we always try and have a good chat - it is a two-way thing as you suggest

In reply to Paul Phillips - UKC and UKH:

I would reckon that all website-agencies are vulnerable to mis-use - by certain individuals. Owners Direct, AirBnB and others have good feedback systems which should help sort this out. Be circumspect whoever you use.

We've used them and had some very positive experiences... but... and it's a big but... we came very close to being fleeced very badly in part because of the way they are set up.

We were arranging to rent a large house in the French alps for a summer stay. We'd done all of the research, the house existed, the previous reviews were quite positive, it all looked good. Looking back on it the only tiny thing which might have alerted us to a problem was the tone of a couple of the emails were quite non-committal in reply to some of the specifics we'd asked about, they just didn't address questions we'd asked when they replied.
We paid the deposit (well over £1,000 from memory) and then some time later my bank contacted me to say the money had been returned by the receiving bank as the account we were paying in to had been closed.

It turned out that some scammer had hi-jacked the owner's login on owners-direct and was replying to emails sent to them and then deleting the emails. So the real owner had no idea we even existed (indeed they'd let the house to someone else for that period) and the scammer was about to pocket our deposit. The bank had force-closed their account as part of an investigation into fraud and that was the only thing that saved us. Had the bank not done that we'd have turned up at the place only to find we had nowhere to stay and were out of pocket too.

Apparently this is the problem with owners-direct. It turns out to be a fairly common technique which owners-direct know about but which they have done nothing to address, blaming the owners themselves for leaving their accounts insecure.

What do we do different now? Not much, we try very hard to contact the owners by some other channel as well as through owners-direct and if we can't do that we accept it'll cost us more to pay by credit card or we walk away.

In reply to ranger*goy:

Thanks for all your replies, it's given us something to think about

In reply to Paul Phillips - UKC and UKH:

600 GBP deposit! That's not normal surely. Unless it was Balmoral (say) then I think the alarm bells would have been clanging loudly indeed. Bummer for you anyhow. You have my sympathy.

In reply to Willi Crater:

It was a big villa and there was 12 of us, still not great tho.