WELLFLEET, Mass. — A vacation rental scam is making the rounds on Cape Cod, targeting people booking last-minute getaways this summer.
For some people, like Lauren Carr, the mistake has cost them hundreds of dollars. The Reading resident said she booked a last-minute rental in Wellfleet, but when she drove there with her friend, they both realized something was wrong.
“When I got there, the owner said, ‘Oh, are you Karen?’ And I said ‘No, my name’s Lauren,’ and he was confused. And I said I was renting. And then right off the bat, we knew something was wrong,” she said.
Carr said it turned out the house was a rental property, but it was already booked for someone else that day. That’s when she figured out that the listing she saw on Craigslist was not posted by the homeowner.
“I was just shocked, absolutely shocked,” Carr told Boston 25 News. “It didn’t even occur to me that this was a scam.”
According to Carr, the duo lost more than $700 that they had transferred the scammer through an App called Zelle.
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Looking back, she said she wished she hadn’t rushed into a booking.
“I was texting back and forth with this scammer, but had I really just called and talked to them on the phone, I think I would have realized, you know, asked specific questions. I think I would have noticed something was off,” she said.
Now, Carr is warning others about how easy it can be to fall for fake rental ads online.
She is encouraging people to book rentals with a credit card and not use an app that transfers money right away. That way, a payment can be stopped.
“Everybody is using Venmo these days and transferring money, and it happens instantly,” she said. “So just be really careful before you do that.”
She also expressed regret over not filing a police report immediately, which she said she needs to take to her bank to dispute the charge.
“I just couldn’t even believe that that happened to me. I think that’s the feeling. It’s like wow, how did I let this happen?” she said.
Carr’s final piece of advice was to pay attention to the price tag: if it appears too good to be true, it probably is.