What dismayed me almost as much as this violation of our home exchange code of trust was the response from the legitimate home exchange clubs targeted by the scammer. I expected a quick, unified response from the clubs whose information had been stolen.
Instead of fast action to expose the scam, most home exchange clubs remained silent about the fraud. The ones which discussed it all claimed that their databases had not been hacked into by the thief. I don't see how this is possible.
One form letter sent out to me, and presumably all club members, by a well-known home exchange club informed me that the scammer had joined the established club and sent me a swap offer the previous May. The club owner claimed that this is how the scammer had gotten my email address and listing details.
This is not true. I save all home exchange offers and I definitely did not receive one from the person in question offering a home in the area where the legitimate club owner claimed he was suggesting a swap.
The owner of the established club went on to claim that:
"3) All listings are fake and contain randomly picked pictures
4) All address and contact data of this website are incorrect and/or non-existing"
I know that these two assertions are untrue because I saw my neighbor's listing on the site and wrote to her to warn her about the scam. She replied that she had joined the scammer's site when solicited to do so. Her listing, address and contact data were all real. Further, the rogue site did not have a photo or contact data listed for me, though it did have my full name as the headline of the listing, a violation of my privacy that I really did not appreciate.
It seems very clear to me that the person who created the rogue site hacked into the database of at least one home exchange club. Not only was I not contacted before my listing information was stolen and posted to the new club site, I don't see how or why the scammer would bother to send individual emails to over 20,000 swap listings when he could simply steal all the information all at once.
Some legitimate club owners may not want to admit that their site security was not up to snuff or that it was breeched. But admitting this and addressing the problem so it cannot happen again would be a great step towards protecting all club members from thieves like AllHomeExchange.com.
At last check, 2,130 people were foolish enough to join the scam AllHomeExchange.com site. I can tell that they actively created a listing because AHE listings initially showed no bedrooms and only 110sf for shell listings stolen from real home exchange sites.
AHE's ill-gained success in attracting any members shows how vulnerable our community is to breech of trust. Legitimate home exchange clubs need to make sure their databases are impervious to attack. Some home exchangers clearly need to be protected from themselves.
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