Friday, 12 June 2009

SCAM ALERT: http://www.homexchangevacation.com

Fraud alert: http://www.homexchangevacation.com is a fake home exchange site. One hint: they claim to have 32,000 members. The most popular real home exchange club is HomeExchange.com. They have just over 25,000 members. Another tip-off? The fake club claims to have a swap listing in every country including Vatican City. I don't get the sense that the Pope is much of a home exchanger, though his home could fit a large family if he did choose to swap.


Someone out there is trying to get your email address to augment their scam home exchange site. Anonymous posted this comment to one of my past blog posts. I received the same email. Again, it is not possible for scammers to get access to a club's mailing list unless they hack that site. Home exchange clubs generally don't admit that their sites can be or are broken into, but clearly they are, since this is the second time this has happened within the past year. Home exchange clubs have a responsibility to upgrade their security. At least one major club is clearly not doing this, as evidenced by this latest scam.


Note the hints that this is a scam: the home sounds too good to be true, there is no listing available and these are French people but they don't smoke (just kidding).


"This the scam I received:
from [scammers address DELETED]

HomeXchangeVacation.com

the link:
http://www.homexchangevacation.com/properties_list.asp?cidn=14735

This is the letter:
Hi, I know it's a last moment , but we want to try still. We like very much your house and would love to exchange it to our place in Paris in July! We are planning the dates: June 30th to July 27th. We have a very beautiful light and stylishly decorated apartment with all original moldings and a lot of art in it. It's hard to find something like this. Its very big for Paris (3200 sq f): a master bedroom suit with very big bathroom (and a window in the bathroom), double living room with super high ceiling and huge windows (all have double glass, so its very quiet and have beautiful views, even from the each bathroom window), our guest bedroom has also a bathroom in suit (also with a window), then we have other 2 bedrooms and a separate bathroom. All together there are 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 4 toilettes with sinks and a lot of storage/wardrobe spaces. It's a 4th floor with an elevator in a gorgeous Hausmanian building 2 blocks away from Louvre and all the restaurants and best shopping. You will never find a better place in Paris! I am a film producer and lived in LA for a long time. Now i live in Paris with my husband, who is a French film director and we have 2 kids (10,12 years old). We don't smoke and love dogs! I didn't want to put our apartment on the website, bec i don't want too many people to email to me. Please, let me know if these dates would work for you and i will send you the pictures of our place. I am looking forward to your answer. Sincerely, Natasha
Request on Property ID no.: 27399

Check all list of properties of this member (Member ID: 14735)
Also you can use "Find A Property" option to find a property by Member ID


I was suspicious so I went on line & typed in:
House swap fraud.

I noticed on line someone soliciting a programmer to copy a house swap site ( for very little about $1,500.00)."


I am letting CHECtravel know about these scammers.

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