Further to our recent post about the perils of booking your villa direct we have had more instances and read more artciles about this subject and it seems to be getting out of control.  A client has recently been in touch who had lost over £10,000 when booking a villa directly from an owner which subseqently turned out not to exist. 

There was also an article in this weeks Sunday Times regarding a British couple who booked a villa direct, paid a deposit of £700 which they subsequently lost when the villa once again turned out to be a fraud.  the fraud was only identified when a number of other clients reported the sames person as having ripped them off.  

While there is no doubt that the majority of direct booking properties are legit there is still no control unlike the greater security which you have when using a professional lettings agency.