Has anyone experienced Fraud and does Redweek have a way to report abusers?

I was thinking about renting a condo, but did some research and decided to pass on the offer because of the guys background. Do we have anyway of flagging someone if we get burned like you can on ebay? It would be nice if the advertisers had a rating IMHO. Thanks

No, there is no way to do this on Redweek. It would be really nice if they did and even better if there was some sort of rating or feedback system like vrbo. It seems like one of the reasons they don't is to encourage people to use the recommended escrow service.

There is a way that websites can collect on purchases made on other websites when they access the website through a link on the previous web site. It is a digital kick back system.

The problem with the escrow system is you have to get prior approval from the owner. I've sent two messages to owners asking if they would be willing to use it and have received zero answers.

rodb62 wrote:

I've sent two messages to owners asking if they would be willing to use it and have received zero answers.

Did you offer to pay for the escrow service in full? Many timeshare owners do not wish to pay for a rental escrow service = extra cost .... when using an escrow service the owner gets the rental fee after the renter has departed which turns many owners off.

If you use a rental agreement signed by both the owner and renter stipulating the terms of the rental you should be okay. You can search forums for sample rental agreements.

It also might be a good idea to use paypal this way each party needs to have an account and there is a record of everyones information. You can also dispute a charge through paypal if there is a problem.

PayPal should never be confused with an escrow service as it does not provide buyer protection on a real estate tranasction, and they consider a vacation rental to be a form of real estate transaction. The following is from the PayPal rules and regulations.

"13.3 Ineligible Items. PayPal Purchase Protection only applies to PayPal payments for certain tangible, physical goods. Payments for the following are not eligible for reimbursement under PayPal Purchase Protection: •Intangible items, including Digital Goods •Services •Real estate, including residential property •Businesses •Vehicles, including motor vehicles, motorcycles, caravans, aircraft and boats •Custom-made items •Travel tickets, including airline flight tickets •Items prohibited by the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy •Items which you collect in person or arrange to be collected on your behalf, including items bought through In-Store Checkout at the retail point of sale •Items that violate eBay’s Prohibited or Restricted Items Policy •Industrial machinery used in manufacturing •Items equivalent to cash, including prepaid or gift cards •PayPal Direct Payments •Virtual Terminal Payments •Personal Payments

Even if your payment is not eligible for PayPal Purchase Protection, you can file a Dispute and try to resolve the issue directly with the Seller; however, PayPal will generally not find in your favor if you escalate a Dispute to a Claim for an item which is not eligible for PayPal Purchase Protection..."

PayPal is simply a means to transfer payment electronically from one party to another quickly. Generally when a rental goes wrong, you receive no more protection than you would have with a traditional credit card dispute- and there is normally a specified window of time from the payment when you can file such a dispute (45 days I believe).

Renters are much safer using a true third party escrow service such as the First American Title Insurance product recommended by Redweek.com, or a similar product such as DepositGuard.com- which I found to be less expensive for most rentals.

If the Seller won't agree to escrow, my recommendation is to simply look elsewhere for your reservation!

I just checked on the offers I'm interested in. One offer the guy finally responded, and he told me it isn't available anymore but he has one available in Canada during the time I'm interested. He still has the offer listed. He is in the business renting time shares and is probably using this offer as advertisement only; thus, the great advertised price. So far I'm not impressed with this site at all. I'm going to spend more time on cragslist and deal with local people. That way I know where they live. This has been a $15 learing experience

rodb62 wrote:

I just checked on the offers I'm interested in. One offer the guy finally responded, and he told me it isn't available anymore but he has one available in Canada during the time I'm interested. He still has the offer listed. He is in the business renting time shares and is probably using this offer as advertisement only; thus, the great advertised price. So far I'm not impressed with this site at all. I'm going to spend more time on cragslist and deal with local people. That way I know where they live. This has been a $15 learing experience

It's not Redweek's fault that the lister hasn't deleted his rental ad .... the deletion has to be done by the lister, not Redweek. BTW, when using Craig's List be aware of all the spam and scams you'll get in your email box.

On craigslist, potential buyers can report the listing to craigslist. If Craigslist gets too many reports it removes the listing. Ebay allows for other users to rate sellers. Redweek doesn't offer a lot in my opinion.

Often if you see that someone is selling something on Redweek, they are advertising elsewhere as well. If you do a search you may be able to contact the owner through another avenue that doesn't require you to be a $15 paid member. It really stinks when you pay specifically to contact specific owners only to find out the property that you were interested in is not available anymore. Its not redweek;s fault that the owner hadn't taken the listing down but it isn't user friendly if you are interested in 1 specific rental and have to pay to find out that it is no longer available.

tracey75 wrote:

Often if you see that someone is selling something on Redweek, they are advertising elsewhere as well. If you do a search you may be able to contact the owner through another avenue that doesn't require you to be a $15 paid member. It really stinks when you pay specifically to contact specific owners only to find out the property that you were interested in is not available anymore. Its not redweek;s fault that the owner hadn't taken the listing down but it isn't user friendly if you are interested in 1 specific rental and have to pay to find out that it is no longer available.

Redweek is a business like any other business ..... they are not mind readers, so if the rental is not available then it's the ad listers fault, not Redweeks. The $15 for membership to contact owners is to protect the ad owner from scams and spam. Scammers and the spammers use free websites like CraigsList .... they won't give up $15 to join a site like Redweek in order to operate their scams.

Apparently a few of the smarter scammers are willing to pay $15 for the membership as evidenced by several posts over the last couple of months. Most Craiglist scammers are fairly obvious and even a simple junk folder catches more than half of them. Redweek works great for high end properties and if you rent from others a few times a year. As you said the $15 is to protect the people renting out weeks and really isn't helpful for someone looking to rent.

Tracey,

Anyone purchasing a RedWeek membership in order to contact an owner just needs to let us know within 30 days if they are unable to connect with an owner. As long as we are notified within that 30-day period, we are happy to provide a full refund of the membership fee.

Thanks. That is great to know. :)

Tonya Williams at Dream Travel is a scam. We lost thousands of dollars when she cancelled our room days before departure. AVOID at ALL COSTS!!!

Yes, where were you supposed to be? We are on vacation right now and may be left without accommodations because of her.

staceyg27 wrote:

Tonya Williams at Dream Travel is a scam. We lost thousands of dollars when she cancelled our room days before departure. AVOID at ALL COSTS!!!

I Just posted my timeshare today and within an hour I received the email response below. Is this legitimate?

Hi Brian, we would like to book your unit with you to avoid Redweek's additional $300 fee. Please let us know if we can pay via PayPal immediately. Thank you!

If renting using RedWeek Online Booking, the renter pays by credit card and pays a processing fee of 5% of the rental price.

Although we do not vouch for or recommend any person using our website, if you send the email address or RedWeek username of the person inquiring to support@redweek.com, we can let you know how long they have been a RedWeek member and if we have any complaints on their account.

We have contacted a seller about a timeshare rental. Based on the responses of this seller, we have decided not to continue working with them. Their e-mail responses sound very illiterate, uneducated and ignorant... makes me question if a scammer is on the other side responding so just decided not to do business with them.