Hi Tom,
If you are renting from an owner, you will want to contact them to let them know your payment preference. We have a guide to First American's rental escrow service that includes the pricing and steps at:
http://www.redweek.com/resources/rental_process/escrow
Jessica -
When using the escrow service, all payments are sent to First American Title, who holds the money you paid for the rental week until 11 days after the rental has been completed. Your money would be returned if the posting was a scam, therefore any scammer would probably refuse to use this method of payment. If the unit was not as advertised, you could file a complaint and if warranted, receive a partial or complete refund, depending on the circumstances.
If you have further questions please Contact Us .
Phyllis
jessicag226 wrote:How secure is the escrow service?
Escrow service is certainly very secure for any potential tenant, but please be aware in advance that many completely legitimate timeshare owners with completely legitimate rental listings will simply REFUSE to accept an escrow service and have to wait until after the rental is COMPLETED to actually receive their payment.
Timeshare owners have to pay their annual maintenance fees (generally ranging from $500 to $1,300 per owned week, depending on the property) well in advance --- often many months in advance. Whether or not you agree with the owner viewpoint on requiring advance payment for a rental, you can perhaps at least appreciate that many owners do not want to wait for payment until weeks AFTER the timeshare has already been occupied and the week already used by a renter. Frankly, I'd be willing to bet that there are many more dishonest timeshare renters than dishonest timeshare owners, although I have no statistics to back up that personal opinion and belief.
