Villa Rental Scammers Beware!

This season we have seen so many guests arriving in our villas who have been the victims of villa rental scams here in the South of France and Provence. They find, what they think, is a perfectly respectable website, they e-mail and in many cases speak with the 'owner' of the property. They confirm the rental, pay the full rental amount up front and then.....nothing. The website disappears, the e-mails bounce and the telephone numbers are no longer in service.

So how can you protect yourself against individuals and in some cases groups of people who are set to ruin your family holiday? Cote d'Azur Villas has been in existence on the French Riviera and in Provence for more than 11 years, the majority of our bookings are transacted via our seure website but the difference is that our offices are here in the South of France, our teams are based here and we will be here with you from helping you to choose your villa righ up until you say goodbye at the end of a wonderful holiday.

Our years of experience in the South of France villa rental market means that we are better placed that almost all other agents to offer our help and advice on how to avoid an upsetting and expensive issue when booking your holiday.

1. Use a Verified Rental Website - The 'big boy's of the rental market are Home Away and Holiday Lettings, they in turn have smaller, national sites such as Abritel in France.

2. Length of Time of Advert - Even on these larger sites verify how long the property has been advertised, they will all tell you and will give you a clear indication of a istory of successful retals.

3. Price - If it seems to good to be true then it usually is. If you are looking at a wonderful 6 bedroom St Tropez Villa in the middle of July and it's a 10th of the price of anything else you've seen then think very carefully why....

4. Domaine Names - If you are not using one of the major rental websites then check out who is the owner of the domaine name - that's the website name, so for us it's www.CotedazurVillaRentals.com. Use one of the key registration sites such as Who Is and you will be able to see who owns the domaine and how long they have owned it. If they've been in business for only a few weeks then you should be concerned.

5. Tesimonials - All websites, including ours have testimonals from previous clients, all satisfied customers and all of whom will be very happy to talk to you about their experience. Any agency will be happy to put you in contact with previous clients and a word of mouth recommendation is worth a million web-site listings.

So our advice is to take care, use the key rental websites and talk to your agency very carefully....individuals who pop up with beautiful villas to rent a silly prices are really to good to be true. 

We look forward to welcoming you to the South of France.....