I suspect you have been a victim of Phishing Scam. Do you recall receiving an email (you can probably review past emails in your Inbox or Deleted Items & it might still be there assuming the scammer hasn’t deleted it yet) in the last few days with a link to click on, and you clicked on it, and it brought you to what appears a login page to your email (in reality a fake one)? If you clicked on that link, and entered your email login credentials, then your credentials has been captured, allowing the scammer to login to your email. Best thing to do now is  as follows:

1. Login to your email, and change your password.

2. Advice your prospective renter that the other email she got was from a Scammer, and not to reply to it, and that you have protected yourself by changing your email password. To assure her, invite her to give you a call using the telephone number listed in your VRBO ad.

Hope this helps. Note: there is an active thread right now where others have reported similar Phishing Scams at http://community.homeaway.com/message/15112#15112

Hi cmballer,

tfv has shared some great advice and information on phishing.  I just wanted to chime in and let you know that our Trust and Security team will be contacting you soon about ensuring your account is secure.

Travis

Scary.  The email you receieved is nearly word for word the email my friend and I received while searching for a rental home in RI, though slightly different and from a different email address (but was also a gmail account).  Unfortunately for me, I wasn't smart enough to realize it was a fraudulent email and neither was my friend.  I am completely new to the whole renting and vacation search and I fell for it bigtime, transferring $1647 to a bank in England.  I had no idea that transferring money was probably the #1 sign of a scam artist.  My assumption was that here was this rich person who happened to have an overseas bank account, not entirely uncommon.  Figured I had found an amazing deal on a great place and so didn't my friend.  The rental agreement looked legit, even sending a refund form in case I was to request that.

I honestly feel so dumb, I can't believe I let this happen.        

Yes, just now. One of my guests just sent this to me.  Scary!:

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Vacation Rent <villaeninfonline@gmail.com>

Date: Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 3:24 PM

Subject: Re: Inquiry from **** - Jul 23 to Aug 7 - Listing #234923

To: ****

Hello Karen,

The dates are available to book for $6000 including cleaning fees and taxes.

If you choose to book now , you will be eligible for several cost saving options which include a 10% discount for full payment in advance  Our regular payment terms,   50% in advance and 50% at check in.

I am at your disposal for any further information.

Best Wishes,

I did not send this, but it is my vrbo #.  (I took out their names and e-mail address)

We have been in contact with someone suspicious for property vrbo #xxxx Kona Bay Estates.

All of the info was the same. Email contact, discounts, requesting Payment within 72 hrs and wiring the

Money to barclays bank in london. That's when we said something was not right. The email they used was

Over.housetrades@gmail.com. We have reported this to vrbo.

Same scam, just caught an Italian family.  This time it was luxuryvacationrent@gmail.com, but absolutely identical process and text.

Homeaway claimed our email (specifically, gmail) account was compromised. We use Mac and Ubuntu, so are somewhat less likely to have standard viruses.  Both systems use global corporate security systems.

I would propose that Homeway / VBRO send some guidelines on how to book / pay that includes caution, for example, with requests for payment with Western Union.

I just got hit by this type of scam.  I received a voicemail from a potential renter who had some questions about the rental contract that was being sent to her.  But I never heard of her or had seen her inquiry!

In this case someone using the email rentluxuryvillas@gmail.com had intercepted the VRBO inquiry and was in the process of trying to get this person to do a $1800 wire transfer to them.

VRBO support deactivated my account until I changed my contact email address (not just the password), informed me about the phising scam, and told me they had encountered this email address performing other scam attempts with VRBO property owners.

As it turned out, VRBO's advice wouldn't have fixed the security breach for me.  I used a contact email address for VRBO that I had forwarded to my primary Gmail address.  While I usually access my Gmail account from an IMAP client, I brought up Gmail in a browser and clicked on the "Details" link under the "Account Activity" link in the bottom right portion of the screen.  This showed a table of access details over the last 24 hours - all from my IP address but one.  I was in Lake Tahoe, but this IP address was in Washington D.C.  The scammer!

So it turns out that ths scammer had somehow hacked into my main email account, and had intercepted the VRBO inquiry forwarded to it.

To ensure this never happens again I turned on Gmail's 2-pass verification security feature.  It's a bit of a pain, but makes it nearly impossible to have your email account hacked, and I would encourage all homeowners to use a Gmail account and turn the 2-pass verificaiton feature on.  Here's a link that shows how it works.

The other thing I did was activate SMS alerts from VRBO whenever an inquiry comes in.

I'm going to escalate this issue with VRBO however.  It seems they can be more proactive to attempt to track down and have these scammer prosecuted, as they are violating a number of different federal laws.  In this case I have the scammer's IP address, and it would be easy to subpeona their ISP and get their identity and hopefully have the FBI proceed with investigating these scammers.

Hi cmballer, it appears that this hacking of information primarily the owners contact information is still going on. Just recently we had an inquiry about our vacation property listed on VRBO that we did a follow up email to them. Several days passed without any further response from them so I call the number listed with the inquiry. The gentleman stated that he had sent more information and questions concerning the rental agreement he had received, I never had any contact with him other than the original reply to his inquiry? He posted the exchange of emails that he received (not from me) to one of my other email accounts. I then asked him to resend the exchange of emails copied too both of my accounts (one which is my listed contact email on VRBO). The email copied to my VRBO account was never received?? Also I have noticed that any inquiry that is originated from VRBO shows up in my inbox and then completely disappears? Needless to say that when I contacted VRBO, they could not resolve the issue. Have now changed my contact information. Hope this helps other owners.