While creating Realestasia I’ve been thinking about the risk of fraud and dishonesty that could face our clients and users. I am bringing up this issue because in reality it casts a negative view over our core business and I think it is better to get it out in the open to try to minimise the risks. I have seen a lot of websites advertising holiday rentals and few address this concern other than with a disclaimer stating they take no responsibility for inaccurate listings.
I’ve identified the following general risks:
- Fraudulent Individual posing as Owner – The person listing the property does not own the property and/or does not represent the owner. The property may or may not exist, however you won’t be dealing with the person responsible for it. This person could be half way across the world, looking to scam people into paying them deposits or other money under false pretenses.
- Property does not exist The property does not exist. This means the listing is fake and photos, descriptions, owner details are also fake. Clearly, the individual listing the property would fall into the first category, however, in this case the property also does not exist.
- Fradulent clients These are users of the site that make false enquiries or bookings with the intent to gain either money or some advantage or otherwise cause problems for owners that have listed their property.
- Inaccurate Property details The property exists, the owner is real and legitimate, however, the photos, location and/or description given in the listing do not accurately represent the property. The legal term sometimes used is “Significantly not as described” which means you paid for something, but were given something different, and not what you paid for.
I would categorise the above into two broad types of risk — numbers 1, 2 and 3 are outright fraud and involve illegal and dishonest acts intended to cheat. I believe these are serious and the Realestasia website (including the registration, enquiry and messaging systems) will be designed to detect and record these activities. Additional checks will be done to verify the identity of owners and the details of properties. Over time we will build blacklists of email addresses, IP addresses and suspicious activities to help prevent this kind of behaviour.
The second type of risk is slightly harder to quantify and is more subjective – number 4 above. A listing might embellish a detail and you discover it only upon arrival and you believe it to be significant enough to affect your enjoyment. This can be solved in two ways – the first is by making information and details of the listing clear and unambiguous i.e. specific size, rooms, beds, location, included amenities to prevent misunderstandings and feedback so that these problems can be reported to us and the owner so that changes can be made.
Minimising these fraud risks is a no-brainer for us – it makes the site better for owners and users, and encourages more quality visitors which in turn will drive quality listings. I’ve only touched on the risks here but will be designing the site and the backend systems with them in mind. Let me know in the comments if I’ve missed anything important.