Post New

Sad to report need for extreme caution on use of Furnished Finder listings. Humbly report that we got scammed this time, left to scramble last minute to find a place to stay when no one showed up to give us the keys to our rental and no on answered the phone, text, emails we sent. The property request went through FFinder, which claims to verify listings, but messaging was quickly taken off FF platform by the scammer, using the email and phone numbers provided by FF to the scammer. Unit was taken off FF after a complaint was made, but they made no effort to let those who had communications with the scammers before the removal to make us aware.

This is the "company" that was "representing" the landlord: https://universalhousingrentals.com/ Website looks beautiful, no? And this was a nice touch: https://www.openpr.com/news/4179866/universal-hous... The property is a valid property, but further research shows that the listing information was scaped off of what looks exactly like the sold listing in 2024 on Zillow. I see no evidence that the property is actually being rented out.

Please note that this is the third rental we do through FF, and we were quite happy with the first two. Having reached out to FF about the incident, they have requested all documents sent to them so that they can escalate the alert and at least try to do something. We will of course not see our money back.

Happily we are driving, and have the luxury of just spending a couple of days here to see our son, then head back weeks ahead of time. I don't want to think about what would have happened if we flew in.

There were some red flags along the way that I absolutely should have paid more attention to, but it was the last leg of our trip and I was thrilled to finally secure a place for it, so I ignored that danger danger Will Robinson robot voice in my head. My bad, and we are out some money, but worse is that they have copies of our drivers license and our signatures. Everything else is already on the dark web courtesy of the credit bureau hack of several years ago, so not happy to have that join the list of available info for nefarious purposes.

FF does allow for use of credit card via Key Check, for an additional fee, and not being offered this should have been the biggest flag. I just chalked it up to the way the younger set tends to avoid using credit cards. Don't ignore this blinding red flag and eliminate all properties that won't take credit cards! So easy in hindsight.

Be gentle in your replies. We are bruised and exposing our pride so that you may avoid the same mistakes.

IP

"Be gentle in your replies. We are bruised and exposing our pride so that you may avoid the same mistakes."

Can feel the sting thru the internet, sucks when people/organizations suck.
Sharing all of the personal data with strangers over the internet makes for
highly attractive target for the bad guys, I'm sure you-all are not the only ones
that got hit by this crew.

I've never done the airbnb,vrbo,FFinder when traveling, although have joined in with
friends after they had done all of the legwork and made accommodation bookings. So
much better than staying in "sterile", boring hotels for a week. And hotel costs
are quite high, so the alternate lodging market is still a better deal, imo.

Nice website for sure. Looks legit. Sorry this didn't work, but a good cautionary tale.

Have you tried renting your house on FF? The wife and I have discussed doing something like this.

So
much better than staying in "sterile", boring hotels for a week. And hotel costs
are quite high, so the alternate lodging market is still a better deal, imo.

I honestly hate hotels, and have been doing some sort of version of VRBO for decades, particularly when we had kids and dog in tow. Some hotels are certainly better than others, but even the 5 star hotel that work put us up in when DH had to provide support to the CEO at an annual meeting in NYC wasn't as comfortable for me as the VRBO near Time Square that cost 1/10th the price per night. Noise is an issue for me, and even the best hotels seem to be noisier than condos in the same city. And those condos come with a coffee maker so that I don't have to call the butler to bring me a cup. It was a seriously nice hotel, (with an absolutely killer soaking tub,) but I am just not comfortable being so high maintenance that I have to call a butler to wait on me. I LOVE having a kitchen in my VRBO so that we don't have to eat out 3 times a day.

Hotel doors don't ever seem to be made to close in any way other than slam, and don't get me started on those darned elevators!

IP,
self-serve kind of gal

Have you tried renting your house on FF? The wife and I have discussed doing something like this.

We have considered it, but don't want to lose capital gains exclusion by renting and not being able to sell before the timer rings. Considering Homeexchange.com though. You can do direct exchanges or exchanges for points, and it is not considered a rental transaction. Gets around rental restrictions from local gov't or HOA and not a taxable event or start the clock for capital gain exclusion count down. Have heard that some home insurers in CA have had issues with it but it's like letting friends stay over. Some even include car use in the swap.

Was discussing this with a couple from Vancouver that we met up in Quebec. They are also considering putting their place up on Home Exchange. When we suggested looking at doing a swap, they politely told me there was no way they would step foot in the US. Can't say I blame them. I guess we could use points.

IP,
wondering how much of a hurdle the US location would be to success

My only experience with renting a house was for a few months in Maryland using AirBnB. That worked out although the lady wanted to do it off of airbnb to save on fees.

Now that I'm older I would definitely prefer having some kind of rental with a kitchen so I don't have to eat out so much. I've always been worried about getting scammed so I've yet to do it. We have a tentative trip starting in Munich later this year and I'd like to stay in a non-hotel for a few days midtrip to relax and rest without being in a hotel. Not sure if I will do that.

I once got scammed for about $2,500 when I was a young homeowner and had water damage the insurance company would cover but they wanted an estimate. So I just called someone who left a flyer on my door because it was just an estimate and not a company I was going to use. Unfortunately the insurance company made the check out to me and to that company. I didn't go with my instinct to call them back and ask to either give me a check directly to me or to a more established company.

The guy took the money and ran. I actually pursued it with an attorney who was doing something else for me and gave me a bargain rate. To make a long story shorter, I did get back all of my money except for some legal fees. The other people (he actually left his business license to expire which made him and his wife personally liable) never once showed up in court so it was easy for the judge to rule for me.

I used to live in a nice area of Scottsdale and during major events probably could have paid my yearly mortgage with a few weeks of renting the house out but I was afraid of the potential damage to the house and possessions in it.

Good luck.

Post New

Travel Wanderer FAQ

---

Contact Shrewd'm
Contact the developer of these message boards.