[Kipster]

Please be careful with Stayz. We booked accommodation through them over Christmas. After exchanging contracts with the 'property manager' and making our payment of $2,500. We were not contacted again, and realised that we were scammed the day before we were meant to move in. As we were already on holidays we were going to be without accommodation two days before Christmas. Luckily we managed to get another house also through Stayz. (I had the property manager contact me via phone this time). This property cost another $2000. We were relieved to have a house. But holiday was spoilt.
We have been told by Stayz that we are going to get our money back, but we are still waiting. They do not return calls or emails as promised. A police report has been made. We have also contacted consumer affairs and our bank.
Proceed with caution, as we had a very expensive and stressful holiday!

[libbylu]

That is really interesting to hear. I have probably booked 20 properties on STAYZ in the last 5+ years and never had an issue, but it could have just as easily been me.
Did the property you booked actually exist?
I usually find that people who rent out properties have them on other websites besides STAYZ, so you can often search for the property by name once you have found in on STAYZ and verify that it exists on other websites. I also usually look at 'street view' on google to check out what it looks like from the street.
Of course, none of this would help if it were a bonafide property but just put up on the net by someone other than the owner, or if the owners site was hijacked and led to payment to a third party, both of which I have heard of happening overseas in the past.

[Kipster]

Hello, yes the house did exist, I saw from street view too. My relatives drove past the house as they live in the area. The scammers used the name of the property manager. The contract that were given were also in the name of the property manager. When the real property manager was contacted, they had no idea about our booking and the house was not available.
Stayz are claiming that the property manager is at fault and that all propery managers were warned about upgrading their security.
From our end, we went through the Stayz website, found the house we liked and then Stayz unknowingly sent our details to the bogus property manager. They should cover us for our loss as they stated they would.
We have also used Stayz on numerous occasions previously, and never had any problems before.

[redheeler]

ouch, Thanks for the heads up OP...if we ever use them again I'll ring before any money exchanges.

[feliz6]

I heard about this happening to other people recently. One tip I heard was to ssk the property manager questiond sbout the area, eg best local pizza place as the scammers are unlikely to know that kind of info.

[TopsyTurvy]

On a side note OP, did you play via your credit card?

If so then contact your bank and ask for the firms to have your money refunded by the bank (it sounds like you might have a solid case to get it) the bank will (if they approve it) then refund you and take over the cost recovery.