Salvador García, owner of the Aloe Lux villa in Lanzarote, has reported to the Guardia Civil an attempted scam through social networks in which a fake profile advertises the rental of this and about thirty other villas on the island and in the Canary Islands, posing as the owners of the tourist establishments.
It all began almost a week ago when a friend told García that he was being advertised on the social network TikTok, which he denied because he was not placing ads on that platform. After receiving the link, the owner checked that a profile with over 7,000 followers was using his own photos of the villa from Booking to promote this villa at a cheaper price. However, the names of the villas do not appear in the videos, and he even changes the addresses.
To check how far the scam went, Salvador García himself decided to talk to this alleged scammer to express interest in his own villa, which this owner actually has listed on the Booking platform. "I asked him about two dates that were occupied and he told me they were available, and I had said two days but he told me they had to be a minimum of three," he says.
After agreeing, the alleged scammer sent the owner a contract which, at first glance, could be seen to be a template from the many available online. With this, he tries to make clients trust the legality of the process and pay the money he asks for the rental of this and other villas.
Then, he indicated how the contract had to be signed and sent the client an account number where the money had to be deposited for him to sign, showing the alleged scammer's name and ID number. García stalled to avoid sending money and to file the complaint with the Guardia Civil.
The Civil Guard informed him that for the moment it will be very difficult for the complaint to bear fruit, since as he has not been financially defrauded, there is no crime for the moment. Added to this is the fact that the alleged scammer's name and ID number may be false.
García calls on customers to avoid scams and asks that when booking establishments, it be done through official pages and not through social media profiles of dubious legality.
Villas up to 800 euros
Upon taking a look at this TikTok profile, he checked that there were villas that were rented out for up to 800 euros per night and always with a minimum number of reservation days. Upon seeing these ads, this Lanzarote native began to alert the rest of the owners about this scam.
Furthermore, this profile has more than 7,300 followers and more than thirty videos in which it advertises villas by posing as the owners of the establishments.
Some of the videos have up to 70,000 views and many people, unaware that it is a scam, comment on the videos showing interest in the villas.
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