Kalkan Turkey Forum - EnjoyKalkan.com
The Owners Lounge => General Discussion => Topic started by: mark on September 06, 2012, 02:01:04 PM
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I have recently come across two sites that seem to have taken my information from two legitimate rental sites and presented it as their own. This includes property description, photos, guest reviews and my bio.
The sites are:
http://www.vacaguru.com (http://www.vacaguru.com)
and
http://www.retreatsdirect.com (http://www.retreatsdirect.com)
I did a test rental enquiry through on both sites and not surprisingly, I received nothing back. Just wanted to make you rental owners aware so you can take whatever action you deem fit. I have contacted both commercial rental sites where I have adverts. One has replied saying they are aware, their lawyers have written letters but it may take some time to get details removed. They also suggest I might like to make contact with the sites direct. There are hundreds of Kalkan properties listed on their sites so you might want to check if your property is there as well.
I have tracked down both site owners; if anyone is interested PM me. I found out this information from doing a simple Google search on our apartment's name. So, Google might be another avenue for getting this stopped.
Mark
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US TOO!
I have just checked with retreats direct and there we are. The details seem to be taken from Owners Direct website as a photo of us is included.
Not best pleased but don't see what they can get out of it other than scamming enquirers perhaps?
I shall be on to Owners Direct to let them know.
Thanks!
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It sounds to me like they are trying to either get peoples identities (from bookings) or taking a deposit never to be seen again!
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My god.Our apartment is on there also. >:(
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I have struggled to work this out. One looks to be looking for referral fees from legitimate sites but I cannot believe the big guys would pay this. Although, they also seem to get Google ad revenue but as yet very small amounts. The other, cannot think what business model they are following. But clicking thru their sites you can see that a lot of ERROr pages appear. just do not want anyone to place deposits with these guys and end up disappointed.
But, at the end of the day, if people respond to adverts on bogus sites and the enquiries are never sent to the real owners/managers, the whole independent rental business model is affected.
Mark
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Hi Mark
Thanks for posting about this
Huummm... I just found my villa on http://www.vacaguru.com, clicked on contact the owner and it took me to my page on homeandaway.com, where I do advertise so I suppose that is okay, however also on the vacaguru page there is a 'capture box' asking potential guests if they want more info on kalkan, to fill in their details etc. and also saying they can get a free quote, so not sure where that takes them or who is capturing emails!!
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Well there we are on retreats direct, as are other apartments in our complex, the Emir. Have emailed the company, via an enquiry. Would not like to think anyone sent a deposit or payment to them. Will also email ownersdirect.
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Yes, we also appear on Retreats Direct of which we know nothing! Never heard of them. I have just sent them a query for a booking and wait to see what happens.
It gives our correct 2012 prices but no link to our own website and nowhere near as well presented as on Owners Direct where we do advertise. No availability calender whereas Owners Direct makes it very easy to update bookings which then also get updated automatically on our own website. And how could we alter information? There is an "owners log in" on the site but obviously we have no password to use.
All very strange.
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Flipkey confirmed that they work with VacaGuru:
"Thank you for your email. Regarding the first link in your email, to ensure the best possible exposure for your listing FlipKey partners with several reputable listing sites to make sure as many eyes as possible are looking at your property (such as how your property is listed on TripAdvisor as well). You will find that if you click on the "Contact Owner" button on Vaca Guru it will take your straight to the FlipKey listing for your property. I understand how this may have been concerning to come across on Google and I apologize for the misunderstanding."
I still don't like it, but it looks from other posts that the other big players may be also working with VacaGuru.
Mark
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No such link on the retreatsdirect site.
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reply from retreatsdirect
Dear xxxxxxx,
The site is very much under development at the moment hence the errors. However the contact form does work and we do have your enquiry.
The enquiries are not being passed on to property owners just yet until the site is fully working.
We have removed your villa from the site as per your request.
Once the site is ready would you like to receive leads for your villa.
Best regards,
The Retreats Direct Team
http://www.retreatsdirect.com
I bet you can guess what my reply was....
I suggest to anyone who has an advert with Owners Direct (who have not authorised this usage) check to see if their property is on retreatsdirect.com and get it removed..
Big thanks to Mark for pointing this out.
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UPDATE
Just received an SMS from the site, apparently they have received my enquiry (I enquired about my own villa) and for an annual subscription of £24.99 I can view the contact details.
So if potential customers enquire they are told that the enquiry has been passed on to the owner however it does not say that unless the owner has paid they will not be able to reply.
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Thanks for this...just had a look and ours (amongest most of our complex) are on there!
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This is an email I received from RetreatsDirect which explains a bit about their business model. Still do not see the value for myself and I do not like how they have gone about collecting information for their database. I never received an email directly from the guy behind RetreatsDirect but I notice they have removed my property from their site as requested.
Mark
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From: Retreats Direct <info@retreatsdirect.com>
Subject: Explanation from Retreats Direct
Date: 10 September 2012 14:07:34 EEST
To: info@retreatsdirect.com
Dear Owner,
Could we please first apologise for causing you confusion concerning the launch of our new site www.retreatsdirect.com
The aim of building retreatsdirect.com was to act as a lead generator site for holiday properties on the Internet.
For test purposes we pre-populated the database with property details & information publicly available on the Internet.
The method of contacting owners was for them to be notified via SMS as soon as a lead was received on the site. The landlord could then visit a specific URL and view the lead's details.
We were a victim of our own success as the site started to get traffic much earlier than expected (no marketing has been carried out) and prior to the SMS gateway being written.
This SMS functionality will be completed in the next 48 hours and we will be able to notify landlords via SMS of their new holiday leads.
Having said that we have removed all properties that owners have asked us to remove as we wish to be as cooperative as possible.
If you would like your property to be removed please forward us the URL for it and we will deactivate right away.
If you would like your property reactivated once the SMS gateway is live we would be happy to do so.
Once again can we offer our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused you.
Kind regards,
The Retreats Direct Team
http://www.retreatsdirect.com
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Whilst some people may think that this is cheap advertising if you take the principle to the next stage, any company advertising their goods on a website could have their advert copied (with no authorisation) and placed on a high profile site and with clever SEO achieve a good hit rate, potential clients would try to contact and purchase via the high profile site and the original company/person placing the advert is then 'blackmailed' into subscribing to get the enquiry/order details.
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The Retreats Direct link above goes straight through to Owners Direct ???
Not sure why but if I google it and click on the listing it does the same now so I can't access it at all. I wanted to check the numbers allocated to our properties so I could request removal.
Has anyone else found the same thing? KM
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I tried that too Kalkan Magic and it just goes to Owners Direct, as you said.
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I think perhaps OD solicitors letter and the recent emails/phone calls may have closed them down. It's a cheek to pinch the OD info and then ask owners to pay £25 to them to get any leads they may have got. If an owner hadn't paid the £25 the person enquiring thinks you just aren't interested.
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Also found ours on this website, stern email about to be sent, plus the use of other forms of social media warning people about them
Isis
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Totaly agree with you but hopefully the site is down now. I posted the info on the Tuirkish living site and I think between us all there has been a bit of pressure. I found the email address of the originator of the site and emaied him. I know a number of people telephoned or emailed him.
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I sent them a bogus enquiry about my property using an alias and one of my web email addresses.
Yesterday evening around 10pm I received a "rental lead" text from retreats direct telling me to visit http://www.retreatsdirect.com/llsoyf/ - which I did and guess what - it's a link to Owners Direct home page!
I've just left it as that - I was curious to see what happened if they received an enquiry and it seems it just goes round in circles.
Owners Direct weren't at all bothered when I emailed them a few days ago, prompt with their reply admittedly but dismissive as to what they could do about information that is freely available on the internet.
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I presume either the OD legal dept did it's work or the legal costs were too great so they bought the domain and put a redirect on it.
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By answering them, they now have your email address. Perhaps that is exactly what they wanted: a good supply of current owner email addresses.
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I advertise on o/d & hol rentals. I called o/d who said that their legal dept were dealing and shortly after speaking with them the bogus site stopped and instead linked through to o/d. I also called hol rentals on Monday who said they would advise their "Security" team and let me know(since they knew nothing about it). I havent heard back, but I did notice that my villa address (which was not on the screens which clients see) had been put onto the clients viewing screen on the bogus sites. I wonder if that means they also have our credit card details, home address etc if they managed to go into the screens which clients dont see? I"ll call them again tomorrow.