This should definitely NOT be the case, simply because with a correctly arranged home exchange, NO up front cash payments are ever involved. No home exchangers should ever ask for, or expect to receive any form of security deposit. Your home exchange partners or “guests” stay in the home you are contributing to the home exchange arrangement, while you live in theirs. That’s the arrangement. The security for both parties is structured around this.

Furthermore, a detailed Home Exchange Agreement or Contract should always be completed and signed by both parties, and that agreement should specify how payment of utilities, etc. should be met. Normally, all utilities: electric, gas, water, etc., are paid by the home-owner, while phone bills are often stipulated as being the responsibility of the guests in the home. This being the case, an average phone bill is not likely to attract the attention of the scammers currently being written about. ExchangeHomes.com provides an excellent Agreement / Contract.

From the perspective of the vacation rental owner, the scam works this way:

You (the property owner) accepts a reservation from someone who makes payment with a cashiers check. They “unintentionally” overpay and when you inform them of their overpayment they instruct you to send them a refund using Western Union. Mission accomplished!

How? It’s simple—the cashiers check was fake and because it frequently takes your bank a while to ascertain as much, by the time its actually established, you’ve wired the money to the scammer via Western Union. You are left holding a loss of whatever the amount was you wired, plus probable bank fees.

This type of scam has pervaded the Internet so badly, it has been given a name: the 419 scam. 419 is the Nigerian Criminal Code that deals with fraud. The majority of these scams originate from Nigeria, some have also come from Russia, South Africa, Spain and The Netherlands.

A full report on the “419 Fraud” can be found on Wikipedia.

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