Q&A: the morairaway.com villa 'swindle'

What is the background to morairaway.com?
It is a website that was set up nine months ago to sell "Holiday Villas and Apartments for Rental in Moraira, Costa Blanca, Javea, Denia (Spain)," according to its own website, which is now unavailable and 'Under Construction.'

Where was it based?
The company was nominally based in Malaga - but the website is believed to have originated in India. A question posed on Yahoo in India about what is Morairaway.com gave the following fulsome response: "A one-stop destination for experiencing the best holiday in the beautiful seasides of Moraira, Spain."

The company also apparently had an office, or travel agent in Paris, according to one victim, Eric Rzepka of Paris, "with one worker who is now unemployed and without any news from her boss."

Morairaway advertised its site on at least two large, British-based rentals site Holiday-Rentals.co.uk and Holidaylettings.co.uk as well as at least one other, in Spain.

Who are these British-based sites?
Holiday Lettings is a UK-based site (with no sister sites based elsewhere), is only available in English and all advertisers are direct customers of Holiday Lettings. That said, its advertisers are based worldwide as is its users - one-third of visitor traffic comes from outside the UK.

Homeaway, the parent company of Holiday-Rentals, operates in 12 countries. The sites act as a classified agent and pass on enquiries, rather than take bookings themselves. They make their money by charging for adverts by time and position on the site.

Did they check that morairaway.com was a genuine advertiser?
Both companies are at pains to stress that the normal checks were made and nothing suspicious was flagged up.

As Kate Stinchcombe, a spokeswoman for holidaylettings.co.uk, told us yesterday: "We did as many checks as we can. We have a number of checks that flag up suspicious behaviour, such as firms using multiple IP addresses or the payment process not correlating with addresses supplied.

"We use software and inhouse systems, while a number of our customer services team creating the adverts also saw nothing. They (morairaway) did everything right, and behaved like an average advertiser."

However, it is not the first time this has happened. As The Sunday Times reported in July, 2008, a fraudster in Mallorca also managed to con at least one British couple out of a £700 deposit - for a villa that featured on Holiday-Rentals.co.uk.

So what happened next?
Customers made inquiries through the sites and direct to morairaway.com. They paid in full and were promised full details two weeks before departure. As the holiday season neared, many customers had not received details, answers to emails or phone calls and alarm bells began to ring.

One customer, Parminder Chana of Essex even flew to Alicante to investigate - and established from Spanish police in the area that no villa existed at the address he had been given in Javea. Mr Chana made a complaint to police who launched the investigation.

Last Friday, Holiday-rentals and holidaylettings emailed a warning to people who had used their sites to inquire about morairaway.com. The responses indicate that around 10 per cent had gone on to book direct with the Spanish site.

How many people are involved?
It is hard to say at this stage - as the only people who know are those behind morairaway.com itself (the two names that have cropped up most in liaising with clients are Tony Duncan-Smith (or Smit) and Simon Dawson.

The two British-based sites estimate that up to 50 people have booked through each site. At an average £2,500-£3,000 each booking, that equates to £250,000-£300,000. But there may be other sites while some would have booked direct.

It is clear that victims are from several countries, including the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Poland, France and Holland. According to Nicolas Huybrechts in Belgium, the office in Paris had an Excel file with 75 "clients" on the list, all from France or Belgium. That would mean at least 175 known victims in total.

So is it possible to trace Tony-Duncan Smith/Simon Dawson and the money?
We don't know at this stage. The police inquiry is based in Spain but it may be safe to assume that if a scam, the names would be bogus and the accounts emptied.

Will victims get their money back?
HomeAway operates sites in the US, UK, Germany and France - the sites in these countries offer the guarantee. But it also has eight relatively new sites in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Holland - which don’t yet offer the guarantee. The guarantee is free. People have to register before their trip as indicated in the Ts&Cs - for the UK and German site (FeWo-direkt.de) the guarantee if for up to €4,000 (or £3300) and for the French (Abritel and HomeAway.fr), €3600.

Holidaylettings has no such scheme. Said a spokeswoman: "We currently don’t offer such schemes. As you can imagine, events such at this do cause us to re-evaluate all of our fraud prevention methods, including how we could better assist holidaymakers in protecting their interests."

The main recourse will be if they paid using a credit card - check with your bank. It is also believed that some customers booked through Pay Pal. Check whether there is any comeback. And check with your insurance company.

How should customers affected get in touch with the police?

Kate at Holiday-Lettings says: "A number of our holidaymakers have been contacting the police in Denia on 00 34 9 6578 3851.

"We have spoken to them again this afternoon to clarify what is being done. They have taken reports over the phone, but need someone to actually sign the statements (which needs to be within two days of making the statement) in order for a case to be opened onto which further reports/statements can be added.

"Those reporting can assign their right to signature to someone on the ground in Spain if possible. However, given the extent of the issue we have asked if this step can somehow be worked around. We are waiting for a call back on that."