How do I avoid becoming the victim of online fraud?
It is well-known that criminals target website users with many versions of several familiar scams to try and gain money by deception. Unfortunately MindMyHouse is not immune from such activity.
It has come to our attention that several unscrupulous individuals (if I could get my hands on them!) have been making bogus offers of house sitting assignments to some of our members in an attempt to gain money by deception. While there are many variations on these scams, they all have one strikingly similar element: these people will be asking you to send money. DON'T DO IT!
The good news is that you cannot become the victim of online fraud through your MindMyHouse membership unless you post your money away yourself.
Two popular scams include being asked to cash cheques on someone's behalf (for a percentage of their supposed value) and then post the criminal the remaining cash by Western Union. The second is being asked to send money to a bogus travel agent (also by Western Union). Please use your common sense when responding to emails you receive through your MindMyHouse membership. Any request to send money via a money transfer facility such as Western Union will be fraudulent.
Please forward any suspicious emails to us and we will deal with the sender accordingly. If in doubt please ask! We will not tolerate this kind of inappropriate use of our site and will do our utmost to protect our members from receiving these kinds of emails. We are fully committed to ensuring that your use of MindMyHouse is pleasant and productive for you. We have methods in place to track and trace these rogues and are able to block them from re-registering with us under other pseudonyms. But some still get through.
Please note that it remains perfectly legitimate for a home owner to request that a house sitter pay them a security deposit before leaving their home in their care. This process should be negotiated face-to-face by both parties just before the home owner leaves their property and a receipt for the deposit should be signed by all parties.
You can view our House Sitting Agreement at the following link: http://www.mindmyhouse.com/advice/privacy_policy.php
If we work together we can ensure that your use of our website is safe. With some insight and common sense we can relegate these would-be tricksters into the trash bin in your email browser where they belong!
For expert advice about safer surfing and avoiding common internet scams, see the UK government sponsored website 'Get Safe Online' at http://www.getsafeonline.org.
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