TripAdvisor's holiday destination website "Flipkey" is currently offering a number of properties for rental from private owners around the world, including in Carvoeiro/Lagoa.

It has been brought to our attention by UK tour operators, that a number of the descriptions and photos have been copied off the tour operator website and put up on Flipkey under an alias with full availability and very competitive pricing. This is obviously an attempt to scam would-be clients out of their deposit money, as these houses are already sold out for most of the season.

Flipkey's mouse-over on the respective owners reads as follows:
"This property is managed by an individual houseowner who has received our standard level of verification, which typically includes valid credit card information and a history of renting online"

With zero customer reviews on these "owners" it is unclear what they mean by "history of renting online"

Whilst it is up to TripAdvisor to revise their verification policies, they will surely be contacted on several counts of copyright infringement to ensure the discovered pages disappear.

Meanwhile, you can always google a part of the description to see wether it appears on any real tour operator websites. That, along with an empty availability calendar and an unrated and unfinished property and owner description, should be enough to spot the fraud.

Have they been taking details off Holiday rentals etc. if so then this is a cause for concern.

Those that have been discovered are being sold through UK tour operators. I seriously doubt they would try to pull this off in large numbers as that would subject them to being exposed quicker.

It was really a fluke that the TO found this page, as he was just doing a test on his Google hits and stumbled on the identical description.

A useful tool that helps find plaguerised websites is Copyscape.

I'm not sure how effective it would be finding duplicated text in listing sites, but it will find text "stolen" from your own website.