Rockies Rentals

Our company was built on the foundation that we would only operate and manage properties that were following the law and paying their taxes.  In Canmore, that means having a current Tourist Home Permit and a valid Business License.  These are the laws set forth by our local municipality, and we follow them implicitly. Every week, we are asked to manage an unlicensed property in Canmore and our answer is simply “no”.  The risk is not worth the reward — plain and simple.

We are frugal travelers ourselves, so we certainly understand the allure of choosing  ”risky bargain” over “confirmed value”.  As a traveler, why should you care about whether your chosen property is following the law?  The laws have been put in place to protect visitors, and residents of Canmore.  If you find an unlicensed vacation rental offering a price that is too good to pass up, you should at least consider what you are risking and take actions to protect yourself:

1. Will the property still be in operation upon your arrival?  Licensed Tourist Homes pay a property tax rate that is 1.75 times higher than a residential home.  Unlicensed Tourist Homes do not, which equates to stealing from other taxpayers (who must make up the difference of the tax shortfall) or losing jobs and local programs when tax revenues fall.  Therefore, our local authorities don’t wait until someone lodges a complaint before shutting down an unlicensed Tourist Home.  They search the online listings just like visitors.  If you can find a property offering rates for a stay of less than 28 days, so can our municipality staff.  It may take them months to gather enough evidence and then proceed through the hearing process, but they will eventually succeed and a Cease Use order will be issued on the property.  If you are OK with risking the property won’t be in operation prior to your arrival, ask the owner to put in writing what their contingency plan will be if the municipality issues a ‘Cease Use’ order prior to your arrival.  Are they moving you to a hotel? What if the hotels in Banff/Canmore are sold out? This is common on holiday weekends and during special events. If the hotel is more expensive, who is paying the difference? Consider buying Trip Insurance. However, we do not know if Trip Insurance will over a claim for an unlicensed property.  Read the fine print.
2. Does the property meet minimum Safety Code?  The Tourist Home Permit requires the property to be inspected by a Safety Codes Officer.  99 guests could stay at an unlicensed property and not have encountered a safety issue due to a code violation, and the 100th guest could have a completely different experience.  Alberta Safety Codes are lengthy and involved — they are put in place to protect us. This would be a risk you would just have to accept.  If there was an accident, one of the only recourses would be to pursue the matter in Civil Court and proving negligence on behalf of the owner. Having a family member hurt while on vacation is bad enough; having to get recourse through the court system is a lengthy and unpleasant process. Proceedings would have to take place in Alberta, which would mean travelling back here to proceed (assuming you are coming in from outside of Alberta).
3. Does the home carry commercial or rental insurance?  Residential home policies will rarely cover a claim if a residential property was being used commercially.  With the rental insurance on our licensed properties, we must provide our insurance company with a copy of our Booking Agreement and every single group must sign the Agreement prior to arrival.  Unlicensed properties rarely have guests sign agreements because they don’t want a ‘paper trail’. We recommend asking the owner for a copy of the insurance policy to verify that their insurance company knows about the rental traffic.
4. Does the property actually exist?  Unfortunately, online vacation rental scams are much to easy to put together (read the article).   Protect yourself when booking online (here’s a few tips).  If you find an amazing deal that is too good to pass up, please be extra diligent in making sure the property actually exists outside of cyberspace.

Illegal, unlicensed, unsafe and fraudulent vacation rental properties hurt visitors and operators of legal-licensed-safe vacation rental properties.  Rockies Rentals is not the only licensed/permitted vacation rental operator in town. If our properties do not fit your needs, budget, availability or otherwise, we are more than happy to refer you to other licensed vacation rental owners and operators.

We want visitors to enjoy their time in the mountains, and return home with wonderful stories about the “best vacation ever”.  We don’t want you returning home with stories of a ruined vacation.

Everyday, people turn to the internet to plan their vacations.  In the vacation rental industry, most of the business comes to us via online advertising.  It is not as though we get drive-by traffic by having a billboard or flashing “No Vacancy” sign.  So how do you protect yourself from being scammed online?

Please note:  While some of these points are applicable to any area, some are specific to the Canadian Rockies.  The moral of the story is take some time to get familiar with the laws,  customs, and price points of the place you are visiting.

Red Flag #1 ANONYMOUS EMAIL ADDRESS: Does the owner/manager communicate with you through a free email address from Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo instead of an info@<insert company name>.com ?  A domain-based email address  costs about $20/year and is more professional.  The owner of a domain can also be searched online by doing a “whois” search.  Be leery of an owner who will only communicate via anonymous e-mails, and don’t hesitate to pick up the phone to ask the owner/property manager detailed questions or even request more photos.

Red Flag #2 PAYMENT ADDRESS: Where is the payment being sent to? Is it a PO Box?  Some companies use a PO Box for simplicity’s sake, but so do scam artists.  Is there some other way to verify the address that you are sending your hard-earned vacation dollars to?

Red Flag #3 PAYMENT OPTIONS: Do you shop at any store that tells you they only have one payment option?  Be leary of sending personal checks, money orders, wire transfers or PayPal payments when that is the only option available.  A successful company will have several different options available — you choose which one works for you.  It can be costly and time-consuming for a scam artist to set up multiple accounts and options — they generally choose one and stick with it.

In Canada, the safest bet is likely paying by credit card.  Merchants are required to go through a lengthy verification process in order to be granted a Merchant Account.  Also, your credit card company may offer some level of protection if you have been scammed.  Please note: you should still be verifying who you are giving your credit card number to by using some or all of the other methods listed here.

Red Flag #4 LOW PRICE: Be familiar with the going rates in the area, and be cautious if a price seems too good to be true (it probably is).  If you find a great price, ask the owner why the price is lower than other available properties.  There might be a very good reason.  Maybe they’ve reduced the price to fill specific dates. Maybe they clean the property themselves and have less overhead costs. Maybe the property is new and they need to entice some guests to try it out.

Red Flag #5 GUEST REVIEWS: Most vacation rental advertising portals have a Guest Review section.  If a property is so great, why are there no reviews?  That being said, be careful of relying solely on reviews.  They are easy to fake.  It is unlikely that 100% of guests are happy 100% of the time, and guests often have suggestions as to how to improve a property.  Be wary of pages of positive reviews without one single negative or constructive comment.

Red Flag #6 UNLIMITED AVAILABILITY:  Try asking what other dates are available in that month.  While many owner/managers maintain availability calendars, some choose not to for various reasons.  An empty calendar may mean there are multiple properties available; a scam artist will be ready to accept your reservation deposit no matter what dates you request.

Red Flag #7 LIMITED ONLINE PRESENCE: Is the property only listed on a free website?  Is it only listed on one of the many vacation rental websites?  Professional owners want to advertise in as many places as possible, but that can be too costly for a scam artist who is just looking to make a quick buck.

Red Flag #8 INSULTED BY, or UNABLE TO ANSWER, QUESTIONS: The simple way to avoid being scammed is to ask questions! Ask questions about the area and attractions.  Most scam artists do not live in the area that they are advertising. Scam artists don’t have answers for tricky questions.  Scam artists become insulted when they are asked to verify their legitimacy.

Legitimate businesses are happy to answer questions about their business. They are happy when guests/customers are interested in the company. They are excited to talk about the area and attractions.

Red Flag #9 NO WRITTEN AGREEMENT: Get it in writing — the dates of your stay, payment details, damage deposit details.  It may seem inconvenient when compared to staying in a hotel (where you sign the agreement upon arrival), but you need to know what the expectations are.  What is required in order to get your full Damage Deposit back?

Red Flag #10 UNABLE TO VERIFY LOCAL CONNECTIONS: Check the address at the municipality website.  If no website exists for the municipality, call them on the phone and ask about the laws regarding short term rentals.  They will know the local laws better than you will.  Ask the owner about a local restaurant or attraction.  If you are visiting Canmore, click here for  some information on how to verify a property.

Any one of these red flags does not mean you are being scammed, but if 3 or 4 red flags occur you may want to consider looking for a different property.

If you have any more suggestions on how to avoid online vacation rental scams, please share them here.  If you have been scammed by someone already, feel free to post that information as well.  Hopefully you can save someone else from falling into the same trap.

You probably thought this was an article on how to avoid vacation rental scams.  For that, you may wish to read this article.  We’ve taken a different approach here — let’s see how easy it can be to either scam or be scammed …

For the criminal:

1. Get yourself a few photos of a nice property. They are plentiful on the internet.
2. Post a free online ad at Kijiji*, CraigsList*, etc.  If you would like to get a bigger return, spend a couple hundred dollars listing the property on a popular vacation rental website because visitors think that these listings are actually verified (but they are not).
3. Advertise a price that sounds almost too good to be true
4. Wait for deposit checks to arrive from multiple guests all searching for a “hot deal” for a popular vacation destination
5. Leave on your own vacation with the thousands of dollars you’ve just made with your minimal investment of a couple hundred dollars.

For the Guest:

1. Search a popular vacation rental website for the perfect property, or find a deal on Kijiji*, CraigsList*, etc.
2. Send payment in full to an unnamed/unverified individual
3. Brag to family and friends about the “hot deal” you found for your fabulous vacation
4. Arrive at your destination to find out the property does not exist, and there are 35 other families standing on the street with you who also booked the same property for the same dates.  Why would you all have the same dates? Because it is easier and more profitable for a criminal to pull off this scam during busy holidays on which rates are the highest and many properties become sold out making visitors desperate to find a good deal for their dream holiday.
5. Realize that your money is long gone; you have nowhere to stay on a holiday (if you find a place available, it will be at a much higher rate than you want to pay); and it is unlikely that the police will ever be able to recover your money from some guy using a hotmail/gmail/yahoo email. Most people will not even report this crime to the police because they are too ashamed to admit that they should have known better.

*Some legitimate companies (ourselves included) will post Last Minute Deals on free sites like Kijiji and CraigsList.  However, no legitimate company would use these free sites as their sole source of advertising. If you found a property on a free site, be sure to verify that it exists elsewhere.

So, you’ve planned your dream vacation and found a perfect property that fits both your needs and budget. And now for the big question: will the property still be in operation once you arrive?

There are a number of illegal vacation rental properties in Canmore advertising lovely homes at great rates.  That ‘great rate’ comes at a price for both the visitor (you) and the people of Canmore.   For the visitor, the ‘great rate’ means accepting the risk that the property might be shut down prior to your arrival.  For the people of Canmore,  the ‘great rate’ means that the homeowner is not  paying the correct taxes to our municipal, provincial, and federal governments.  Many Canmore homeowners are none-too-pleased when they are notified that their taxes have been increased, when their neighbour is illegally renting their house for $5000+ per week.  As a result of this contentious issue, our municipality began actively investigating vacation homes advertised on all of the major vacation rental websites.  If you can find the ad online, so can our municipality.

In order to rent out ANY property to accommodate a stay of less than 28 days (whether a hotel, vacation rental or B&B), local laws require a business license and proper zoning.  If you would like to make sure that the property you are booking is legally operated, you can find much of this information online.

TO CONFIRM ZONING

*Updated April 12* Our local municipality has now made it easy to verify if a property is zoned to allow nightly rentals:
Tourist Home Information
Scroll down to the section called “Permitted Tourist Homes” for a PDF of all properties zoned to allow nightly rentals

If you have been sent confirmation of your short stay for an address not listed, I urge you to forward this information to the Town of Canmore.

TO CONFIRM LICENSING

1. Visit the Town of Canmore Business Directory .
2. Enter the name of the company and click <Perform Directory Search>.
3. Or, enter the address that you have been asked to send payments to and click <Perform Directory Search>.  Some of the illegal properties have been giving out a licensed company name, but have directed guests to call a different phone number and send payment to a different address. To be certain, call the phone number on the Town of Canmore listing, and only send payments to the address connected with the business.

TO CONFIRM GST REGISTRY

Canada is a beautiful country where we have a high-level of infrastructure to keep our residents safe, healthy, educated, and happy (police, schools, hospitals, roads, etc.).  These services are paid for by taxes.  When an individual or business does not fully comply with tax legislation, an unfair burden is placed on law-abiding taxpayers and businesses and the integrity of Canada’s tax base is jeopardized.

The Good & Services Tax (GST) is a tax of 5% that applies to the supply of most goods and services in Canada. Almost everyone has to pay the GST/HST on purchases of taxable supplies of goods and services, including short-term accommodation.

In order to perform this search, you will need some information from the business: The correct business name and GST number (9 digits).  When asking for this information, you may get some version of the following answers from the business owner:

• “We don’t charge GST”. Businesses in Canada who have a minimum number of sales in a year are required, by law, to collect and remit GST. This is mandated by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA – the equivalent of the IRS in the United States). Although long-term rental properties are exempt from collecting and remitting GST, short term rentals are not exempt.
• “We don’t make more than the minimum amount, so we are not required to charge GST”. Even the smallest property at the lowest nightly rate makes more than the minimum amount as set by CRA.  One of the only ways for this statement to be true is if the owner is only renting a few times a year (perhaps while they are on vacation themselves). The challenge for guests in that situation is this:  An individual who rents “on the side” may not care about guest satisfaction as much since they do not have a business reputation to be concerned with.  An individual may not have  a system in place to keep track of guest payments, and return deposit money on time.   A company that charges GST and relies on revenue made from Booking Fees is more committed to guest satisfaction (or at least they should be, if they intend their business to be successful).

There are many legally operated Tourist Homes in Canmore.  Although you may wish you didn’t have to pay GST, it does offer more security that the property actually exists and is being run professionally.

1. Visit the Canada Revenue Agency GST Registry.
2. Read through the CRA terms for using the registry.  Click <I Agree> at the bottom of the page.
3. Enter the 9 digit GST number.
4. Enter the company name.
5. Enter today’s date in the following format yyyy-mm-dd.
6. GST Numbers are tied to the specific sectors of businesses so that CRA can better understand how much revenue is generated by each sector.  So, if someone gives you a valid GST number for “Joe’s Plumbing” they should not be collecting GST under this number for their rental business.

If you have been charged GST by someone using an invalid number, please contact Revenue Canada.

We are sorry if we have scared you with this information. We have struggled with whether or not to ensure visitors are aware of this problem. We have decided that if we save even one guest from having a less-than-perfect time in the Rockies, then it was worth our small effort.

We knew this day would come, we just wish that it had come a little later. Rockies Rentals will no longer hold dates without a Booking Deposit. Just like airlines, hotels, and retail stores, we can no longer rely on ‘the word’ of a guest that the they “are definitely coming”.  After years of operation, we know that this really means “I’m just delaying while I wait for a better offer”. To be honest, we wouldn’t even mind if a guest told us they found a more suitable property.  We WANT guests to stay in an accommodation unit that meets all their needs.  Sometimes that’s one of our properties … sometimes that is someone else’s property.  We even go so far as referring guests to our competitors if we feel there is a more suitable property operated by someone else.  The problem is this:

Guest A requests to book a property.  We send a Booking Agreement to Guest A.  A few days goes by and we don’t hear from Guest A.  In the meantime, Guest B (and possible C, D, and E) all wish to book overlapping dates but we tell them we can’t accept their booking because Guest A asked first.  Guest A continues to insist that they still want the property, but “they are busy” and they’ll  ”do it first thing tomorrow morning”.  We believe Guest A, so we schedule the housekeeping staff.  At some point, we realize that Guest A is just playing with us.  We contact Guest B through E to let them know the dates are now available.  Not surprisingly, Guest B through E have now confirmed other accommodation.  We are now left with a Last Minute vacancy which is impossible to fill.  On top of that, we have to pay the Cleaning Service Cancellation Fee.

Last November, we had a guest hold one of our units for a 28-day stay.  A month later, we found out that it was another property owner in town who has an unlicensed unit.  You see, when all the licensed units are blocked, visitors feel they have no choice but to book an unlicensed unit and take their chances.  On February 15, we are supposed to have a guest check in for a $2100 reservation.  Up until 2 weeks ago, we had numerous emails confirming that they had physically mailed the check.  Today, they tell us they decided to go to BC instead and forgot to tell us.  Oops.

We tried to hold out as long as possible, but the lost revenue (which we track) just hit over $30,000.  We’re a small company, so this is a big deal.  We truly wish that people cared about their word, but it is impossible to tell which guests are sincere and which requests are coming from other owners.

We know that this policy will end up punishing the last remaining few visitors whose word is as good as a bond, and we are sorry. We sincerely wish we lived in a society where people put more value on integrity.

We are pleased to report that Christmas 2009 is sold out!  We were actually sold out in mid-September, but after replying to 53 Christmas inquiries today alone, I figured I should post an update.  Everyone is welcome to continue inquiring, and we will continue to reply (albeit with disappointing news).  Inquiring for 2009 Christmas Dates will automatically put you on the contact list when the 2010 dates become available (probably around April).

We wish everyone a wonderful holiday season.