How to pay for cottage rental deposit? Is e-transfer safe? What is it anyway?

[ChippyMinton]

Has anyone experience of paying for a privately rented holiday accommodation abroad ( Canada) . I found the cottage on CottagesInCanada but this owner doesn't use the website's payment facility. They have asked for a substantial deposit by e-transfer.

All advice welcomed! It's a gorgeous cottage and it all feels very genuine so I'd like to book it.

E transfer is basically sending cash you can't recover to someone you don't know. It's a bank transfer and you have zero rights with it.

Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

Thanks....any other views on this?

Never pay or even e-mail an "owner" off platform. You are not covered at all by the site if anything does go wrong.

You really have no idea whether this is genuine or not; a lot of people have been similarly scammed.

If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Big scam area, I used to do it - before the "pay via the site" option was available. Now I always pay via the site.

Personally I wouldn't do it because this is how people are scammed and you wont know this until you turn up to collect the keys for your rental.

Please contact the website that you saw this place on and let them know what the owner is trying to do. if its a scam you will have alerted them and the owner to it. if it isn't and its just the owners attempt to get out of paying the 20% ish commission then the website will be pleased that you let them know.