Tom & Rene Springall

Although it is difficult to categorically prove that we are the legitimate owners of all the properties that we list, at the end of the day there are though a lot of things that I would hope would give you a fair amount of confidence that we are legitimate.

Firstly you can google my name (Tom Springall or Andrew Tom Springall - although I don't use my given first name) and that will show you that not only do I have a strong background in business that enabled me to buy the villas (e.g. check out my linkedin site http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=30657046&trk=tab_pro which also has links at the bottom of it to our villas) but also that I personally come up on lots of sites that list villas.

Secondly if you check some of the villa listings on Tripadvisor and elsewhere you will see that there are guest comments stretching back some way in the past, and bookings some way in the future. All villa listing companies would delete our listing instantly if there was any accusation of fraud, so I would hope that our long history in the business shows that we are legitimate.

Thirdly we have very active facebook pages, with thousands of guests, and guest comments. This would be very difficult to replicate fraudulently. Just go to Facebook and search on the name of any of our villas and you will see what I mean.

Finally if you are still really concerned then we are more than happy for you to pay by credit card through PayPal (and recently through homeaway as well). This gives you all the normal protection that a credit card gives, including the ability to recover the funds if the transaction is fraudulent.

At the end of the day there is a lot of trust involved in internet transactions. Our entire business model relies very strongly on positive experiences for our guests and negative reviews or upset guests can and will complain vigorously on the internet, so we really do have a strong incentive to deliver on what we promise.