Vacation Property Renters Beware: a recent post over @ Fodors site

Yo, Gregg -
Someone beat you to it. :O)

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/villa-rental-detective-story

Is this a Wikileaks dump? I don't have the patience to read through all this drivel. If there's a main point that's worth paying attention to, please summarize.

Agnes, it's a worthwhile read for any traveler who utilizes rental property sites. Within the conversation there is some valuable info on identifying fake listings, how NOT to reserve a property (such as wiring down payments), recouping losses should a deal go south, etc.

some context would be nice to have with the link

A brief summary for those who cannot be bothered:
A member of the Fodor's board booked a luxury villa near Lake Como at several thouand dollars a day. The photographs of the property included an unusually shaped swimming pool which the person couldn't find on Google Satellite images - so asked if anybody recognised it. Another Fodorite found the villa quite quickly, except it was in Mallorca in Spain.

The rest of the thread is taken up with attempts by the original renter to get Homeaway (owned by Expedia) to acknowledge there was a fraud, and to refund the money already paid - and the frankly ludicrous responses from HA who despite very detailed proof of the villa's actual whereabouts, still continued with the fraudulent listing and assurances that everything was legitimate for well over a week.
As of the last update, the renter had recovered all by $500 - which is money owed by HA as it formed part of the fees rather than the property rental.

Kathy & Tim are invited to my birthday party.
I am done. The interweb.

Woohoo! I'll bring cheese doodles and jello shots. 🥳

Thanks for the summary and resolution. I had followed the postings on Fodor’s and the way HomeAway responded certainly turned me off ever using them. I know the OP acknowledged the “if it looks too good to be true...” but the fact that the listing continued to appear even after it was pointed out to be suspicious was disappointing.