Warning - Owners Direct site hacked

[edwinad]

Owners Direct phishing scam: how to fix it

If you have not been getting your email enquiry alerts from Owners Direct you may have been a victim of phishing. This is what I was told to do  by the Owners Direct fraud department.
For email I use Hotmail (which is now known as Outlook). Other email accounts will probably have similar settings.

Start by logging into your email account
Go to your email home page.
Look for the little wheel picture which is for settings and click on it
Scroll down to "options" and click on it
Under the sub heading "Customising Outlook.com" click on "Rules for sorting new messages"
On this page I found a sentence that said something like:
"Forward all messages from Owners Direct to (an unknown email address) and delete the messages from the inbox"
This message must be DELETED.

After this I was told to log into Owners Direct.
Once in I was told look at the "About me" section to change my logon email to a different one, change my logon password and change all my security questions.

I then logged back into my Hotmail (and other email accounts).
I changed all my passwords and security questions (via the wheel picture, options, managing your account – account details etc.). Underneath where I changed my password was an option to "see my recent activity" When I checked this I found my email account had been accessed from Spain on 16/1 when I was in the UK. There was then an option to report this as fraudulent activity and change the settings again.

Good luck.

[alto dogs]

Thank you. I have rented from od in the past & often look. X

[edwinad]

If you rent out a holiday home using Owners Direct please read this.
I advertise my holiday home in the Almanzora Valley on the Owners Direct website. Today I found out that I have been hacked and that someone else is receiving my rental enquiry email alerts and replying to them. Yesterday they asked one of my potential clients for €1000 upfront to secure a booking!
I have been getting the enquiry text message alerts from OD but not the email alerts. I just assumed that they were delayed by OD or my server. Yesterday I received a text alert so I logged into my page on the OD site to read the full version of the latest enquiry email. I then cut and pasted the address of the client and emailed them. They emailed back to say that they had received 2 replies to their enquiry - mine plus another which included a reply (asking for money now) plus the original OD enquiry (with my property number) underneath it. That meant the fraudulent reply looked more genuine than mine.  Luckily I managed to convince the potential clients to phone me and they then forwarded the fraudulent email on to me.
I have contacted Owners Direct fraud department but thought I should warn other people in the area. Very worrying.