Dear Tripped Up,Last May, I reserved a two-bedroom apartment in London for eight days through Booking.com, using a credit card to hold the reservation. I sent the equivalent of $3,100 dollars to the account of a man named Nyholm Peik, which I now know was a foolish thing to do. Soon afterward, Booking emailed to tell me the property was no longer available. Airbnb was just hitting 100,000 listings (compared to seven million today) and most people still thought Vrbo was a typo. Plus, I had wired money for a rental apartment via a similarly dubious-sounding website, rentflat.com.br, in Rio de Janeiro the year before without a hitch.

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Persons: Nyholm, Sylvia, Kali Muthu, Airbnb, Vrbo Locations: London, Booking.com, Sylvia , New York City, Rio de Janeiro