At times, fraudulent companies have been known to contact our members, attendees, and exhibitors. They claim to represent VRMA or a VRMA conference (and/or leave out important information so that it is ambiguous whether they represent the Vacation Rental Management Association), offering attendee lists or VRMA contact lists.
VRMA does not sell membership or conference attendee email contact information. No company is authorized to distribute or sell any lists for our events. VRMA does not rent, share, or sell attendee contact information to third parties.
Scammers offering to sell these lists often aggregate information based on web crawler or email “scraper” programs searching for the “@” sign in email addresses posted on various websites (including LinkedIn and Facebook). While this is illegal in most countries, it does not prevent scammers from doing so. The best way to prevent yourself from receiving these emails is to protect your information, and if at all possible, do not post your email address online (or post it in an obscured way, such as an image or by not using the “@”) sign.
Please do not engage with and/or acquire or purchase any list from any company claiming to have use of the VRMA conference and/or Vacation Rental Management Association database, attendees, or contact information. Responding to these emails (even to “unsubscribe”) confirms to them that they have reached a valid email address.
Exhibitor List for Official VRMA Vendors: Any contact information shared with our official vendors is done so exclusively for the purposes of conducting business. These vendors are prohibited from and do not release this information elsewhere, nor do we or our vendors share exhibitor or attendee email contact info.
Attendee Contact List: VRMA sponsors are provided with an International Conference attendee list via a direct email. Attendees are fully able to opt-out of being included. Sponsors are prohibiting from sharing, distributing, or selling any list gained through attendance at the VRMA International Conference or any Vacation Rental Management Association event. Violations may result in immediate termination of membership, sponsorship, and possible legal action.
Exhibitor Lead Retrieval “Badge Scanners” at the Conference: Exhibitors at the conference may purchase badge scanning lead retrieval units that collect contact information for those attendees who verbally consent to having their badge scanned at an exhibitor’s booth. Exhibitors may not scan any badge without first having received verbal consent from the attendee confirming it is acceptable to do so. “Badge-sharing” and “badge-swapping” are strictly prohibited.
Don’t be misled! If you are contacted by anyone asking to sell you a list, or if you receive a suspicious request via email, please gather as much information as you can and pass it on to us at vrma@vrma.org.