Home-sharing hosts warned of ID theft

Home-sharing hosts warned of ID theft

If you rent out your home or apartment through an online rental site such as Airbnb, you could be a greater risk of being a victim of identity theft.

That is the warning from the identity monitoring firm LifeLock, which conducted a survey of about 1,000 American adults and found that 41 percent said they have snooped through the private items of homes they have visited or rented.

That rate is higher, 57 percent, among millennials, who are most likely to use rental sites such as Airbnb.

Identity theft and short-term rentals are phenomena that have grown in the digital age. But there is yet no data to show a direct link between the growth of identity theft and the surging popularity of short-term rentals.

Still, Paige Hanson, chief of identity education at LifeLock, said home sharing increases the risk of identity theft because it gives travelers access to private homes and personal data, a problem that doesn’t exist when travelers stay at hotels.

Airbnb, the largest home-sharing business, advises people who rent out homes through their website to lock up their personal papers and stop their mail when renters are in the homes.

Conventions boost economies for cities

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will help boost the economy before either of them get into office. At the very least, they are expected to help the hospitality industry in the two cities that are hosting the Democratic and Republican conventions this month.

As expected, the hotel occupancy levels and nightly rates have already jumped for the dates of the conventions in Philadelphia for the Democrats and Cleveland for the Republicans.

What is unusual is that those high occupancy levels and rates are not dropping dramatically after the conventions, which suggests that delegates and others attending the political events may be hanging around for a few days for some tourist activities.

John Hach, a senior industry analyst for the travel consultancy TravelClick, said data from dozens of properties show that occupancy rates for the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia have already jumped 125.6 percent while daily rates are up 38.6 percent to about $182 per night.

For the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, he said, occupancy levels are up 158.6 percent and daily rates have jumped 109 percent to about $141 per night.

But instead of dropping back to normal after the political events, hotel rates are easing back gradually, suggesting that some delegates and attendees may be adding a few days of to their visits to the City of Brotherly Love and the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Geography quiz

Q. Moscow shares roughly the same latitude as which two capital cities in Scandinavia and Western Europe?

A. Copenhagen, Denmark, and Edinburgh, Scotland. All three cities are at 55 degrees north latitude.

Combined dispatches