But, explained Chambers, the need to register is precisely because the company would have no way of knowing if somebody enquiring about a villa had actually gone on to book direct. "Unless they tell us if they booked and paid, we have no proof that any claim would be genuine."

Most ire is reserved however for Holidaylettings, which advertised 23 fake villas but which has no guarantee scheme - leaving the 42 victims who went on to book a fake villa with virtually no hope of redress.

It has also emerged that Holidaylettings has been taken in by a fraudster in Cyprus, who advertised three fake villas on the site. A total of 72 Britons went on to make bookings, paying between £300-£1,500.

But while Morairaway.com asked for payment 60 days before departure by money transfer or banker's draught, 90 per cent of victims in the Cyprus scam paid by PayPal - which has guaranteed refunds for complaints made within 45 days.

The HQ of the great morairaway.com villa scam: a postbox

The 'headquarters' of the £1m villa holiday rental scam in Spain turns out to be a poste restante

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The fallout from the shutdown of the Spanish villa website has caused widespread questions about what happened

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Morairaway.com: the victims

Possibly hundreds of families have lost their summer holidays as the Spanish villa website shuts down and owners disappear

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Travel experts are warning that fraudsters are targeting the industry in a year when travel has slumped and people are using the internet more than ever to find a deal.

Barry Gooch, chairman of the Prevention of Fraud in Travel (Profit) - a coalition of travel industry partners and police – said: “I don’t want to give the impression that the travel industry is careless,” he said. “But the problem is that this year – because it has been very tough – people are less guarded.”

A spokeswoman for Holidaylettings, Kate Stinchcombe, today claimed the company is now looking at a rental guarantee scheme but said it was unlikely to be in place for this summer. It is also considering travel insurance policies and is appoint a second fraud prevention staff member.

It also emerged today that one Holidaylettings customer has managed to obtain a refund from her bank, Barclays, despite it being three weeks after the money was transferred to Spain.

The company spokeswoman declined to give details but said the woman's victory was "down to persistence" with her bank. Many others are fighting for redress from their banks, saying they could have acted quicker to stop transfers.

It is a point of criticism also levelled at Holidaylettings, which removed the fake adverts from its site on June18 - but did not email customers with a warning until June 22. Holiday-Rentals informed customers on June 19.

Said Stinchcombe: "Our justification for not emailing people until the Monday was so that we were in the office able to respond to their reactions, which we wouldn't have been had we sent it on the Friday and they had tried to reach us over the weekend.

"It was imperative for us that we were able to help people as much as we could and as the morairaway people were uncontactable it was even more important that we were available to talk to."

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