I'm not sure how anyone is getting scammed in a way that is unique to renting vacation homes, care to elaborate?
Everything was handled by local realtors and felt substantially more legitimate than AirBNB. You're really only going to find overpriced garbage on there. The places I have been renting are booked >2 years in advance. We often encounter other families on the beaches/lakes that have been booking the same month for a decade+!
So apparently you have found the ~10% or so of craigslist short term rental listings that aren't outright scams?