Tag Archives: Airbnb fraud nightmare

Fraudulent Listing has Government Questioning me

Posted on

I have been notified by my county asking why I haven’t paid fees and taxes for renting my home. I have been living in my home for two years and have never rented it. I informed the county and they suggested getting Airbnb to take the listing down. They provided the link to the active listing.

This is not my listing. I have had two parties drive by my house and ask me if they could see my house. Then one party asked me if I’m the host. I have contacted Airbnb at least thirty times to have them take down the listing and they simply will not do it. I have spent at least forty hours on the phone with them. They have never called back. I have contacted filed complaints with the Attorney General of Colorado.

This listing has pictures of the inside and outside of my house. The location, on the ad, is easy to find by potential renters because the area has only a few homes within it. I feel like I’m being harassed. My next step is to get in touch with the County Attorney and law enforcement. I’m very exhausted.

Airbnb Supports Fraudulent Listings by Hosts

Posted on

I checked into my cabana and it was listed as having two beds. There was one bed in a closet. The previous tenant had busted the TV, left it up on the wall, and had no plans to replace it. The pool and hot tub were freezing. There was no hot water in the shower. The space heaters, which were the only source of heat, kicked off continuously because they were plugged into power strips.

I immediately contacted Airbnb and informed them of the fraud. They told me that I had to give the host a chance to fix it. After four days of no sign of repair, I called Airbnb back and moved out. The host would not even take their phone calls for a week. It’s now three weeks later and I have spoken to twelve caseworkers, a specialist and one manager and now the final answer is I’m not getting my refund because apparently this is all my fault. Airbnb has left me with nowhere to go. They have kept my money, ruined all of my holidays plans and caused a great deal of stress. They are criminals.

Money Taken for Properties I did not stay in

Posted on

My credit card was recently billed £1225.00 for two properties in Spain that I didn’t book and did not stay in. The details were sent to the wrong email address so I couldn’t even cancel or sort it out at the time. I have made eight calls now to Airbnb customer service. I have to repeat the story over and over. They say my issue has been escalated – whatever that means – and I never get a call back. Surely with a company doing so well they can employ competent people who can help me. They have lost a customer, both as a potential host and a guest, and I could never recommend them. Next stop action fraud.

Not Airbnb Hosts, but Still on Mailing Lists

Posted on
blank

I pity the poor investors who will eventually be parting ways with their money when (and if) Airbnb gets their act together to file for an IPO. Today I received the Airbnb Magazine in the mail. I am not a host or guest. The name on the “To:” portion of the address label was to a Mr. Richard Fabian. Mr. Fabian was the supposed “host” of our home when he set up a fake account portraying my family as Airbnb hosts.

The outcome of that story is buried somewhere in the Airbnb Hell server but basically we had people dropping by the house unannounced looking for their key. The fact that we never heard back from anyone at Airbnb regarding this fraud does not surprise me now that I’m receiving their magazine. Throwing away money by mailing on what looks like an expensive rag to a fraudster is par for the course of this organization.

Airbnb, you grew too big too fast. Stop for a moment and count the bedbugs.

Never Allow Friends to Set up your Airbnb Account

Posted on

My friend set up our account with Airbnb. She made herself the host and me a point of contact. All payments were going to my Paypal account. She was supporting me to get my business up and running. She had absolutely never put any money into the business. I was financing it all on my own.

After a year, the business was not doing well and I found myself in a financial down slope. I told her I no longer needed her help and that we should part our separate ways. I asked her to surrender the account to me or delete the account altogether. I solicited help from another company that had experience in business to help me.

In the meantime, she changed the password on me so I couldn’t go into the account and changed the default payment so all payments would be forwarded to her corporate account; I would not be able to get any payments for guests staying in my house.

I called Airbnb multiple times and had my situation forwarded to a “case manager” that in the end just sent me emails saying how sorry they were but couldn’t do anything for me. I got an attorney involved and worked directly with my “friend” after she took my money. I had to gently remove guests from my house and block them from entering after they would arrive.

Finally she said she shut down the account. I had to file a police report on her, contact the Better Business Bureau about Airbnb, and had a restraining order so she can’t come near my home. I had each incoming guest call Airbnb so they would get a refund but what an inconvenience for everyone.

Airbnb Laundered Over $100K into Unauthorized Account

Posted on

We are a corporate housing provider. One of our employees opened up personal Paypal accounts under their own name and Airbnb deposited over $100,000 into these accounts. It has been two weeks, several phone calls, and follow-up emails with still no response. We will have to engage a lawyer as Airbnb has shown no initiative towards a resolution in recouping our funds. If anyone else has experienced such fraud, and negligence on Airbnb’s part there should be a class action suit.

I have discovered a person who was working for me opened an account under his name with Bank of America and Airbnb through utter negligence was sending my payments for my company into this person’s account through Paypal. The result of this egregious negligence on Airbnb’s part is that over one hundred thousand dollars of my money went to someone else’s account. There was grand theft committed against me and my business solely due to lack of any security by Airbnb. In the past few months I called Airbnb multiple times and asked if there were using any other account for my company except the two authorized accounts I have. Each time the Airbnb representatives assured me that there were no other accounts being used except these two. I continued digging into all my Airbnb transactions and bookings as I was going over all of our company bookings and many tenant payment methods were missing. I thought it somehow linked back to Airbnb, yet they continued to have no answers.

Finally, on November 30th, I called Airbnb yet again and I asked them to go over every single payment they have paid me. When we got to the last few payments they weren’t in either of my accounts and the representative couldn’t tell me into which account they were deposited. After putting me on hold to research this, the representative came back to me and said that the payments went to a Paypal account. Not only did they never realize this in all my past conversations with them, they also – to my shock – had no information on this Paypal account and they asked me to call Paypal for more information. After I called Paypal I found out that multiple accounts had been opened and closed through my company, using someone else’s name since 2014, with Airbnb being the sole source of deposits. This was shocking news, again leading to what I have found to be well over $100,000 in theft.

Airbnb Representatives Ruined my Vacation

Posted on

What a nightmare I had with this company. I had guests flying in from Atlanta and we planned on spending the weekend in NYC. I live in central New Jersey. The original house we rented was in Bayshore and totally misrepresented on the Airbnb site. There were holes in the walls, trash on the floor, large dead insects, exposed electrical wires, and dirty overflowing laundry baskets. The pool we were told we could swim in looked more like a black lagoon. Hence, we never even bought our luggage inside. As we were entering the house, there was a young man with a barking dog exiting. Did he have a key? Was he coming back? Was he coming back with friends? more dogs? Was he staying in the house at the same time we were? We had no idea who he was nor did we feel the need to ask.

We were a party of four girls and extremely concerned about our safety. After calling Airbnb right away to cancel, the four of us went out to dinner and tried to find new accommodations with the help of Airbnb. This was the true beginning of my hell ride with this company. From this point, I spent the next three days speaking with representatives. They called and emailed all hours of the day and night. Although I paid in full, there was a problem getting me verified. This verification process took no less than five representatives and had me at a near mental breakdown. Several times I could not continue the phone conversations which I now viewed as a barrage of harassment from the representatives.

The constant calls and emails ruined my vacation. I did not spend a lot of time with my guests because Airbnb took most of my time. Twice I had to get my guests to get on the phone with them because I could not allow them to continue to consume my time. Each day I logged almost 8 to 10 hours dealing with multiple representatives. I was getting emails at 3:00 AM and phone calls before 6:00 AM. On the fourth day, my friends left for home and I never got to spend any quality time with them. I was able to find another location, which was fantastic. The constant communication via email and phone, being placed on hold, taking photos, sending photos for which they “never received”, getting verified, getting a refund from the first location, finding and making a second reservation in NYC at midnight, and taking almost two days to get verified ruined my entire vacation with my friends. My three girlfriends are also doing their part in spreading the word on the incompetence of this Airbnb’s representatives.

Airbnb Account Hacked, Booked in China

Posted on

My Airbnb account was hacked. I received a text message in Chinese from some unknown number, then I received an email from Airbnb confirming a reservation to check in today in China. I live in the US and never made this reservation. I checked my account through the Airbnb app. Indeed, there was reservation showing I needed to check in today in China for $555. I also noted two recent searches on my account for homes in China – that was not me. I called Airbnb immediately to let them know someone had access to my account. They “opened a case.” Over three hours later, I heard nothing. I cancelled my credit card which was charged for the amount. So now some idiot has my account information in addition to my credit card number.

I called Airbnb again and they said there were working on it. While they were working, never once did they suggest I should block my card nor did they seem to care that my account was compromised. I was told they have millions of people with cases open and escalated my request. These people should not be allowed to do business. Now their lack of security is my problem and they could care less. I have never even rented a house through them. I reserved a house a few months back and then cancelled the reservation when my plans changed – I paid a fee for the cancellation. I wish I had closed the account then, since apparently they have no information security standards to protect consumers’ information.

First Airbnb Experience: Ripped off in Sag Harbor

Posted on
blankblank

I’m a first time Airbnb user. We were very excited to book our first trip, an entire home called a “charming country cottage” in Sag Harbor. What we found was a house that was not the same as that in the picture in the ad, and we did not have the whole home but one small apartment on the first floor. It was Sag Harbor in the summer; everything  was full and with two small kids we could not exactly sleep on the street. We had to accept the accommodation despite feeling incredibly deceived and ripped off with false representation.

Afterwards we asked for a refund of around 60% of the booking cost which seemed more than fair and we expected the host to be removed from the listings; from previous comments it was clear she had rented by the room. As soon as she saw we were unhappy she turned from nice and charming to throwing mud at us. Now our only comment on our Airbnb profile is by her: “I am speechless how insulting the experience was hosting Carter. I would want to warn other hosts of this guest.”

This is nuts. This is like going to the police because you have been mugged and then the person who mugged you gets to post defamatory comments on your page. Look at the two pictures and guess which one is on Airbnb and which one is the actual house. Then assume from looking at the nice pic you are booking the “entire home” and just get the ground floor… I am so disappointed. We are waiting to hear back from Airbnb as to what action they will take and what refund we will receive. I have found no way to have the owner’s comments removed. I guess this is our first and last Airbnb experience and we have gone from huge enthusiasts and promoters of all we had heard of the brand pre-experience to hard core detractors. It’s such a shame. I still don’t understand how anyone can ever book a home on Airbnb when owners are allowed to post pictures that are not of their actual homes!