Tag Archives: Airbnb scam

Scammed in Spain: Another Fake Airbnb Listing

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We have never used Airbnb and will definitely not use it again after we booked a villa advertised on their site. We were looking for a villa to sleep eight of us in Alcudia Palma Mallorca, Spain when we found this property called Villa Pretoria with stunning views. We thought it was beautiful and suited us so we went ahead and made a booking. However, when we tried to pay by the secure credit card payment on the site it was not going through. The host said Airbnb was having some issues with this and advised us to use a link he provided with his bank details to do a transfer. We did, and paid 2,700 Euros. We were all looking forward to our family holiday as our daughter is working in Alcudia and we had not seen her for a while.

A few days before our travel date we emailed Hector for details of how to pick up keys for our stay but he did not reply. The day before we were supposed to travel we went on the Airbnb site to check our booking and there was not one there; it was then we became suspicious. My son got in contact with Airbnb and they said it looked like we had been scammed. They were going to report this but then we got an email from Hector with his contact details, telling us to call him when we landed to arrange to meet to pick up the keys. We thought maybe this was not a scam so we all got on the plane and landed in Palma at 9:00 am on Friday, August 26th.

We got our baggage and our car and rang Hector. There was no answer so we left a voicemail. Still no reply. It was then reality sank in: it was a scam. There we were eight of us stranded at Palma airport with nowhere to stay. This was really embarrassing as one couple who were our friends had not been away with us before. We then sat in the airport and got on the website to look for accommodation and was lucky enough to find a villa in Pollensa that was available. We then had to pay another 2,100 Euros. We were only there for 5 days so it worked out to be a very expensive 5 days.

We went to the police station to report this but they were no help at all as no one could speak English. They said sometimes a translator comes in but they never know when. It would be a matter of waiting around all day to see if they came in or not and as we were only there for 5 days we did not feel we wanted to waste our time hanging around. We did ring Airbnb from Spain as well and they apologised and said they would look into this. It took a few weeks for them to come back to say there was nothing they could do as we paid outside of the secure payment system. What chance do you have as a guest? We tried to make a secure payment and were told Airbnb was having problems and we should make the payment directly to the host.

As we said we never used this site before and will not again. We always use travel agents and think this is what we will do in the future, sticking to legitimate companies. We are so angry and disappointed that no one will help us get our money back. If there is something you can do to assist us in finding this crook who scammed us it would be appreciated. He gave us his picture and phone, which obviously may not be him at all. I do not know how people can sleep at night stealing from hard working people that save up to have a holiday for it to be taken away just like that. I have attached the emails and a copy of the Airbnb site with the host’s details so you can hopefully find out who does own this villa to let them know they are being scammed as well. If there is a villa there, we didn’t find it.

Fake Airbnb Amsterdam Listing Interrupts UK Vacation

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I do not know if this is a host or a guest problem because I was a potential guest who suddenly discovered I was a host with an amazing apartment in Amsterdam. I don’t even live in Holland. What’s more, I had many bookings for my fictitious apartment. Here is my story.

The very first time I ever visited Airbnb to browse for holiday destinations I clicked an email address on the listing. I did not – but now do – realise these listings are a scam. However, at this stage, I had not signed up as I assumed you only signed up to be a host, not just to browse. The listing was in Amsterdam. So I emailed the Airbnb host and I was told I could have the apartment and the host would even pick me up (how thoughtful). I became suspicious of the listing when I spoke to my adult kids who had used Airbnb before and I showed them the pictures. They said it was too good to be true and that it’s probably not a good idea to email someone directly. I was disappointed but relieved as I had made very little contact and had not gotten anywhere near paying anything.

So, I made no more contact with the host. I checked out more Amsterdam properties and many of them had email addresses within the images. This is also the case with San Francisco. I wrote to the problem section and sent an email to Airbnb and to the community. This was answered by a member but I never heard from Airbnb personnel. What happened next was frightening and very inconvenient. I had left my home country, just after browsing and making enquiries, and flown to the UK for a vacation. When I reached the UK I checked my emails and had received about 15 enquiries about the Amsterdam apartment about which I had made the enquiry. These emails were requests from guests wanting to stay in the apartment; they all thought I was the host and owned the place. I went to the site and, sure enough, I was listed as the owner of the apartment; a photo of me was even accompanying the listing.

I did not know whom to contact in Airbnb as none of the FAQ addressed this new development. If a phone number had been present I would have rung it. As I said, I was on holiday in the UK and could only access my email intermittently. I had already tried to work out how to contact Airbnb with no response. I started to wonder if even the Airbnb address to which I was writing was a scam. At this stage, I did not know if the people who had booked my fictitious apartment were genuine. The numbers were growing by the day. I could not work out how anyone would benefit from this action. I decided to assume all of these people – by this time there were about 35 – were genuine and were organising flights and holidays, etc. So I decided to write to each person and tell them the apartment did not exist and I was not even a host.

No one wrote back to me but they must have cancelled their fictitious bookings because I started to get emails from Airbnb that my account would be deducted by $128 for each cancellation. I didn’t have an account. I continued to receive bookings and wrote back to each person. I wondered if they were paying into an account somewhere or they were all fictitious. I explained the apartment was not mine and I did not even live in Holland. I felt like I was going crazy. I then got emails from Airbnb warning me about cancelling these bookings. I still did not know if any of the correspondence from Airbnb was genuine. As I was finding it impossible to sort, and be on the move daily, I asked my son to try to sort it out. He discovered my apartment would be listed and then taken down intermittently. My photo was still on the listing with my email address (this photo had come from my Facebook page).

Today, nearly two months later, I checked the Amsterdam accommodation. My fake listing seems to have gone, but there still many apartments with private emails in the photos. I think Airbnb took my listing down but never even bothered to contact me. Obviously they can’t keep on top of the scammers. I was a first time user and so had not been aware of the dangers of emailing this address. I am still not sure how the scammers hope to get money from people. Unless people pay them directly – which could be the case – if someone is new and assumes Airbnb is all secure, then everything on the site must also be okay.

Why make me the host? If people were emailing me, then how would the scammers get their money? If I don’t have an officially listed property, have not become a member, and do not have an account, why did the Airbnb system not recognise that? It’s become obvious to me that the wheels are well and truly coming off Airbnb. It’s a shame but the company’s arrogant and hands-off attitude to dealing with serious problems is earning them no friends. They are so difficult to actually get hold of. In fact, it’s impossible if your problem doesn’t fit one of their neat little categories.

Family Vacation to Paris Leads to Airbnb Scam

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We are a family of five that took a long anticipated vacation to Europe in the summer of 2016. We stayed at Airbnbs in Barcelona, Germany and London, and planned to in Paris as well. That’s where things fell apart. This transaction involved an Airbnb host that was a no-show, and that we know scammed us. The transaction was placed in February and arranged to be “fulfilled” in June, a simple deposit and subsequent payment for an apartment rental. We followed all the Airbnb regulations and processes fully. We contacted Airbnb immediately when we discovered that there was going to be a problem with the transaction. Prior to departure, we were in contact with the Airbnb host regarding any special instructions for our Paris check in.

We arrived as a family of five on our prearranged date in Paris with reservations and prepayments made as agreed. This is what occurred: we texted back and forth and had a correspondence between us and the host. No specific check-in deadline was noted to us by the host. We gave the host information regarding our arrival time at Orly Airport to drop off our rental car and take the train. There was no timely response from the host and no message noting any problem. At no time did the host mention a meeting or conflict. The host did not give us clear instructions in the event of a delay… and we were delayed getting from Orly to the city by an hour or two, arriving in Paris by about 6:00 pm or so. We sent an email notifying the host we were on the bus. The host never provided instructions as to what to do when we arrived at the building. Upon arrival, the host was not present.

We could not locate his name on the apartment directory call box. The host then contacted us via text message that evening that he had a “meeting” (this was on a Monday evening) and he was having some difficulty with his schedule in order to meet us. He then directed us to “come to [him]” across Paris to pick up the keys to the apartment. The apartment was miles from the address and the new address provided by the host to pick up keys did not match his description. He directed us to go to “25 Rue del la Butte”, to pick up a spare set of keys, noting that he was “waiting for us” and that these keys would be on the “5th floor, door on the right”. The address was quite far from our host location in Paris. I took a cab with my son ($40.00 Euro Cab fare expense) while my wife and daughters waited with our suitcases at the original building address. Arriving at the “Rue de la Butte” address, (confirmed by the address sign on the side of the building) again the host’s name was not on the call box, and no one answered the buzzer. Most importantly, it was only a two story building. He had said he was on the fifth floor.

Because he was not responding, we also sent the host a Facebook message noting that we could not locate him at the “25 Rue De La Butte” address. Looking at the destination address, the host did not have his name anywhere on the entry letterboxes. He just scammed us, and scammed Airbnb. Upon returning from the alternate address we knew we had to find alternate lodging. We waited on the streets of Paris with three children until after 11:00 pm, repeatedly attempting to contact the host via email, text, and Facebook. We finally checked into a hotel for one night only, wondering if we’d hear anything further. We planned to move to the Airbnb the next evening, but the host did not contact us to offer this. We also thought that Airbnb would help us with a resolution, but this proved difficult.

We assumed at this point without any follow up from the host and the false address that we were the victim of an elaborate internet scam. This thinking prompted us to cancel our transaction with the host. We were in immediate communication with Airbnb via the website form and called on three different occasions to speak with three different case managers to try to resolve the issue. There is no phone number on the Airbnb website, just the dispute form which we completed that evening following our check in to the hotel. The important thing to know is: AIRBNB DOES NOT CARE AT ALL IF YOU GET RIPPED OFF. Their “resolution department” will pay a lot of lip service to you when finally cornered, but really, it is a ridiculous sham of a customer service department.

We kept email records of all of our communication with Airbnb trying to outline the events. It is important to note that this was one of four Airbnb stays that we scheduled for our recent trip. The other three stays were quite pleasant and the hosts were all responsive and amicable. In this regard, this was a simple and straightforward transaction dispute. We were out over $1500.00. We entered into an agreement to stay at a specified arrival date. We contracted for a product and did not receive it. Pretty straightforward, right?

Airbnb issued a tax credit of $18.00 and a ‘lodging credit’ of $125.00. Try putting a family of five up in two rooms by the Eiffel tower for $125. We reasonably asked that the remainder of the charge – $1572.00 – be credited to our credit card account. Airbnb was basically non-responsive. I got the impression that they do whatever is necessary to obfuscate and delay any resolution. You cannot call them from the website: there is no number and you get directed to a FAQ/community page. This was especially frustrating. Finally, we contacted our credit card company. After about 90 days or so, Airbnb did not respond to them either, so the amount was fully credited to us.

Here is the takeaway, folks:

1. Airbnb can work well and may do so for most folks, much of the time. The other folks we dealt with were honest and the locations were as advertised.

2. If you have a dispute as a guest, you are basically screwed. You will not get much attention and Airbnb will not delve into any detail or take money back from a host. Document everything as you go. Put all important communications in writing as email whenever possible.

3. When you use your credit card, remember that there may be a 90-day window to dispute a charge. In this regard, if you make reservations months in advance, you may struggle to get the money back. We did, but our bank (Verity in Seattle – kudos to them!) worked with us to do the right thing.

4. Take a few minutes to look around the destination at your location, so you will have a {lan B if your host is a scammer.

5. Most importantly, DO NOT CANCEL YOUR AIRBNB TRANSACTION. This basically shuts you out of reviewing the host and cuts off all contact between the two parties – just what the scammer/host wants.

Deceptive Listing Leads to False Damage Claims

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Our party rented a house in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. The house was not as represented. The overall cleanliness of the house was gravely subpar. Upon entering the house, stains on the carpet were noticed immediately and discussed between members of our party. The overall consensus was that the carpeting was in such bad condition that it gave us concern. The entire house was re-cleaned prior to our party moving in. The lamps, light switches, doorknobs, sinks, toilets, showers, dresser drawers, TV remotes, hand rails, counter tops, and stove, as well as the cupboard doors and refrigerator were cleaned by our party. The filth that was picked up from the towels we used was evident by turning all of the white towels dingy, and then black. Some items in the kitchen were used and required washing before and after our use. Most items had food residue on them.

On the first day, we noticed two chairs were significantly unstable. They were placed next to the wall and excluded from use to ensure nothing would be broken as a result of our stay. Evidence on the chairs suggest that they had been previously repaired. Later, on the second day, while grilling outside, the septic tank began to spew out foul water. Upon presenting this issue to the owner our party was told that we were taking too many showers. At that time, there had been only six showers taken within the approximate 24 hours we were present. The owner suggested that showers be taken outside. All subsequent showers were taken outside to avoid overflowing the septic tank again. She stated that someone would come to the property to assess the situation. No one was observed on the property.

No further information was provided by the owner. As adults we knew to stay clear of the septic tank area to avoid harm because of the unsafe health risk of sewage on the property. Due to our understanding that the initial response was going to be observation only, we continued to take all showers outside. On the sixth day, we assumed that the septic tank issue was resolved and attempted a couple showers. The septic tank overflowed with a greater stench present at the rear of the property than that four days prior. We were willing to make accommodations by only bringing this to the owner’s attention and not Airbnb’s. We did not allow the lack of meeting our expectations to ruin our vacation. When we returned home, the host filed a claim for $500 to replace the carpeting. Despite providing our proof and complaints, Airbnb sided with the host.

Airbnb Villa Scam Cons Families on Holiday in Ibiza

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We have recently been the victim of a scam on Airbnb that cost us nearly £4,000. My partner, my two children (5 and 1), and I wanted a last minute getaway due to a stressful few months, so we booked cheap Ryanair flights to Ibiza with the hope of finding somewhere to stay last minute and managed to stumble upon the Airbnb website through Google. Before this point, I’d never heard of Airbnb. I registered with the site and contacted a couple of hosts regarding availability but had no luck in finding anything as the places we could afford were fully booked. We had almost given up and nearly cancelled our flights as we couldn’t find anywhere to stay but at the bottom of the list of properties I saw some villas that said ‘others you may be interested in.’ I clicked on an amazing looking villa that showed our dates were still available. It was still out of our price range but as we were due to fly in less than two weeks we contacted them to see if they could offer us a late deal.

We didn’t hear anything for a few days and then I had an email through Airbnb from the host, saying her messages had not been getting through to her and she had been told by Airbnb to put her private email address on one of the pictures so she could receive the messages that way. We asked about the dates available via her email address to be told they were available and we managed to get the price down to £3,000 for the nine nights plus a £600 deposit which was still very much over our budget. However, we were thrilled about this as the villa had five bedrooms so we thought we could invite some friends over with their kids and make it a holiday of a lifetime, splitting the cost of the villa. We invited two couples along with their four children, who also booked flights to Ibiza and were going to stay for a few days each. As we had never used this website before we weren’t aware of the payment system or the way the website worked in general but we asked a few people about booking on Airbnb as we were a bit wary; the people we spoke to said it was a legitimate company and it would be fine.

We were emailing our host back and forth and asked how we should pay and she said she could not take the payment directly and that it would have to go through Airbnb. Rather, she would send them the details there and then and we would get an email confirming the reservation and details on how to pay. We received a very official looking Airbnb email, from an Airbnb email address with a confirmation booking number and details of payment by bank transfer to an Airbnb host. Like I said, we had never used the site before and the email appeared to come from Airbnb so we assumed this was the system of payment, as when I set up my profile on Airbnb I received no warning about how to pay other hosts correctly. Instead, there are various references of ways to pay littered across the site, including “instant book”, “contact host” and “expedite credit card payment”. These create enough confusion so that when an email is received from someone listed as a verified user you do not doubt it.

We paid the £3,600 by bank transfer on 01/08/16 and were still in contact with the host as we had various questions, e.g. did they have a travel cot, how far was it from the airport, etc. We were in contact with them up until the night before we were due to fly to Ibiza and the host even offered to pick us up from the airport but we said we had hired a car and we just needed the address. The host didn’t reply that night with the address and the following morning we rang her mobile number various times, contacted her by Whatsapp, and emailed her. By this point we were getting very worried as we were due to leave for the airport that afternoon. I contacted the Airbnb helpline and spoke to a lady to whom I gave the confirmation number, but she could not find my booking and suggested I contact customer services who would look into the matter for me. They did not have phones and I could only contact them by email.

I was furious by this point as I could not believe that if you have a problem or issue with a booking that you cannot talk to a human being in person and could only by email, hoping that you are able to get a response before you travel. I did get a response quite quickly luckily enough but it appeared to be a standard automated email that was not personal or did not sympathise with my situation at all. I gave the representative all the details that I had of the contact I’d been dealing with and I received a further blunt automated response back to say there was no booking and nothing Airbnb could do to sort out the situation or offer a refund as we paid outside of their system (which we didn’t realise we were doing). That would be the final email we would receive.

I’ve since had another email through Airbnb from another ‘lady’ asking me to provide further details of myself through her personal email address in order for her to accept a booking request, which I assume is another fraudster trying to take advantage. So it seems to still be happening on a regular occurrence. To summarise, we lost £3,600 for a villa advertised on the Airbnb website that I assume did not even exist! I had to tell my excited five-year old who had his case packed all ready to go that we were no longer going on holiday. We had to cancel our flights (another £356 lost) as we could not afford to stay anywhere else at such short notice. Our friends also had to cancel their flights and tell their children there was no holiday. We are still paying off a holiday we did not go on and will do for some time. Overall our loss was nearly £4,000! I am flabbergasted that the customer service for such a large company like Airbnb is so poor and they could not even apologise or compensate my family for the money we have lost. Since we were victims of this scam I have Googled Airbnb scams and found that this is not an isolated incident as articles have been written in the Guardian (04/06/16), The Huffington Post (27/01/16), and The Telegraph (20/03/15), just to name a few.

Regarding victims that have fallen prey to fraudsters on the site. It was suggested in one of the 2014 articles that a warning be issued to new subscribers warning them of the danger of fraudsters on the site and a guide be given on the correct payment process. It seems this was not looked into or carried out as had it been, then I would not have been a victim of fraud and lost £3,600. How are they allowing people to advertise villas and apartments on the site that do not exist? Are they checked out and verified before they advertise or can anyone post a rental on the site? I just don’t understand how this is happening! I wanted to write this story as a warning to others so the fraudsters cannot do this to anyone else.

Host Tried to Extort Thousands from Me

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Here was my email reporting a case to the Airbnb Resolution Center:

Hi, thank you for mediating this case for us. Unfortunately, our host never met us face-to-face to deliver the apartment key and give the proper introduction of what furniture and amenities were included in our stay. In this case, she left the key in a lockbox in front of the door. Because she never showed us which furniture was ours to use at the beginning of our stay, we didn’t know what to expect. Attached are some pictures of the furniture taken on August 10th when we arrived at her apartment. As you can see, the headboard of the bed is already broken, and the bed squeaked every time we moved. Other guests have also mentioned the old bed in their reviews. However, we didn’t complain to our host since I didn’t think it was a major problem. I never checked the bottom part of the bed which she said is now broken, because it was covered with the sheets. As you can see too, the futon was covered with a red blanket when we arrived and when I removed it, I found out the black futon was crumbling on to the floor. However, the pictures we took didn’t show that, as we didn’t take another picture when we discovered the futon crumbling. We didn’t complain to our host about it because we thought she already covered it with red blanket so it didn’t matter to us. It was to our surprise that she asked us to pay such a huge amount for damage to the furniture. The damage, even though we didn’t cause it, should not cost that much.

We are also going to report to you some problems during our stay. First, the building is very noisy even late at night as it is next to a busy street. I have a small kid and he was uncomfortable with the noise. Second, the last week of our stay we were unbelievably uncomfortable because there was some construction to renovate the building. It started almost everyday from morning until after 6:00 PM. The dust was unbearable, the noise was loud enough I couldn’t focus on my studies at all (I am a graduate student), and water and dirt came under the front door when they did the flooring work outside. The bathroom was leaking because of the roof work. However, we didn’t receive any prior notice from our host that these renovations would be done at this time. We didn’t complain to her and managed to clean the apartment everyday after the work was done.

Third, our host said that we booked for three people and four actually showed up. I definitely can’t believe she would accuse us of this: it was only me, my husband, and our one daughter. You can check with some people – neighbors, my Uber driver – whose phone numbers I kept and they will be able confirm there were only three in our party. I am curious: who checked the apartments when we left? Was it just our host or a third party (maid)? I don’t know our host’s intentions by accusing us of so many things we didn’t do. We had to put up with many shortcomings on her side as I mentioned above. I could have demanded a refund due to this inconvenience. Please refer to the documents attached for my conversations with our host, photos, and also testimony. We look forward to hearing your fair mediation on this case. Thank you.

Airbnb Tries to Con me out of 1000 Dollars

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Our host cancelled on us when we were literally on his doorstep. After that we spent a good deal of our vacation trying to unearth some contact information for Airbnb. They don’t seem to want to talk to their customers. Meanwhile, the host offered us half our money back, which was transferred to my account. I had my Visa card changed before that, not knowing if Airbnb had already withdrawn the money. After quite a bit of digging, I got through to an actual person,who actually helped me get the rest back! So far so good. I wrote a fair review.

then after a couple of days Airbnb sent me a message claiming I had been reimbursed more than I’d originally paid and regretted that they couldn’t withdraw the excess money on my card – would I please tell my bank to let them have the money? I wrote them back, sending them evidence that I’d only received the original amount, after which they sent me a different (as in, fake) invoice stating an amount that was $1000 more than I had originally paid (and consequently received from them as a refund). I protested, sending them the original invoice and screen shots of my bank records. Airbnb totally ignored this, didn’t answer my emails, and sent me the same message every few days: they paid me too much; will I please talk to my bank about letting them withdraw $1000 dollars from my card? I also kept getting emails about writing a review of the host, but when I followed the link I was told i couldn’t “edit this review.” What review? I hadn’t written any! Their so-called customer service stinks and I have a hard time believing they are not trying to con me.

Airbnb Screwed us out of our Security Deposit

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We stayed in a villa in Bordeaux for seven nights in June. We had a good time and took good care of the property. However, after we returned to the United Kingdom, we were contacted by the host who claimed we had damaged the furnishings in his property. We were not aware of doing this and upon inspection of the photos, the damages looked relatively minor. We wrote back saying we didn’t think we had caused the damage and that at any rate it looked like minor damage; we needed some proof that we had caused this damage.

We were then contacted by Airbnb (a person called Sydney – we have never been able to find his surname) who told us the host was claiming that the repair costs were £600! We again responded in the same way: said we didn’t cause the damage, asked for proof of the damage and proof that the £600 was indeed the appropriate cost to fix it. Airbnb subsequently replied saying they had reviewed the evidence (not shared with us) and decided in favour of the host, awarding him £580. They then proceeded to deduct this from our account. All subsequent responses from us appealed to Airbnb asking them to be reasonable, and to provide the proof that we are asking for. They simply keep replying saying they consider the matter closed.

We have been completed ripped off here and don’t know what to do next. Can we take them to the small claims court?