Vice: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

The call came about 10 minutes before we were set to check into the Airbnb. I was sitting at a brewery just around the corner from the rental on North Wood Street in Chicago when the man on the other end of the line said that our planned visit wouldn’t be possible. A previous guest had flushed something down the toilet, which had left the unit flooded with water, he explained. Apologetic, he promised to let us stay in another property he managed until he could call a plumber.

 

I had flown with two friends to the city in hopes of a relaxing end-of-summer getaway. We had purchased tickets to attend the September music festival Riot Fest, where Blink-182 and Taking Back Sunday were scheduled to perform. The trip had gotten off to a rough start even before the call. Around a month before, a first Airbnb host had already canceled, leaving us with little time to figure out alternative housing. While scrambling to find something else, I stumbled upon a local Airbnb rental listed by a couple, Becky and Andrew. Sure, the house looked a little basic in the photos online, but it was nice enough, especially considering the time crunch—light-filled, spacious, and close to the Blue Line.

 

Now, we were facing our second potential disaster in 30 days, and I couldn’t help but feel slightly suspicious of the man on the phone, who had called me from a number with a Los Angeles area code. Hoping to talk in person, I asked him if he was in the area. He said that he was at work and didn’t really have time to chat. Then he added that I needed to decide immediately if I was willing to change my reservation.

 

As if he could hear me calculating in my head how much of a hassle it would be to find a hotel instead, he then added something else to his pitch.

 

“It’s about three times bigger,” the man said. “That’s the good news.”

 

The bad news, which went unstated, was that I had unknowingly stumbled into a nationwide web of deception that appeared to span eight cities and nearly 100 property listings—an undetected scam created by some person or organization that had figured out just how easy it is to exploit Airbnb’s poorly written rules in order to collect thousands of dollars through phony listings, fake reviews, and, when necessary, intimidation. Considering Airbnb’s lax enforcement of its own policies, who could blame the scammers for taking advantage of the new world of short-term rental platforms? They had every reason to believe they could do so with impunity.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-host-scam-on-airbnb

 

 

[bearrock]

Just require a signed identity affidavit with medallion signature guarantee, a credit report, and most recent propety tax payment for anyone wishing to list a property with airbnb.  If the property is owned by a corporation, that information should be listed on the listing with id affidavit signed by the managing executive, which may or may not turn people off. 

 

Airbnb can easily police these scam listings with minimal effort on their end by requiring a few documents from the homeowners.  Which tells me that they just don't want to.

 

Bit off topic, but never having used airbnb, why are these popular?  Is it cheaper than a hotel?

[Destino]

Some FBI agent must have thought Christmas came early after reading this article.  This reporter has done a fine job of mapping out the scam and identifying the person behind it. 

[redskinss]

52 minutes ago, bearrock said:

 

Bit off topic, but never having used airbnb, why are these popular?  Is it cheaper than a hotel?

For me personally I use airbnb when I have large parties and usually hotels when it's just my wife and I.

 

When you go away with a large group it is sometimes nice to get a large place with a kitchen, maybe a deck or a firepit.

A hotel is so impersonal and seperates your group where as a whole house Airbnb you can kind of stay together more as a group.

[Renegade7]

57 minutes ago, bearrock said:

 

Bit off topic, but never having used airbnb, why are these popular?  Is it cheaper than a hotel?

 

Yes, but cant say in all cases. I stayed a couple blocks from world trade center for my 30th birthday, no way I could've afforded a hotel in the same location of lower Manhattan.

[No Excuses]

Anyone who has dealt with AirBnB’s customer service has probably left wanting to never go back to the platform again. My partner and I used it frequently for traveling all over the world between 2014-2018 until a completely disastrous stay in Toronto. There was no number you could dial to speak with a rep, you get stuck with some chat representative in another country, and all they will tell you is “we have opened a case and will look into it”. That’s not good enough when you are visiting a place for a few days, have allocated your lodging money and have nowhere else to stay. 

 

It’s a platform ripe for scammers and people who provide poor quality rentals, because like the review states, getting into a confrontation with your host means bad reviews on a platform where even one bad review can tank your ability to either host or rent. Reviews don’t show up unless both parties write it so typically people just don’t bother speaking out about bad rentals.

 

Sucks because we had some really great stays in Europe and there is real value to the service, but AirBnB has decided that the onus of consumer and public safety is not its responsibility.

[Malapropismic Depository]

3 hours ago, bearrock said:

Bit off topic, but never having used airbnb, why are these popular?  Is it cheaper than a hotel?

 

Not if it's a short stay.

They typically charge a flat fee for cleaning, usually a minimum of $100 in my experience, and often even more, like $200 or even more than that.

So, unless you're staying long enough that that fee is stretched out and "averages" much less per night, then the fee actuallly vaults it higher than most hotels (not counting luxury ones)

[tshile]

3 hours ago, bearrock said:

Bit off topic, but never having used airbnb, why are these popular?  Is it cheaper than a hotel?

Generally the combined value of feel, quality of location, quality of place, coolness of host..... is just way higher than a hotel. We’ve used them for family and group beach trips and we’re doing a group trip to costa Rico and got a mansion on the coast with pool sleeps like 15. It’s like their upgraded listings, forget what they call it. Has a house keeper person that will stock food and will cook, has her own menu. The hosts are setting up cars for us to get at the air port. They’ve given us a complete locals guide to the area

 

Each couple is paying significantly less per night than a nice hotel at Virginia Beach in July. 
 

it’s a solid service. It sucks some people have problems and it’s be nice if they were better and preventing it. Thankfully we haven’t had a problem yet. 

[tshile]

1 hour ago, No Excuses said:

AirBnB has decided that the onus of consumer and public safety is not its responsibility.

Airbnb lux comes with the verification stuff but it costs more 

[Larry]

1 hour ago, No Excuses said:

AirBnB has decided that the onus of consumer and public safety is not its responsibility.

 

Seems to be the model of several businesses.  

 

All the profits go to the company.  

 

All the investment, all the "sweat equity", all the risks, all the liability?  On the individual.  

 

Oh, and we're exempt from all those pesky regulations that have been imposed on (the business we're competing against).  Just because we're different.  Because we say so.  

 

Easy to see why the corporation likes it.  

[China]

Bedbugs are giving Airbnb users headaches… and itchy bites

 

Terri was fast asleep when her phone rang. It was midnight on a Tuesday in early May. Despite the hour, she answered the call because it was from a guest at her Airbnb rental. The news she got was alarming.

 

"I've been bitten by something," Terri says the guest told her. "I think you have bedbugs."

 

Terri, a retired federal agent, has been renting out her three-bedroom beachside condo in South Carolina for nearly two years. (CNET opted not to disclose her full name to spare her public scrutiny.) She's what Airbnb calls a "superhost," an experienced and highly rated property owner. Terri didn't know where the bedbugs came from, but she was sure they hadn't been there before her guest arrived. So she turned to Airbnb for help.

 

At first, the short-term rental service provided assistance. Terri spent three hours on the phone with the company that night trying to find new lodging for her guest and information on how to get rid of the little blood-sucking creatures. But then Airbnb went silent. After CNET informed Airbnb more than two months later that it was writing a story about what happened, the company contacted Terri. Airbnb acknowledged it mishandled the situation.

 

"We have an outstanding customer support team," Ben Breit, Airbnb's head of trust and safety communications for the Americas, said in an email. "But when our handling of an issue fails to meet the high standards we set for ourselves, we work hard to ensure it is not repeated."

 

Terri's tangle with bedbugs is just one of hundreds of creepy-crawly examples of the problem affecting the popular lodging service. Spend time on an Airbnb forum, Twitter or Reddit and you'll see report after report of bedbugs, whose bites don't spread disease but can leave itchy welts and cause allergic reactions. Some of the reports include photos of swollen arms and legs covered in dozens of red boil-like bumps. Property owners often say renters are the source of the unwanted visitors, while travelers -- or guests, in Airbnb parlance -- blame hosts for not keeping their properties clean. Both sides agree that Airbnb isn't doing enough to fix the problem.

 

CNET spoke to eight people who dealt with bedbugs in Airbnb rentals within the last three years. All of them said Airbnb, which was founded in 2008, doesn't seem to have a systematic procedure in place for handling outbreaks. And most said that while they eventually received some form of compensation from Airbnb, the company failed to provide adequate support.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Airbnb CEO pledges to verify all 7 million listings in sweeping review of site

 

After a bruising week, Airbnb announced several measures Wednesday to bolster trust and protect the safety of its users better. The news followed the deaths of five people after a shooting at an “Airbnb mansion party” in California last week.

 

In an email to employees, CEO Brian Chesky said the home-renting platform would start verifying all 7 million listings, a process expected to stretch into late 2020. By Dec. 15 of next year, he wrote, a review of every home and host on Airbnb will be complete, “with the objective of 100 percent verification.”

 

He did not detail how that process will take place but said during the New York Times’s DealBook Conference that the review would use a combination of company and community resources — guests, in other words.

 

“We’re going to make sure that we can stand behind every single listing, every single host to make sure that every single listing is accurate,” he said. “The information’s accurate, the photos are what you say they are, the addresses are accurate, they meet minimum standards, they meet basic safety protocol and the host is who they say they are.”

 

Wednesday’s announcement also comes nearly a week after Vice published a lengthy investigation into what it called “a nationwide web of deception that appeared to span eight cities and nearly 100 property listings — an undetected scam created by some person or organization that had figured out just how easy it is to exploit Airbnb’s poorly written rules.”

 

Chesky said the company will start asking more specific questions of guests who leave reviews as part of the overhaul.

 

“I think many of us in this industry … are going from a hands-off model, where the Internet’s an immune system, to realizing that’s not really enough, that we have to take more responsibility for the stuff on our platform,” he said. “And I think this has been a gradual, maybe too gradual, transition for our industry.”

 

The company also said it would put a “guest guarantee” into place starting Dec. 15 of this year, promising to rebook users at an equal or better property or fully refund them if a listing is inaccurate. A new hotline for people who live near Airbnb listings will go into effect Dec. 31, 2019, in the United States so people can call and report concerns. It will expand to the rest of the world next year.

 

Click on the link for the full article