In my view this is major. To describe it better - need to read "between the lines" of misleading representations of properties.
Lots of property owners goes to great extends to make property look way better, bigger, nicer than it really is and to conceal obvious negative points that become apparent even before you are given the keys. Then the list goes on.
AirBnb expects and encourages misrepresentation of properties and misleading descriptions to stimulate cash flow. Try to get refund from AirBnb for misprepresentation or deliberate omissions of negative points.
It bugs me that YC appears to have absolutely no policy of conduct for the companies they fund. It's totally within their power to say in so many words "be evil and we'll pull your funding and report you to the authorities". IMO AirBnB is complicit in these issues. There is no punishment for bad listings and often AirBnB doesn't even have the options in their system to list them correctly. They even removed my review that included pictures of proof.
For longer-term rentals, I find it's best to work through local property managers or maybe VRBO, where you're dealing with the person more directly. That said, the destination probably makes a HUGE difference in terms of how you are treated.
The fact that AirBnB's rating system is so gamed that you can't trust any reviews, and the fact that their policies for refunds skew towards the property owners and not guests means that my trust in the site is low. I'd probably only risk it again if there are hotels around as backups. That said, I'm also typically looking for cheaper places, so the scam-level density is probably higher.
If Airbnb would take fraud seriously and refund people who have been defrauded on their platform, it would be fine. The fact that they push the risks of fraud to the customer and refuse to pay for reparations is not acceptable.
How do you corroborate the information on those properties? The clean, affordable, well-placed hotels I've stayed in had reams of reviews and news articles from various sources to confirm they were indeed clean, affordable, and well-placed. The cost of faking all those sources must be orders of magnitude greater than faking property images/reviews on AirBnB.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/airbnb-price-per-n...
There might be others, but this one has worked well for me. No affiliation, just a happy user.
It also used to be the case that AirBNB had some really nice places for pretty cheap. I think now that the business is more mature, it's not as easy to find really great discounts. Any more, it seems like the better value is on Booking.com, too!
I will say though that I dread what you said - analyzing listings. The airbnb.com UX is atrocious. I thought it was pretty sub-par when I'd look at listings just planning trips for myself. But now I try to plan trips with my partner through it and she has her own account, so I share lists and listings within lists. It's awful. I recently went on a 2 week road trip and stayed at different places every day. I'd have to have google maps open to plot distance between airbnbs and parks, I couldn't go back into a listings actual ad to see its details once I confirmed a reservation (I had to search for the listing again and go to it, the reservation details don't show the actual posting), I'd have to keep a separate app open just to keep notes of each listing, I use my todo list, which I then also had to share with my partner separately because there's not really a way to thumbs up/down/leave comments on listings. I'd send her listings and she'd get errors or they'd just never end up on her account. If I add her to a listing I don't think it shows up in her reservations so I still had to send all the info to her, she'd just get an email about it.
Does anyone do this sort of stuff on any of the other sites? Vrbo, etc? Is there a really good roadtrip planning app? Are they easier to use in these situations? I honestly don't want to deal with it again it was that frustrating.
Also, while I'm here ranting, and as an ex-airbnb host and very avid airbnb user. Please, chill out on your cleaning fees. I cannot believe some of the cleaning fees I find. Quit using it as a way to lower the daily cost so that you show up on more searches. Nothing turns me off from a place more than putting a reservation together and noticing that my 2-3 day stay will incur $150+ in cleaning fees. I would rather pay a slightly higher daily fee than $45-80/day in "cleaning" when I'm a single person renting your studio just so I can spend 80% of my day hiking outside of your place. I can't remember if I could control this based on the number of guests staying but if you can, please do it.
Completely agree. If you don't want to put in the time or effort required to analyze for “assumed”, “missing” , and “bonus” amenities, scrutinize each listing’s description, photos, and guest reviews, and sniff out the nature of each Airbnb and the host’s motivations, I say stay away from Airbnb. More thoughts here - https://blog.michaelscepaniak.com/how-to-find-choose-and-boo...
The more negative comments I read here, the more I think that most people shouldn't use Airbnb. With that being said, I've been happy with Airbnb, warts and all.
AirBnB in Australia, Japan & the UK has never been a problem for me. The USA has a 50% scam rate so far.
However, you can't go wrong with superhosts. I've never had a bad experience with them.
I just spent 7 days (20h total) trying to make one booking. Tons of reading between the lines and analyzing involved, as well as bad or non-responsive potential hosts. To top it off, AirBnb Support the whole time was very poor.
This company has no moral compass. Why are you advertising for it? Distracting from the reality of the company described in the article?
You know it has illegally ruined communities in the name of profit, right?
I booked a place in Reno a week in advance. On the night before check-in at about 2am I got a text from the host asking me to increase the price of stay by $20. That was small and I did not want the hassle of arguing but just decided to leave it till morning. In the morning I looked at it again on computer (as opposed to the phone) and saw something odd: the dates of stay we crossed and replaced by the exact same dates. Then I saw that weekdays were off. Then it dawned on me that the scammer changed the dates of stay to the next year and added $20 just to distract me.
The scam is simple. The scammer lists the same property twice with ~30% difference in price using slightly different photos and descriptions. The cheaper one goes first. If he books it at the higher price he kicks out the first renters with the "next year booking" scam. Reading reviews made it quite clear.
I reported the scammer to AirBnB, got a refund + $100 but they did not do anything other than $100 fine to the scammer. The crook makes more than that from a single scam. AirBnB just does not care.
Pecunia non olet.
I've come across a few such stories.
Is the host able to unilaterally change the dates of your booking on AirBnb? Did your agreement to the text (asking for $20 extra) allow him to make the changes?
Though in this case, the difference in price is about 50%.
Is there market where HN-type people come up with these and sell them to people to implement?
Given the complexity of building these services, and the lack of comparable competing options, you are left to begrudgingly accept what you're left with.
The one who's travelling has the weakest odds of all. The traveler will be in a foreign place with no place to stay. In contrast, the host has no losing cards except some income. The rules should, thus, have been written to protect the traveler at the expense of the host because the host can take more hits from bad luck than the traveler.
If the host really needs to cancel they should have to put the traveler in a real hotel as an upgrade to remove all doubt of the traveler getting into a place that could be worse. They have already received the money from the traveler so they only need to pay for the difference. Just cancelling late without any particular reason could be done but at a very high cost. And if the host's place did burn down for real then a few hundred extra to pay for the guest's hotel for a few nights will surely be a negligent cost.
They're very fast to issue refunds, but only if requested... I wonder how many people just never notice the fraudulent charge! One reason I minimally trust Uber and keep checking all their charges...
No, the one being scammed has the weakest odds. The "traveler" could in fact be a local scammer who sabotages a property and then has various ways (which I won't detail) for turning a profit on it if the rules favor the "poor traveler".
I'm not saying the rules shouldn't favor the traveler, I'm cautioning against assuming that the traveler would always be the victim in case of a scam. This assumption is often the result of projection by an honest observer who can easily picture himself as the traveler but not as the property owner.
Better than biasing the outcome, in my opinion, would be for AirBnB to require all communication about "changes" to go through the corporate system. If both parties agree "it's fine", the event is noted but not investigated until it happens repeatedly. Top N% of repeats plus others at random get investigated. But if either party says it's "not fine", there will be no reviews allowed (so no threat of bad review), and AirBnB will investigate and do the "reviewing" themselves, with the investigation escalating in vigor with repeats. They will also make it clear that any evidence of intentional fraud they uncover will be promptly taken to law enforcement.
Of course this would raise costs for AirBnB, which would be passed on as fees, reducing the cost advantage of AirBnB vs traditional hotels. But if raising the trust level to hotel level eliminated the cost advantage over hotels, the cost advantage would be an illusion.
> And if the host's place did burn down for real then a few hundred extra to pay for the guest's hotel for a few nights will surely be a negligent cost.
is a very narrow view of someone who just lost their house to a fire. Even assuming nothing irreplaceable was lost, I feel my upcoming AirBnB guest might not be my top priority.
New scam: post a listing for a very high-end place you don't own, cancel the booking once you've been paid and book the client a cheap hotel, and pocket the difference
"Thank you for your note. Someone else discovered this and notified me three weeks ago. I went to the Amazon copyright infringement webpage and filled out the form. The automated email told me to expect a formal response in 1-2 business days. That was three weeks ago, and I’m still waiting."
So Amazon have, for more than a month, been told that they are selling a stolen book. And yet the listing is still there.
Now if I reported that my local bricks-and-mortar second-hand store was selling my stolen TV set, I'll bet that the police would be there pretty quickly. But Amazon and BnB can sell stolen goods or misrepresent offerings with impunity. This is not right.
Yes, but an analogous situation here would be if your local bricks-and-mortar store were selling a TV that looked and worked just like yours, but was made by a different company.
What (if anything) do you expect your local police would do if you reported that?
If Amazon acted quickly, you could easily take down the listings of your competitors simply by making false claims—which has happened in the past.
And the fact is that copyrights/patents/trademarks are handled differently than theft.
These places (airbnb, vrbo, its all the same stupid schtick) are emphasizing the rights of idiots to rent over the rights of renters to have a safe, enjoyable time while paying lots of money. They got the product they built.
> "Even after a month of digging through public records, scouring the internet for clues, repeatedly calling Airbnb and confronting the man who called himself Patrick, I can’t say I’ll be leaving the platform, either. Dealing with Airbnb’s easily exploitable and occasionally crazy-making system is still just a bit cheaper than renting a hotel."
After an experience like that, I'd spend so much effort warning everyone I know to avoid Airbnb, even with the off chance something like this could happen to them. THIS is exactly why Airbnb doesn't care, the user is so brainwashed into still using the platform even after all that to potentially save a few bucks (which honestly, from what I have seen these days, Airbnb is basically the same cost of a hotel if you buy from any hotel deal site). I just don't understand that logic at all. Fool me once...
It's constantly amazing to see how little people value their time when it comes to stuff like this. Maybe when we're getting yearly salaries we don't compute out the hourly cost but, man, do the math once in a while.
Having said that, I still use the platform.
Why? I've traveled a lot and generally on the cheap, and I have run into scammy/terrible hotels. I mean, at one place the hotel owner tried to scam me by claiming I broke something that was clearly broken when we arrived. One time, I had a hotel room with hookers outside, a broken beer bottle under the bed with beer still in it, and a slice of pizza literally still on the floor face down. This last one had good reviews on one platform, terrible reviews on another.
My bad airbnb experience made me much more careful about who I stay with and how on the platform. But I haven't given up on it. I've had some amazing airbnb experiences, both renting full houses with friends as well as staying in a room in a house with locals and getting the 'real local experience', I won't leave it. Maybe for people going to high end hotels it won't make sense to airbnb? At least for me, going to cheap hotels and cheap airbnbs, the overall reliability has been not too dissimilar.
I do wish they would monitor their platform more.
When I travel, I often approach it like imagining I lived in that city. So often I'll get food and cook it and have some days where I just lounge around. This doesn't really work with most hotels which are absolutely tiny in major cities and don't have working kitchens or living rooms. Even if they do the furniture is so generic, cheap and awful that it kind of breaks me out of the experience.
There's no real alternative for the apartment-like living experience AirBnB provides, unfortunately.
AirBNB must know who they are as those scammers are getting paid, right? It would be expensive for AirBNB (they would certainly lose money) but it can't cost more than the revenue they lose when people read articles like this?
Airbnb is basically built on shifting liability to shifty people running hotels out of rentals.
Also, pro tip, I’d guess at least 50% of the airbnbs I’ve stayed in do not wash the sheets in a washer (I’ve literally physically observed at least one host lint-roll follow by a spray of fabric freshener).
That being said I still use them to lower my own standards and prices below hotels, but I know what I’m getting into at least.
Take the number of listings, A, multiply by the small proportion of scam listings, B, multiply by the average refund we post, C. A times B times C equals X. If X ... well, who cares about X, it doesn't matter - people will still book with us anyway.
I've also booked trips to Tokyo and LA recently, and in each place the reservation was accepted, payment was made, and 2 weeks before I was set to stay there, the owner canceled the stay. Why? Doesn't matter, the owner can cancel without penalty for "unforeseen circumstances". Of course the renter gets charged a massive fee for canceling including, naturally, AirBNB's fees.
My fraud alert is always on high now when using AirBNB and I think no one should put all their vacation eggs in the 1 basket with them. Too unreliable, too flaky on reservations, and too we-don't-care-about-you attitude towards the renters.
Air bad and breakfast type of hosts could not be reliable by definition. If you want a predictable experience you will get a better luck working with professionals (either hotel chains or high end local hotels). It is a solved problem.
AirBnB is/used to be cheap. People want cheap. They don't want to pay $200 a night for a hotel room when they travel to Paris, AirBnB knows that so I think they are much more concerned about the size of their inventory than the satisfaction of the guest or their reputation.
What fascinates me is the ability of most of theses "start-up" to successfully straight out ignore local laws, with very little consequences, and manage to put all the burden of legality onto their users.
They must have very good legal teams that exploit the flaws of legal systems. Talking about Paris, the great majority of listing are outright illegal, or at least used to be. If I were to set up a similar operation on my own, in France, I'd be shut down in a heart beat for providing illegal hotels and rentals and go straight to prison.
These people seem truly untouchable.
That's the strength of these services.
You don't even have to stay one night... I ran into this exact scenario where upon arrival, the place had no electricity, wifi, and construction for a few blocks outside. I was unable to contact them until the next day since my first instinct was to look for another place ASAP and rest from the long flight. Sure enough, they threw their ToS at me and stated that I wasn't eligible for a refund. I contacted AMEX, but they partner with AirBnB so I was denied a credit there as well. I ended up paying an entire week for a place I didn't stay at.
The purpose of AirBNB right now is to give the current owners a nice exit. After that occurs, then they can worry about customer service and the related expenses.
For example, why isn't there an Alexa-like concierge device in every AirBnB that answers guest questions by now? Why aren't there smart locks on every home that unlocks with the app? Etc etc.
A lot of tech companies, including AirBnB operate by passing risk / responsibility off onto everyone else (the host, the customer) and thus saving AirBnB a great deal of time / money.
AirBnB is reportedly pressuring hosts to install smart locks, but they are getting pushback from hosts who like socializing with the people who come to stay at their property. Yes, a huge amount of AirBnB listings are faceless property developers now, but there is still a good slice of individual families renting out a spare flat. Sometimes the host is an elderly person who craves that kind of interaction with other human beings (which can be awkward as a guest when you just want to quickly lock yourself in the rental and have some time alone).
Once checkout has completed, both Guest and Host have 14 days (21? 30?) to write their reviews (neither party can see the others' review). At the end of that period, both reviews are visible on the site and cannot be edited.
In the end, I probably pay something like 50% more for my accommodations than I could if I were to take chances with AirBNB. But for me, the insecurity and potential for high-stress situations once I arrive in a foreign country just aren't worth it.
There was a time, in my 20's, that I would drive out somewhere and 'just figure it out' once I got there. Even for work functions or conferences.
Then AirBnB became a thing, and I was even more caution to the wind, because I can book ahead of time, but it's still a surprise, sort of! Best of both worlds!
Now, though, not that far out of my 20's, I'm with you. I'll pay a premium to know that I'm getting something that is agreed to by both parties, with no surprises.
1. Trusting trustworthy people increases efficiency. The less checking and verification you have to do, the less redundant work there is and the more easily things go.
2. As the number of trustworthy people in a group increases, the value of choosing to trust a random person increases. The odds get greater that they will be trustworthy, letting you reap the greater efficiency of trusting them.
3. As the number of trusting people in a group increases, the relative value of malice increases. The more likely a con artist is to be trusted, the more likely they are to be successful at their goal.
So there's this weird trust graph where as you approach 100% trustworthiness, you also approach 100% exploitability. The group gradually turns itself into a honeypot. So the stable equilibrium point is somewhere less of 100%.
Just as you said, the whole stack is corrupt. There will be more of this to come.
They profit by knowingly breaking the law. They are criminals.
It is appalling that this can happen in a country built on a system of laws.
https://www.airbnb.com/terms/payments_terms?hide_nav=true
Also there's a binding arbitration clause there too just for good measure.
They also have special partnerships with credit card companies so the companies are more likely to side with Airbnb as well.
Yes, this isn't only happening to guests, check the AirBnb hosts reddit - the horror stories there about guests and Airbnb support not helping out are constant
Same thing happened in Florence to friends the following year. Luckily that time I had already bailed on Airbnb and got a hotel. But after I helped them look into it I found several instances of the photos/description from their well reviewed host used on other accounts.
1. If the property does not match the description, take pictures (they won't just take your word for it).
2. If you are told that the original property is not available, contact Airbnb right away, and they will give you a full refund and help you find a place to stay (Airbnb or otherwise).
Fortunately, I've never had to put any of this to the test...
Can you ask your friend how to contact Airbnb such that you get a reasonable fast response, say within 1h?
- Destroy the flophouse - Leave a 5 star review on your original booking saying how nice the place was - If the scammers attempt to complain to AirBnB or charge fees, kindly tell them that's not the place you stayed and you have never seen that location. Refer them to the original listing for the beautiful home where your reservation was.
Scammers would be claiming you destroyed a place that AirBnB has no record of you ever staying in.
But quality is not in AirBnB's interest, apparently - being cheaper is. They get a cut from all financial transactions anyway. Once they're listed on the stock market the people currently running it can retire and it's no longer their problem.
I guess you just really have to be careful when you use a service like this. It's like eBay in a way: you can get ripped off on there, but if you're careful and only buy from reputable sellers, you can get some great deals.
Same thing with Uber — at least there, you get the convenience compared to having to call a taxi. What exactly do you get from Airbnb?
I travel for business lots, and the last thing I need to worry about is having to deal with these sorts of issues. Having a hotel and a car rental is so much easier and reliable.
As mentioned elsewhere, being vigilant when booking can often avoid these. I've booked around a dozen places with no issues. Very much disappointed that Airbnb doesn't do better though, as generally the time searching of course is valuable. For me it's just not as valuable as the way I explore a city coming from an Airbnb instead of a hotel, so it's still a worthwhile service.
Airbnb let the host write a review on us for the stay which we didn't even take, as when we arrived in the apartment it was in a such appalling state, dirty, broken - we had to spend 4 hours inside while looking for the replacement and trying to convince Airbnb this apartment is inhabitable based on their T&Cs. Yes, we managed that but couldn't find an adequate replacement for the same money and had to move into the hotel. At the same time, Airbnb let the host write a super-negative review about us for not taking this apartment and never sent an invitation to myself to write my own review. I could not even image it is possible to write reviews for cancelled stays! I was left with negative review and ruined stay just because the host could care less and because Airbnb protects hosts first and foremost.
Guess what? Most of non-scam non-inhabitable properties listed on Airbnb are almost always available on other sites, including a well-known booking site. Where you pay and receive service and have means to complain or at least write a review without the fear of being reviewed back for something you are not even at fault.
I had 23 positive reviews and that one last negative. When I later tried to book an apartment and started asking a few questions to host (have to be fastidious with the choice as I often stay for 2-3 weeks, so need to ensure there is no construction works around..etc) - the host has referred to my last negative review and told me I won't be welcome. And that was that proverbial straw.
I loved the service back in the early twenty-teens, but I had a strikingly bad experience with a home I tried to book in Boston.
The owner found out her home listing had rats a few days prior to check-in, and admitted to not being able to get rid of them fully before the date, leaving the possibility of rats getting poisoned/killed by the traps she set up. All of the communication was via @airbnb.com emails I had responded to, but Airbnb's support couldn't find any records of these messages. It took multiple calls and entirely too much effort to get an eventual refund plus a tiny credit on their site -- not nearly enough to book a replacement property that close to the date anywhere within city limits.
Meanwhile, like I mentioned, the prices of properly licensed and managed vacation options have become competitive with Airbnb while offering more reliable and flexible wrt date changes and cancellations.
The listing had 5 stars because of a network of shill accounts leaving fake reviews. Additionally, there is no penalty for deleting a listing and recreating it when the fake 5-star status runs out.
I contacted Airbnb about the shill account network, and the scam, and they didn't do anything about it. Although I got a refund, I wasted 3 hours of my life trying to get into a locked apartment that had my things in it before a plane took off. The shill accounts still exist.
Haven't used Airbnb since. I might gamble for a chic destination listing for fun, but never again for casual/business use.
This is beyond vile. The booking had already been cancelled by definition by the host, the refund should be automatic. They act like it's Hotel where you haven't booked a specific room. I'll never touch this POS company.
One common thing I see in this thread is people act like theres only two choices: Hotels or Airbnb. I've never had a booking on HomeAway that wasn't on par or exceeding expectations.
The bed had 12 full-sized pillows and one sheet, and the sheet was so starched that I pinched the middle and lifted it to head height, and it just stayed there. You could sculpt it.
The silverware drawer had 5 knives and one chopstick. The kitchen trash was full. The shower had a drain full of hair. I had to go buy soap and paper towels at a convenience store.
I called the host (a "retired local woman") and got a man with an indian accent who offered me a "much larger and nicer property a few kilometers away", which I couldn't take because I was traveling with my family and we were just exhausted.
Fraudulent sales can be easily reversed by your credit card provider. In my experience, saying "If I don't get a refund, I'll issue a chargeback through my credit card provider" gets them to process the full refund immediately.
And it's the feeling I have today about Airbnb.. I use to love them, not only because of the concept, but also as a startup pushing innovation, sharing tech and design learnings, etc. It had a sens of contributing to community, and caring its users
Today I despite them for the uncontrolled impact they have in cities, and the we-don't-care philosophy they seems to have adopted (not to mention the feeling of being betrayed by a company I use to look up to). And I can't really blame ourselves for keeping on using it. They created "something that people wants" and now are taking advantage of it.
It's probably our responsibility now to remind those companies that "something we want" is a product along with a care for its users.
Also, why don't people issue charge backs with their credit card companies? Airbnb customer service might suck, but credit card companies almost always side with their customers if there's a modicum of proof showing something henky.
We've passed peak airbnb.
In this case, imagine if instead of trash furniture and minimal decor in the "switch" property of "bait and switch" they put in half decent stuff. Renters would probably all accept the story of a plumber and move on. Instead, they fill the property with crappy furniture and leave unhappy customers. They could have gotten away with it.
> Update 11/1/19: The morning after this article was published, the FBI contacted VICE about the claims made above.
You have destroyed the rental apartment market in my city. You profit from taking advantage of loopholes in legislation, legislation which protects consumers from unscrupulous, dangerous, and untrustworthy properties.
The sooner every city enacts laws limiting "airbnb" apartment rentals to 30 days per year per apartment, the better. Otherwise it is abused at scale.
This is sad, I thought AirBnB were one of the good guys, and had a good experience 4 years ago.
Is there something about doing things at scale that makes things go bad? It seems like so many companies are great at start, but go downhill when their assumption that "fraud is a rare exception" does not hold.
But after reading this and all the comments here, I'm unlikely to use them again. As far as I'm concerned, Airbnb is complicit in all these scams. They literally give zero shits about these scam artists, because they're getting paid either way.
AirBnB is rewards versus risks, as the article author implies right at the end.
I have used a wide variety of accommodation: AirBnB, hotels, staying with friends, short term rentals, campervans, cars, outdoors, staying with randoms I have met.
They all have benefits, and they all have risks.
AirBnB has given me a huge range of different benefits, and I super appreciate that it exists.
A trusted third-party could subject hosts and guests according to a more stringent vetting process. It could even scan listings for guests eager to book in the same way Fakespot, et al., do for Amazon product listings. [0]
For those interested in online trust in marketplaces, I recommend Planet Money's episode on the subject. [1]
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/06/27/623990036/epis...
I'm very scared of using airbnb because of stories like this. I've only used it once. All other times, I've stayed exclusively in hotels, because at least then I have a proper way of getting my money back. I have a way to know that if I book my room, I'll have somewhere to stay, guaranteed. I have a way to get a new room instantly if my current room is unacceptable. And with a hotel, I know who I can complain to! That's the worst part about this dumb scam for me. Airbnb refunds you a small percentage of the full price, and the host ghosts you. Now you're SOL unless your credit card company has mercy on you and decides to rule in your favor. What a shitty, stressful situation.
I'm not saying Airbnb is great, but I'm curious as to what these eventual scams looked like at the outset.
I suppose it's possible for someone to maintain a legitimate place to accumulate good reviews and then scam some fraction of people, but the existence of the legitimate place is still a nontrivial hurdle for a scammer.
Maybe I overestimate how hard it is to get 50 good reviews.
Generally number of reviews is a good measure of quality IMO.
When we got there half the furniture was gone because the guy apparently got divorced between when the pictures got taken and his life "now", half the beds were kid's mattresses on pull out beds, there was no longer a shower but literally a full fledged hot-tub that had a flex shower over it.
the coffee machine and half the utensils in the kitchen had mold on it. we never got enough towels for all the people.
we stayed there for one day and couldn't do it anymore, i sent an email to Airbnb and the owner asking that we part ways amicably and they let us out of the contract, both replied that it was past 12 hours that we stayed there and i was liable for full cost.
i went outside to a payphone, called collect to a number listed on my platinum amex and explained the situation, the first thing the amex rep said: "i'm sorry to hear about your situation, we're immediately refunding you the full amount, go find a hotel room, enjoy the rest of your vacation and we'll call you when you get back to the states".
when i got to the states i had my money back from amex and Airbnb for weeks would write to me that "they're investigating my situation", at which point i didn't even bother reading their emails anymore. it was a crap company then and it seems like it's a crap company now. there really isn't any reason to do business with companies that don't value the customer, no matter how appealing the "price" may be.
However I think most likely it isn't that AirBnB has no checks on hosts, they are just a big stupid company dealing with a messy problem. I've heard similar complaints from hosts with their own set of anecdotes where they felt unfairly abused by renters who unfairly complain and AirBnB applying decisions without any transparency or recourse.
Works like a charm, never had an issue!
AirBnB has host and guest verification options. If Becky and Andrew don't have their identities verified via drivers license but manage over 90 properties that is your first red flag right there.
Second, if the host can't accommodate you you reach out to AirBnb and put the onus on them to find you an acceptable property that meets your standards. You don't let the host offer up some random place that happens to be available, that's suspicious.
I've had a number of hosts cancel on me at the last minute recently, I didn't immediately jump to the conclusion that it must be a scam. I simply assumed that their property is also listed on VRBO and other sites and someone either beat me to the punch or they got more money, or they didn't realize that they can't list the unit and forgot to take down the listing.
Mistakes happen. Sure, there are scammers out there on every platform, but in my 3 years and over 100 successful stays, I really find this article's title tough to swallow.
We show up at the property and it clearly doesn't exist, lucky for us the number is disconnected now and he won't answer us. This is clearly a scam. Though it's Airbnb's policy to give the hosts an hour to respond to a complaint even though it's obviously a scam. We then have to wait in the ghetto of LA for an hour so the host can respond, he never does. Finally Airbnb agrees that it's a scam and that the property doesn't exist, the address is dead center in a industrial park. I then have to go book a hotel on my card that Airbnb will refund at a later date that is equivalent to what we booked, nearly impossible for booking on day of. So going forward we spent 1.5hrs driving to the fake property, 1hr waiting for the fake host to respond, 1hr to confirm over phone how to proceed with Airbnb, then another 2hrs going to a hotel and checking in. All in all it wasted over half a day of our vacation, gas money, and frustration, over an obviously fake posting.
This has pushed me back to traditional hotels.
These scenarios seem like pretty solid grounds for chargebacks.
If they attract enough chargebacks Airbnb will not only take a hit to their wallet (and maybe reconsider their policies if it happens frequently enough) but also might get them in trouble with their acquirer bank (too many chargebacks and your merchant account gets terminated).
The first Airbnb I rented was part of an interview at Airbnb. I was given a credit for a free Airbnb for the purpose of experiencing the product. The Airbnb I rented was in San Francisco and clearly used only as an Airbnb rental.
The second Airbnb I rented was with my family while on vacation in Italy. One afternoon we returned to find out the locks were changed. This was scheduled building maintenance and I was not notified. I chose a place with a special ~'locals badge' only to find out the owner was an American living in the US.
Given this is a tiny sample, Airbnb generally seems to have a problem with borderline fraud.
Just because something is ordered through a phone doesn't make it better in all respects.
I'd much rather plan ahead and stay in a hotel. At least then there's a corporate culture who actually cares about their brand name instead of an IPO. There's no accountability and massive amounts of low key fraud.
Once I raised the issue with them, I didn't hear from them for over a week. While I was concerned about the ~$1000 they owed me, I was equally concerned that someone had accessed my account. After about a week had passed I got them on the phone again and applied a little pressure, and a couple days later I had my refund. I did this by explaining that I work in the industry and I'm aware of what a big deal the ability to bypass a large company's 2FA is, that there's no excuse to drag their feet over such an obvious scam, and I vaguely alluded to media being interested in a story like this. I don't know how Average Joe would have fared in my case.
By reading the article and this thread there appears to be a variety of ways to conduct a scam on AirBnb.
It may not recover their loss, but the author wields significant power with this article. For example, I’ll never again consider staying at an AirBnB property. I would caveat that to add “until they fix the problems with their platform”, but I don’t think it’s necessary because (a) I’m not sure they _can_ at their scale, and (b) it certainly doesn’t seem like they _care_.
Sure, I’m only one guy, but this is not the kind of press a company wants before they go public.
Also of course airbnb is to blame for handling the support issue poorly, however my experience with airbnb has been nothing but amazing.
Same nonsense can happen at any 2-3 star hotels.
Never book airbnb without some research. If any issues come then file a complaint before your trip ends and ideally within first 24 hr.
> “If I had another choice, I would not use Airbnb again,” he told me. “I was very put off by getting scammed. But at this point, I feel like if I want to travel, there’s not really much else I can do.”
> I can’t say I’ll be leaving the platform, either...is still just a bit cheaper than renting a hotel.
This blows my mind. I had a terrible experience when Airbnb took over the top floor flat when I used to live on the ground floor, so I decided to never use them, I travel regularly and always use a mix of hotels and vacation homes depending of the destination and I never needed Airbnb.
But even after being scammed and spending their holiday time moving around and being shafted then spending time after the holiday fighting for a refund and losing money these people still find value in the service, mind blowing.
To summarize, the photos and listings are fake, with fake host names and the requisite fake reviews. When you arrive, you get a call 10-30 minutes before check-in and told the plumbing is broken, I need to move you. Then you get put in a "flophouse". I suppose the move is so that the actual address where you will stay isn't listed on AirBNB and you won't be able to street view it, etc. Because otherwise I don't see the point of not putting you into the crap house at the listed address.
Through a process of sloppy ops work on the scammer, and tenacity of the author, she uncovered the name and other personal details of the perp and confronted him. He then removed any digital trails of himself which he had so stupidly had publicly available before, thinking they couldn't be traced back easily.
It's a great revenge story, the kind that gives you vicarious satisfaction.
My only question is, why didn't the author call the FBI afterwards?
Also, for no reason Airbnb prohibits from sorting by reviews or price, so I've developed this script - it's super userful: http://sakurity.com/airbnb.js
My most recent experience was an apartment in Paris that was smaller than it appeared, hadn't been cleaned so it had crumbs on the floor, had a bed with what looked like sheets out of the package (never cleaned), and the owner's dirty clothes sitting there. But the worst was the toilet was electric, requiring being pushed down with a brush when flushing. No, that's simply not the norm in Paris. There was also construction on the building, despite my emailing the host (a company with a person's name), asking about noise.
Like the Vice author, I never left a review because I didn't want to appear difficult or even get a retaliatory one in case I want to use AirBNB in the future. BTW, in Paris it's regulated, complete with an issued ID for the property, but cities care only for tax collection, not consumers.
That may have been the last straw for me.
I had several truly terrible (even scammy) experiences in those two years and not only did Airbnb not refund me a dime but each time I contacted support I was not recognized as a frequent traveler who is used to the system and has great feedback from hosts, each time I was treated like I was some asshole trying to scam them.
Airbnb has a major major quality problem (not to mention the customer service). The platform has turned into a joke. Try this on for size, say "this Airbnb looks great in the pictures" to anyone with experience using the platform and watch their non-verbal response. We know. I wonder how long Airbnb can keep this up.
Lastly, the Airbnb Plus program is no better. I stayed in a Plus a few weeks ago in Milan and it was a dump that looked nothing like the pictures, even with different furniture. That was my second Plus disaster in a year.
If Airbnb would implement a home-owner verification (which is possible in US since they're public record), most of these scams would be preventable. I mean, Airbnb is a billion dollar company, so couldn't they do this?
Ultimately we stayed elsewhere because the condos were flop houses. Chase didn't have any interest in helping us or making it right after dozens of calls and hours of conversations. As far as I can tell the "properties" have all been removed. (There were similar listings for other name chain hotels like the W chain)
"In the United States, mail and wire fraud is any fraudulent scheme to intentionally deprive another of property or honest services via mail or wire communication. It has been a federal crime in the United States since 1872."
In addition, is there any prospect of a civil class-action suit against AirBnB?
I've written-up other advice regarding Airbnb bookings here - https://blog.michaelscepaniak.com/how-to-find-choose-and-boo...
With that being said, scams happen and there's no simple, full-proof way of completely insulating yourself from them.
I'll go back on AirBnb or whatever new platform that gives a 3d reconstruction of the actual place, and the actual sleeping quarters.
The wide angle heavily photoshopped pictures that Airbnb encourage make it extremely hard to know if the place is worth it or not.
And then there's the hidden cleaning fees which could be 100s of dollars. They don't show up on the initial search. The numbers are all towards making it seem cheap but being quite expensive at the end.
AirBnb uses a number of dark patterns on their site and I hate it. I just don't think they are an ethical company who have the customer's focus in mind.
I understand though, they gotta recoup their billions of dollars of VC funding.
I'd rather go for a hotel that I know provides consistent experience every single time.
This is what will pop the 'startup' 'bubble'.
Eventually people will get tired of dealing with the 'unicorns'.
I stay at hotels now because if I’m not happy with service, I can get a different room, I can get a refund, I can talk to a human face to face.
Airbnb is a platform that just cares about hosting as many hosts as possible and they’re unregulated. I’m not asking they be regulated, but why doesn’t Airbnb check in on Super Hosts? It seems Super Hosts (from the three times I got screwed) run their places by outsourcing cleaning and maintenance, without ever spot checking.
Airbnb support was completely useless both times. So I cancelled my account everything, and the CC support will deny any Airbnb transaction.
Anyway, it is so annoying to search anything on Airbnb that I am not compelled to use it. The "host" will advertise a one night price that can easily double with all the other fees, and double again for each additional nights.
I'll revisit when accountability standards are raised from the maker to the user.
(edit: added "my account")
[1] - https://abnb.me/eUIhQCkMe1
[2] - https://abnb.me/DvHRkqsMe1
At first, I thought maybe this was just a shady property management company hocking two otherwise-legit, similarly-furnished condos with the same floor plan in the same building through two different accounts - but they are in different buildings separated by about half a kilometer according to the map.
Oddly enough, there was someone living in the switcheroo apartment I ended up in and they were paying £800 a month!
I reported it to airbnb today after reading this story and checking that listing's reviews, almost all of whom had reported the same problem and airbnb have come back to say they've cancelled the host's account and listing.
For that reason alone I will never use Airbnb again, and would advise against it.
[1] https://scalability.org/2014/03/ot-airbnb-and-their-issues/
I'd rather try couchsurfing or stay in a hotel...
eBay's sellers are up in arms because it's trivial for any customer to steal from them and force a chargeback on an honest seller. Sellers cannot even leave negative feedback for dishonest buyers anymore. The customer is king.
AirBnb is exactly the opposite, apparently. Screwing their customers for scamming suppliers that should be trivial to uncover.
I wonder what economics are at play, here?
There are plenty of hotels in Chicago from Boutique to chains to roach motels. Why subject yourself to so much crap by AirBnB? Especially if you’re alone.
As long as it's not Airbnb's problem, Airbnb isn't going to solve it.
Why is this not the number one post?
I’d also wager that if every case of fraud had a chargeback to match that AirBnB would start making changes far sooner rather than later.
Has anyone tried (or failed?) to chargeback AirBnB fraud?
It appears they do have some homes/hosts that are verified in-person. For whatever that's worth.
Does it work like that or do I have a misunderstanding of how charge backs work?
Is there a reason Credit Card companies wouldn't step in here for the disputed charge?
It is one of these "growth" problems that a company is good to have and normally solves in an easy way. Furthermore, the author is still an active user of AirBnb.
Pictures on the rental are meaningless. Only the price and amenities matter. Whatever the lowest 10% of price per night for a type of home (private vs shared room etc) is probably a scam. Don't rent in this price range. Money may be different for each person, but the upside of saving $100-$200 is way less than the downside of a last minute booking in a place you're unfamiliar with. I suspect most of the scams happening are people who book something that seems too good to be true.
If you're able to, message the host prior to booking with a generic intro and some generic questions. Many many times when the host got back to me for a great looking listing, alarm bells went off and I moved on. I personally ask what their internet speed is. If they don't know this its not a deal breaker, but their response can be pretty telling.
A lot of professional renters list on Airbnb. Especially multi-bedroom houses where you rent one bedroom. These can go either way, but are often a good deal. I personally like these because its a business transaction for both sides. Usually these types of listings are more open to negotiating on price, but its not staying in someone's home like an Airbnb might be pictured.
Reviews don't mean too much, but number of reviews and/or super host are pretty good barometers for quality. It is much harder to fake a lot of reviews. A less obvious red flag is the age of the listing vs number of reviews. If there are only 3-4 high reviews on something around for a long time, look closely at it. Even if the reviews aren't fake. There is a lot of incentive to not review a bad experience. Unfortunately price usually correlates with number of reviews.
I've personally never booked a new listing (no reviews). I'd be interested to know if I'm passing on some amazing deals, but my risk/reward tolerance doesn't allow it.
TLDR; Ignore the pictures look at price range compared to the marker and message hosts before booking at all.
Adjacent tip: Bring the bare basics with you (maybe this is backpacker logic talking). I usually have a knife/fork/spoon as well as some toilet paper and enough close to be warm without blanks. Don't rely on them to have things you absolutely can't survive without. Its stupid you have to do this, but you can rest a little easier having it with you if something goes wrong.
It is shocking that they are in any way considered a _good_ company.
You book a nice house and they'll tell you a problem came up, but they offer to switch to a different one. The alternative house is cheap and run down, it's their real property though. When you switch and stay one night at the alternative, you can't get a full refund. Because so many bail out and leave, expecting to be refunded, they can make it available to rent again immediately. You're also pressured into not leaving negative reviews, so the cycle continues.
I am not a lawyer (also this is UK law) but I would be really interested for a lawyer to comment on this, because my understanding is that the reason they do this is because the train timetable is an 'invitation to treat' on which you based your decision to enter into a contract with them by purchasing a ticket to transport you from A to B. If they fail to do this in a timely fashion as advertised on the timetable, such that your journey with them is wasted, this is a breach of contract and contract law says that because they failed to honour the contract, they have to, as close as possible, put you back in the position you were in if you had not entered into the contract with them. They can not get out of this with T&Cs because its a basic principal that if you offer one thing obviously and then say the opposite hidden in the small print, the more prominent offer is what you are held to.
In this case (again, remember I am not a lawyer but on the assumption that the same basic principals were to apply) my theory is that the problem is AirBNB's to resolve because the contract would be between me and AirBNB because the money changed hands between me and AirBNB. So if AirBNB advertised 3 nights in a city for £1500, I paid this and then I arrive and the host cancels my reservation at the last minute, after I have expended considerable time and expense already with the expectation that I have accommodation, I would ignore the host and contact AirBNB directly because I paid them the full cost of the booking and the fact that they subcontracted the actual service to someone else is none of my business, it is ultimately their problem to make sure the contract is honoured by putting me up in another equivalent place or by providing a full refund and paying any additional costs involved in me staying in the closest equivalent place available.
So I wonder, if they don't do this within a reasonable time, could I stay somewhere else and then file small claims court case against them for the cost? If the 1/3rd refund thing from another comment had happened to me I would certainly be tempted to try it to get £1000 + hotel bills back + cost of my time to prepare evidence for the claim at my standard hourly rate.
I have experienced one or two situations where companies have tried to rip me off and taking 30mins to tell them in writing that I will claim, how I will do it, what my grounds for the claim are and how much it will cost them has got them to back down and agree a refund and compensation before I got anywhere near having to fill out the online form for the small claims court, which is apparently not a big deal anyway. No idea if I would have won or how much time and cost is involved though... In general, if people would stick up for their rights more, then the costs of shady business practices like this would make them unprofitable.
Could be a great business idea for an online lawyering startup, like those that exist for flight compensation claims.
We went there with a couple of friends planning to have their wedding there, traveling from our homes in London.
We booked two air BnB rooms, both were very nice looking double rooms in central locations next to the old town.
We arrived at the address we'd been given and a local guy "owner", greeted us and took us for a short walk to where we'd be staying.
We arrived at an older looking home, high walls and a large metal gate. He opened it and welcomed us to his home. His grandma's home he told us.
He walked us inside and showed us to a box room with two wooden bunk-beds, the type you put children in. The floor was flooded and the small ensuite was too, flooded.
The look on our faces might have said enough if we hadn't, but we certainly were not staying there.
He suggested he'd try find some "alternative" accomodation. We waited nearby, and a short time later he arrived to show us each to locations he'd found.
First our friends, a nice newish apartment, they were quite happy with, although it was smaller than what they had booked, but still pleasant enough.
He took my wife and I around the corner and into a small home that had painted cement walls, flaking like you see in war films, after the war has been through.
An old man showed us to a small double room where he'd laid a bowl of fruit on the bed for us, he didn't speak English, but although we didn't speak his language either, we felt welcome, albeit slightly uncomfortable.
The place wasn't particularly clean or nice looking, and certainly not what we paid for, but after a bit of a dead end with the original guy we booked with, we figured he's guy is farming off rooms that don't exist and then subletting rooms in others' homes when guests arrived.
We decided we'd take it, but we needed to see the bathroom first.
Again, not clean, not pleasant, but worst of all, a small window, just above the shower opened into the old man's room, and it was open, is wasn't frosted and there was no way to cover it.
That was it for my wife, that was one bridge too far. She can't comfortably bath in there with a window opening into this stranger's room in a strange place.
We told the owner guy it wasn't going to work for us, and this is where the rest of this story breaks my heart.
The owner guy let the old man know we wouldn't stay, and the old guy broke down, he was begging us to stay, he was gesturing at the fruit he'd laid out, questioning what was wrong, but we just couldn't stay there.
The rest of what happened to us is irrelevant here, but the guy we'd booked with was clearly taking bookings he was farming out to elderly locals with any space to spare hoping renters works take whatever he offered.
Both sides of this deal were being scammed, and it broke my heart to know that although we might end up forking out to stay elsewhere was the worst we might suffer through this, this old man clearly needed whatever small part of the rent we paid was going to be given to him.
The rooms we saw online clearly didn't exist, this guy was just conning people because AirBnb allowed it to happen.
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/airbnbs-surprising-path-to-y-c...
Last minute host cancellation is the one thing they can actually something they help with since it ruins the marketplace for them.
As a host I've had my set of horror storied interacting with Airbnb. Most hosts do try really hard, but every marketplace has scams at some level, and I'm not sure how you could find them all once it's under some value/size.
