Short-term rental fraud is booming. Beware.
The losses in fees paid by unsuspecting guests reserving accommodations for short-term stays such as family vacations amount to hundreds of millions of dollars due to fraudulent schemes that, according to researchers, are becoming both more frequent and more sophisticated.
The internet is jammed with warnings about vacation rental rip-offs and tips how to stay clear of them. “Short-term rentals can become summer hotbeds of fraud, for travelers and hosts,” advises one of my fellow Forbes contributors.
All too frequently, it seems, the scams involve transactions related to Airbnb or, as in the case of a friend, ‘fake’ airbnb and ‘avatar’ airbnb sites.
My friend advertised for a place for his son who is about to start college in Milan, Italy. He wanted a nice small apartment, close to the university and at a reasonable prize. His focused his search on reputable short-term rental sites.
Vacation rental scams are using the secure reputation of Airbnb
The ‘fake’ Airbnb
“I started to look for a small place for my son close to Bocconi University in Milan using well-known websites,” he explains. He exchanged messages with some of them and was ready to make appointments to go see them when he fielded an irresistible offer.
“This person, supposedly named Eva Bajuelo, was offering a very good apartment accompanied by great pictures, just across the street from Bocconi and at a reasonable price.”
When he asked for an appointment to visit, he was told that since there were many other people interested in the apartment, he needed to reserve it.
“To protect both sides, she told me, she used Airbnb to handle the booking and sent me the link to Airbnb’s ‘Air Cover for Hosts’.”
The fact that the transaction was done through Airbnb, which offers strong scam protections, gave my friend some security. “Airbnb is a good option that would protect me in case of any problem,” he thought.
“She sent me (a copy of) her ID and asked for mine to do the contract and added that I would need to pay Airbnb three months of rent — one to reserve the apartment and two as security deposit.”
A date for a visit to see the apartment was fixed — June 12 — when my friend would sign the contract to rent the apartment and Airbnb would transfer the money to her or not sign the contract if he did not like the apartment for any reason and Airbnb would return the money to him.
“Then, she sent me an email with the link to “Airbnb” to confirm the booking/reservation and pay,” he recalls. “But although the website looked like Airbnb, it was not an Airbnb.com link. Just to make sure, I contacted Airbnb support directly and was told that it was not an Airbnb property. I immediately cut communication with ‘Eva Bajuelo’.
I didn’t pay anything but they got my ID information.”
If the landlord asks for credit card information or cash transfers, alarm bells should ring.
What would have happened if my friend had paid? As many victims of such fraudulent transactions explain in the media and social media — and as Airbnb itself advises on its website — he would have arrived for the date in Milan almost certainly to find that even if the address exists, the apartment does not.
Using Airbnb against you
As Frommers explains in an article about one such scam fleecing gullible travelers thousands of dollars, “vacation rental scams use the secure reputation of Airbnb against you.”
As explained by Frommers, and as happened to my friend, “the ‘owner’ sends you a link to the property’s Airbnb listing so that you can complete the reservation securely.You click the link and see the listing on Airbnb. You flick through photos. You see glowing reviews. Everything seems great!
Except for one thing that you don’t realize: You’re no longer on Airbnb. You’re on a scammer site that looks exactly like Airbnb. By now, though, you’re so excited about the property, and you’ve already built a rapport with the alleged owner, so you may not even notice that you’re about to hand your money to an impostor.”
“Money is absolutely changing hands on Airbnb, by the fistfuls,” Reader’s Digest wrote. “More than half a billion people have used Airbnb since its inception, and about two million more people will use it again tonight.”
The assumption is that with such enormous amounts of money being exchanged, Airbnb, as happens every day with thousands of internet sites, is subject to all kinds of scamming schemes.
Too good to be true
The cardinal rule of the internet ought to be: Caveat emptor. “If it’s too good to be true and costs you money, it’s probably a scam,” one expert in fraud solutions told Reader’s Digest. Watch out for:
- Scammers using fake Airbnb links requesting your data and money to secure a booking or receive a special deal. Don’t click the link before confirming directly with Airbnb that the offer is legitimate. Double-check the URL to ensure it links to the official site.
- A host pushing to communicate or pay off Airbnb or other booking platforms. Going through the actual booking site is the safest way.
- Multiple-listing scams where a host lists the same property at different prices so they can double-book the property and then rent it to the highest bidder.
- Scammers listing fake properties with fake addresses. After you’ve paid and show up with your bags, there’s nowhere to stay. An internet search of the address can help determine if the property exists.
- The most common “too good to be true” scams using enhanced, doctored or simply fake images to make the property look better than it is and/or offers of beautiful places for suspiciously low prices. If you’re doubtful, do a reverse Google image search to ensure the property is real, compare Airbnb’s lists of average prices by location. Also, you can ask for additional photos or a video walkthrough.
- Two main ‘bait-and-switch’ tricks: a property advertised as a bargain that changes price at the moment of payment or just prior to arrival —or a last-minute contact explaining that the booked property is no longer available and offering a lower-quality rental as an alternative.
- Asking a guest to pay for booking through direct bank accounts or other transfer methods like PayPal to avoid Airbnb fees and give you a better price.
As a rule, to avoid falling victim tp scams like that last one above, the general advice is always interact inside the Airbnb platform from start to finish — and particularly regarding payments.
Reading reviews, reverse-searching images and checking the address are also general tips to avoid being tricked and having your vacation ruined.
And do not click on any unknown links that can be bogus ones mirroring the look and feel of the real Airbnb.
“If someone sends you a link to an outside page, don’t click it,” warns Frommers. “Ask for the headline of the listing and find it yourself at the Airbnb site. If the host is unwilling to cooperate or comes up with an excuse—’It’s a private listing,’ say—that’s a red flag. There’s no such thing as a private listing.”
The Airbnb community has published specific examples of scams and how to avoid them.
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