On Saturday, May 4th, two women with suitcases knocked at my door, saying they were Airbnb guests. I have never been a host on Airbnb. I never would. I said they must be confused about which apartment they rented. They pulled out their phone and showed me photos of my building, of the inside of the apartments here, and a photo of my front door. I told them I’m so sorry but I do not rent this apartment and sent them on their way.
Alarmed, I called Airbnb immediately. I was told this was an urgent matter and I would hear back as soon as possible. On Monday, still having heard nothing, I called again. I was told that I would hear back within 48 hours, that the case manager assigned to my case is only available via email. I asked if the post of my apartment had been taken down. He said he couldn’t tell me.
It’s now Wednesday. I called again. I just spent 34 minutes on the phone. I was now told that the case was originally sent to the safety division, when it should have gone to legal, but now it’s in legal and they should be emailing me. There was no one for me to talk to. Is the post of my apartment still up?
As of now, I do not know if the post has been taken down. The fact that there’s no number for me to call or I can’t be transferred to someone to discuss this matter is beyond alarming to me. How do they verify the legitimacy of a host? I have no idea but something here clearly slipped through the cracks. I am shocked that a company who invites strangers into other strangers homes seems unfazed when a stranger shows up at an uninvited doorstep.
Just put a note on your front door saying that a scammer put your place up as an AirBnB listing but that in fact, you have nothing to do with it and as such, there is no AirBnB. Advise anyone who got scammed to get in touch with AirBnB or the police and that you can not help them with this because you are also a victim of this scam.
Are you in a rental? Maybe someone got the details of your flat from rightmove or something when your place was listed before you moved in… Def dodgy.
Typical Airbnb BS. They love to give you the run around. I had my house listed illegally on their website and no amount of calling and emailing could get them to remove the listing. They also told me things like they were “sending it to legal” and that I “would hear from them.” Not only did I, the homeowner, not give permission for my house to be listed in the first place, but in my city it’s actually illegal to list an entire house for short term if there are no permanent tenants living there. The original tenant had moved out and turned the house into an illegal hotel. As soon as I discovered what he had done I gave him notice to quit and got in touch with Airbnb telling them the listing was both illegal and in violation of the rental agreement and needed to be removed right away. In the end the only way I could get the listing removed was by contacting the city’s Office of Short Term Rentals, which served the tenant with a notice telling him to remove the illegal listing or face steep financial penalties for every day it’s up. Thanks a lot Airbnb!
I understand your concern, and they more than likely are dealing with it. However, you didn’t do anything, and there’s no reason for Airbnb to do anything for you. Their main concern needs to be taking care of the guests who paid for the scam, and the scammers, which will ultimately take care of your concerns, too.
Shelley G. I guess you don’t have kids or have not been awakened in the middle of the night by people who thought your house was the one they Airbnb’d. Our privacy has been invaded because Airbnb indeed has done nothing. This happened to me as well and over the course of two weeks I did not get a return phone call from Airbnb. I was the one who had to call every day to ask them to please remove my home from their service. Horrible customer service. I would say nonexistent customer service. We had three separate renters knock on our door. We called Airbnb each time…nothing. I doubt they caught the scammers and if they did, we will never know.
you have to be joking. theres no reason for airbnb to do anything for him? like, idk, fix this matter? are you delusional?? also, no, airbnb is NOTORIOUS for not dealing with matters like this, so i can tell that you work for them, and are trying to sway peoples opinions. you obviously know nothing about how their (illegal) business model works,