Airbnb removes Fountain Hills home from fake listing

FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) —Thanks to On Your Side, Allen Tao’s luxury home has finally been removed from Airbnb’s rental website. “This thing would not have been resolved until I reached out to you guys (On Your Side),” he said.

In a previous On Your Side report, Tao explained how a scammer cut and pasted real estate pictures of his home and posted them on Airbnb as being for rent. Tao says he worked for over eight months trying to convince the rental website that it was a scam, but the pictures remained. “I even sent them my driver’s license and a copy of my deed to prove I was the owner of the house, and they still didn’t make a single change,” he explained.

A Fountain Hills man said he never posted his home on Airbnb and it turns out scammers used it to try and dupe customers.

Then, when the WM Phoenix Open recently came to town, Tao had enough when he discovered the scammer had listed his home for nearly $2,700 a night. The person had rented it for three nights of the February tournament. To make things worse, the same fake host had posted two Las Vegas homes for rent during the Super Bowl, with one house going for more than $7,000 a night.

At On Your Side’s urging, Airbnb investigated, and in an email, they stated, “...we have removed this Host account. We continually work to strengthen our defenses and recently shared that this year, we’ll begin verifying every listing in the US. They went on to say, “We can confirm that this host did not receive any money or profit in any way from these listings. This is because, once a booking is made, we withhold payment from the host until 24 hours after the guest’s check-in time.”

But Tao says if that’s the case, he wants to know why his house remained posted as available for rent for eight months. “Why is Airbnb even allowing scammers to be doing this on their platforms? It’s unacceptable,” he said.

Tao is relieved to know his home has been removed from the website and says it only happened with the help of On Your Side. “This situation wasn’t resolved until you guys. That’s when Gary Harper and you guys stepped into this situation, and that this is something that should get their attention right away,” he said.

Airbnb claims these scams are rare, but they are doing everything they can to uncover and remove them. If you want to see more of what Airbnb has to say, their complete statement is below.

Full statement from Airbnb spokesperson

“Airbnb is built on trust, and fake or misrepresented listings have no place on our platform and we have removed this Host account. We continually work to strengthen our defenses, and recently shared that this year we’ll begin verifying every listing in the US. Isolated issues are rare, we take action on reports to us and guest bookings are protected by our AirCover for guests.”
Background
We can confirm that this Host did not receive any money or profit in any way from these listings. This is because, once a booking is made, we withhold payment from the Host until 24 hours after the guest’s check-in time – this gives the guest time on arrival to ensure everything is as it should be or to report any issues to us, and is a significant deterrent against scams.
More here on the timing for payouts: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/425/when-youll-get-your-payout
More here on how we combat fake listings: https://news.airbnb.com/what-were-doing-to-prevent-fake-listing-scams/
Under Aircover for guests, if a listing isn't as advertised, guests have three days to report it to us and we’ll find them a similar or better home, or refund them.
We recently shared that this year we’ll begin verifying every listing in Canada, the US, Australia, UK and France. Starting this fall, we’ll begin verifying listings in 30 more countries.
If anyone believes they’ve encountered a fake listing, they can report that to us from the listing page. A ‘report’ feature is on every listing profile and in message threads, and our customer support is on hand 24/7.
Our policies make clear Hosts should not provide inaccurate location information, substitute one listing for another without a guest’s agreement, or mislead about the type, nature or details of their listing. If a Host offers an alternative listing and guests don't want to switch - or the Host asks to switch without officially amending the booking through Airbnb - guests can ask the Host to cancel or contact us, and our global Community Support team is on hand 24/7.
When signing up to host on Airbnb, Hosts agree to abide by Airbnb’s Community Standards and our Terms of Service, and we investigate and take appropriate action on reports of violations.
We work to help people keep themselves safe when booking a trip online – we recently issued online booking tips for fans booking travel to the Big Game in Las Vegas.
Airbnb

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.

Copyright 2024 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.