A Corcoran real-estate agent and East Hamptons homeowner was caught up in an Airbnb scam when a fake listing for her property showed on the rental platform, The Real Deal reports.
And she only found out about it when someone called asking about the request to wire $25,000 for the phony rental.
According to the Real Deal, Sarah Stewart rents her Hamptons home in the spring and summer, but not through Airbnb.
The five-bedroom property — which is “moments” from the ocean and comes complete with two outdoor showers — is available now through Corcoran for $175,000 for the month of August through Labor Day.
Stewart told The Real Deal she had no idea her house had been listed in the scam until she got the phone call. The prospective renter was asking about the scammer’s apparent request to send thousands of dollars off-platform to rent the house.
Stewart contacted Airbnb to have the fraudulent listing taken down. She declined to comment to Business Insider through a Corcoran spokesperson.
Airbnb initially removed the listing, but it reappeared a few hours later, according to The Real Deal.
Then, after her complaint rose through the ranks of Airbnb service reps, Stewart was advised to communicate with the “host” directly — and to include her contact information, The Real Deal reports. Stewart objected to the request, concerned about what might happen to her personal information.
In the end, Airbnb took down the listing after Corcoran sent the rental platform a copyright takedown notice for improperly using their photos, according to The Real Deal.
Though Stewart got the scam pages taken down, she told The Real Deal the ordeal was “terribly upsetting.”
In a statement to BI, an Airbnb spokesperson said: “Fake listings have no place in our community, and following investigation, we removed the user and listing from the platform. Issues like this on Airbnb are rare, we continually invest in strengthening our defenses through measures like listing verification, and we protect guest bookings through safeguards like our secure payment processes, policies and Aircover support.”
In September, Airbnb said it was cracking down on faux listings, noting it had removed 59,000 so far that year and prevented an additional 157,000 from ever appearing on its platform.
CEO Brian Chesky said fake listings were a big risk to the company’s reputation, and Airbnb said at the time it would start to verify all listings in its top five markets using AI technology.
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