How do AirBnB scams work?

by philg

We have a studio office/apartment here in the boring suburbs that we make available on AirBnB. A young woman wearing sunglasses named “Renata” sent us the following email: “I would like to book your house to invite some friends over and celebrate the New Year’s Eve. Is that possible?” The booking request is for just one night, Dec 31.

20161208-renata-airbnb-renter

Given that our entire suburb (85 percent voted for Hillary) will be in mourning this New Year’s Eve and that this space is only big enough for friends who want to share a desk or a bed, I have to assume that this is a scam. But how can an AirBnB customer scam a host?

11 thoughts on “How do AirBnB scams work?”

  1. Well, it could be used to shoot an adult movie or as the hub of a local prostitution tour. (I’m sure Cambridge MA is a hotbed of such.)

    I’ve also read about hosts coming back to find their place wrecked after enthusiastic partying. I’m not sure how that works in practice; the guest is still known, right? And AirBnB reimburses your losses or something.

    Anyway, best of luck.

  2. My guess is

    1) the scam is not specific to you / your listing’s particulars
    2) As with similar approaches on Skype etc, it begins with a request that is most likely to illicit a message response from you as a first step to ascertaining how gullible you are

  4. The scammers are men who turn around & ask you for $500 to travel from wherever they live to the party they booked. They assume a middle aged man offering his estate is looking for sex on the side, so he’ll pay more for her to travel than the what he would make from rent. They never show up, of course, & never pay for the house. The picture is always a midwest college student from many years ago who’s long since married with kids & hasn’t used the internet since 2005, so she wouldn’t know how famous she was.

  5. Maybe there’s an umentioned child? Not strictly needed, though. They get in the door, then just don’t leave the next day? Then you have an unwanted tenant (“tenant at sufferance”) for as long as it takes to evict them, possibly a few months in a leftwing suburb with judges reluctant to evict deadbeats (especially those with a child?) during the winter.

  6. I don’t think this is very complicated. It’s New Year’s eve, prospective guest stated she wants to have a party, and you’re gonna provide the room for a price. Not sure how room cleanup/damage works on the AirBnB service.

  7. Does she have a lot of good recommendations? How is her membership in AirBnB verified: email address, phone number, passport/driver’s license? It’s a little concerning that her hat and large dark glasses obscure most of her face. Could just be a fashion choice, could be other reasons for obscuring identifying features. As far as scams go, I think the worst you’re likely to experience is that she and her friends will trash your place and disappear. Don’t count on AirBnB to fix it up afterwards.

  8. Based on the hat she has some connection to Massachusetts.

    I agree that it is strange that her face in the photo is effectively obscured by the sunglasses and the hat so that the photo is worthless for id. Could just be a fashion choice but it raises suspicions.

  10. The other strange thing is that she says “celebrate the New Year’s Eve”. Most native English speakers would omit the definite article. So maybe “Renata” is not really from NJ.

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