'Make yourself at home': Esperance family caught in awkward stand-off after Airbnb scam

An Esperance home owner has discovered her house fraudulently listed on the popular holiday letting service Airbnb.

Last weekend, Carmel Creed had a holidaying family of strangers turn up at her door step hoping to stay.

"I opened the door and some very nice people were there going, 'Is this the B and B?'" she said.

"And I said, 'I think you've got the wrong address'."

Despite having never listed her property on Airbnb, Ms Creed said it was her property on the paperwork the family had with them which included photos of her house.

"They showed me the Airbnb booking they had and it had my address written against it," she said.

"I realised it must have been some sort of a scam, [and] they had realised by then that it was too late.

"We were just standing there not knowing what to do really."
The fake listing included an exterior photo of Ms Creed's house and another that seemed more generic.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-14/awkward-stand-off-over-fake-esperance-air-...



gonna be more and more problems with AirBNB as time goes by. Some of the stories I've heard are shocking. Here's just a sample:

one was a couple who rented the house for about 6 weeks, only to come back and find that it had been set up as a hydro drug house, holes throuout the house for a dodgy irrigation system . Electricity bill was in the many tens of thousands

and another story was a visitor who fell and cracked her head and died. Insurance didn't cover 'commercial use' and the relatives  sued the owners for hundreds of thousands.

another common trick is call girls will book a house for a weeks holidays, prior to the week they advertise in the local paper and arrange a serious of customers for the week they are there. Owners then have to deal with customers knocking on their door after the guest has left



It surprises me the number of people who are oblivious to the risks associated with using air bnb.

Aussie wrote on Jun 14^th, 2017 at 8:53pm:


And cheese