Airbnb to verify all 7 million listings following phony listings scam exposed

Days after announcing it would ban “party houses”, Airbnb has now been forced to commit to verifying listings after a scam was exposed.

Airbnb announced on Wednesday that it will verify all seven million of its listings following a damning expose on scams on its platform.

All properties listed on the San Francisco-based company’s site will be reviewed by December 15 of next year to make sure they are real and accurately portrayed on the site, chief executive Brian Chesky tweeted on Wednesday.

We are introducing the Airbnb Guest Guarantee. Starting on 12/15/19, if a guest checks into a listing and it doesn’t meet our accuracy standards, we will rebook them into a listing that is just as nice — and if we can’t, they will get 100% of their money back.

— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) November 6, 2019

“Starting now, verification of all seven million listings on Airbnb will commence,” Mr Chesky wrote in a staff email. “We believe that trust on the internet begins with verifying the accuracy of the information on internet platforms, and we believe that this is an important step for our industry.”

Mr Chesky’s statements come ahead of a planned initial public offering slated for next year — and less than a week after Vice wrote an expose about an apparent Airbnb scam that crossed at least 94 properties in eight different cities.

It’s been a rough week for Airbnb.

The scam described was sophisticated, and included fake telephone numbers and email addresses. It had hosts calling guests minutes before check-in to say there’d been a plumbing emergency, and then offering an alternative space so that the reservation isn’t technically cancelled.

After one night in a “flophouse,” the guests were booted for good. But since they technically stayed in an Airbnb for one night, it became much harder to get a refund.

The start-up will also launch a “24/7 neighbour hotline” so that guests around the world can call with safety issues. The move comes a week after the shooting death of five people at an “Airbnb mansion party” at a posh Northern California Enclave on Halloween.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission