It’s just after 10pm on a cool Friday night in March and Allen MacDonald is getting nervous.

He’s just spent 40 minutes driving up and down a quiet street in Point Cook in the outer suburbs of Melbourne.

“I [was] starting to get a bit anxious, because it’s now 10ish at night [and] there’s just no one around,” he recalls.

He’d travelled down from Sydney earlier that day, considering himself lucky to have snagged somewhere to stay close to the popular Avalon airshow.

“You can’t get accommodation for kilometres. This popped up, so I thought: ‘Great!’,” he says of finding the Point Cook Landmark Coastal Wetland Park Villa listed on popular reservation site Booking.com.

In hindsight, there had been red flags, including no reviews left by previous guests.

But Allen’s problems only really began when, sitting in his hire car preparing to drive to the property, he took a closer look at his booking confirmation.

“All I had was the name of the street, there was no actual address to set my GPS to go to,” he explains.

Believing he might find a property with accommodation signage or someone waiting to meet him (the owner had only days before approved his request for a late check-in) he forged ahead.

But all he found was a dark street lined with anonymous suburban homes.

“I thought I’d missed it the first time, so I turned around and went back again. I just drove up and down two or three times thinking: ‘Well, this isn’t good’.”

Local example of a global problem

The platform Allen had used to secure his miracle-turned-nightmare stay, Booking.com, has a history of promising great deals that vanish into thin air.

We’ve previously highlighted how scammers the world over have taken advantage of platforms like Booking.com that let regular people turn their homes into accommodation businesses.

ÌÇÐÄVlog’s UK sister organisation, Which?, last year said it had heard from hundreds of Booking.com customers who’d turned up to accommodation they’d paid for, only to find it didn’t exist.

The ABC has reported cases of the same con being pulled here, leaving travellers stranded in unfamiliar locations without anywhere to stay.

Allen believes the villa he paid almost $160 for in advance and then spent almost an hour searching for, was one of these fake listings.

He’s not alone. At least three other Booking.com customers appear to have fallen foul of the same listing in recent months, leaving negative reviews labelling it a scam and claiming it doesn’t exist.

Seen or been affected by a scam more people should know about? Email the author.

Villa listing stayed online despite concerns

When ÌÇÐÄVlog visited the property’s page on Booking.com, it had several common hallmarks of a fake listing scam.

These included negative reviews accusing the listing of being a scam and confusing, poorly-worded supporting information. The listing had no positive reviews.

But the biggest red flag is that while contact details are provided to guests, all calls and messages to the phone number and email address provided go unanswered.

In the ‘About’ section of its listing, the villa claims to have a 24-hour front desk.

But when he was scouring streets, Allen says he tried calling and messaging the mobile number included on his booking confirmation multiple times, getting no response.

Messages to the property owner via a listed email address and the Booking.com chat function also went unanswered.

ÌÇÐÄVlog also found the property’s promise of round-the-clock service lacking – when we tried to call the number Allen was provided, it didn’t connect and emails to the address elicited no response.

Even Booking.com itself has struggled to get a response out of the property.

Two weeks after Allen first alerted the company to his issues with the property, Booking.com admitted to him that it also couldn’t contact the person responsible for the listing.

For Allen, the fact the platform then continued to host the property and allow people to book it beggars belief.

“I’m gobsmacked. I don’t understand,” he says. “I would rate [Booking.com] as a trusted platform…to have this going on is really disappointing and I think it damages their brand”.

The property remained on Booking.com for over a month after Allen first shared his concerns with the company about it being a scam.

It could also be booked through Singaporean travel site Trip.com until earlier this month, when its listing was suspended after ÌÇÐÄVlog contacted the platform.

When it was still live on both sites, the property also featured in Google AI overviews of homestays in the Point Cook area.

The battle to get a refund

After giving up on his search for the property, Allen managed to find last-minute accommodation in a nearby hotel.

He sent a message to Booking.com two days later, alerting the platform to his issues with the property and requesting a refund of the sum he’d paid ahead of his stay.

Booking.com representatives initially suggested they may be able to reimburse him this and “any extra costs”, such as the backup accommodation.

However, within days, the company was walking this back, saying Allen had taken too long to contact its representatives.

In the same email, Booking.com admits it also hadn’t been able to reach the person responsible for the listing.

Allen says he tried to contact Booking.com on the night he was searching for the elusive villa, but couldn’t find a straightforward way to reach the platform.

Booking.com responds

Booking.com didn’t respond to our suggestions that it’s difficult for customers to contact, but told ÌÇÐÄVlog the Point Cook property had previously provided guests with successful stays.

However, none of these people left positive reviews on the listing’s page.

Following our queries, Booking.com stopped taking bookings for the property as a “precautionary measure”.

The company says it has “robust security measures” in place to protect guests and takes “the process of verifying accommodation listings extremely seriously”.

After earlier refusing a refund, it also eventually credited Allen’s account with the $159 he had paid for the Point Cook property, as well as some of the amount he spent on his last-minute hotel stay.

With regards to why the listing remained live after Booking.com said it couldn’t contact the owner, ÌÇÐÄVlog understands it’s not company practice to immediately remove listings if the person responsible isn’t responsive to attempts by Booking.com to reach them.

How to spot a fake accommodation listing

1. No reviews or only negative reviews: Check the latest feedback from other travellers. Fake listings often have an overwhelming number of reviews alleging the property doesn’t exist no reviews at all.
2. Unusual photos: Beware of listings with photos that all seem to be taken from other sites. Do a reverse image search to see where else images are being used.
3. Unclear descriptions or instructions: ‘About’ sections may be poorly worded or use unusual terminology, such as miles instead of kilometers.
4. It’s only been listed for a short time: Booking platforms work to take down fake listings. Beware of suspicious listings that have only been live for a short time.
5. Attempts to take you off-platform: Be sceptical if the vendor tries to direct you off the platform (onto private messaging apps, for example), especially when it comes to payment.

The post Is this Victorian holiday villa a total scam? appeared first on ÌÇÐÄVlog.

When Chris went on a family holiday to the Netherlands to visit relatives late last year, accommodation had to be arranged for his 75-year-old mum. With over five million potential places to stay around the world and gazillions of bookings on record, Airbnb seemed like the right choice. 

Chris and his family ended up plunking down around $6832 for a three-week stay in the small town of Haarlem, in an accommodation that came across as appealing on the Airbnb profile. 

Upon arrival, the difference between online appearance and reality was stark. 

“When my mother turned up at the property it was nothing like described,” Chris says. “Instead of being a quaint comfortable residential premise, it was a disused shopfront that had been converted to accommodate Airbnb guests. It had cameras inside and outside, exposed wires everywhere, a toilet within a makeshift kitchen, blood on the bedsheets of the cheap beds that had been installed, and a few other items of broken and filthy furniture scattered throughout.”

There was also a list of rules posted inside the accommodation that stipulated that if the property was used for drugs or sex work there would be extra fees.  

The place was all but uninhabitable, but his mum had no choice but to stay for one night before casting about for other options. 

When the Airbnb host was contacted and informed of the situation, they were apologetic but offered only a partial refund. Chris and his family refused the offer and instead filed an official Airbnb complaint – which included photos detailing the squalor of the accommodation. 

“Airbnb replied a few days later insinuating a full refund would be issued along with an apology,” Chris says. “Based on this representation, my mother took up a hotel for the three weeks, but her trip was ruined. A few days later, Airbnb refunded half the full amount. When challenged as to why only half was refunded they refused to elaborate.” 

Chris’s mum had paid for the hotel with money she assumed would be replaced by the Airbnb refund.

Texas disputes team says ‘take it or leave it’

At this point, Chris went into action on the Airbnb support line, refusing to cave in. 

“Eventually, after huge efforts, I was contacted by someone from the disputes team of Airbnb in Texas. They said they will not be providing any further explanation and told us not to contact them again, in as many words.” 

Chris is sure he and his family are not the only victims of Airbnb’s poor customer service. Chris says it’s as if Airbnb’s policy is to “just pull up the drawbridge and not communicate or assist consumers”. 

Market researchers estimate Airbnb’s 2024 revenue to have been around $US11 billion, with somewhere around 490 million bookings worldwide. But its perceived worth on the capital markets far exceeds its revenue or actual assets, coming in at approximately $83 billion. This company has considerable resources, but how much they put into customer service is open to question. 

In the end, Chris’s mum was out of pocket around $2294 dollars. 

“All attempts to reach Airbnb and request an explanation as to why they had done this were met with automated chatbot responses and a complete cessation of communication,” Chris says. “It was genuinely quite bizarre, to be frank.” 

Full refund provided following ÌÇÐÄVlog involvement 

We contacted Airbnb in early March to discuss this case and were told that its “host reliability standards” require accommodations to be clean and free of health hazards, among other things. 

Susan Wheeldon, country manager for Australia and New Zealand, tells ÌÇÐÄVlog that Airbnb has reconsidered Chris’s case following our contact. 

“Issues like this are rare, but when they do happen, we take them seriously,” Wheeldon says.”In this instance the guest was initially provided with a partial refund and following a further review of the circumstances a full refund has been provided.”

The post Airbnb challenged over partial refund for dud property  appeared first on ÌÇÐÄVlog.

But over 2000 Airbnb customers noticed they had paid a lot more than expected and let the ACCC know.

After the regulator took the accommodation booking behemoth to court, Airbnb agreed late last month to refund $15 million to about 63,000 Australian customers who thought they had paid in Australian dollars rather than US greenbacks.

Airbnb will pay another $15m in penalties for the misleading conduct.

What did Airbnb do wrong?

“Consumers were misled about the price of accommodation, reasonably assuming the price referred to Australian dollars given they were on Airbnb’s Australian website, searching for accommodation in Australia and seeing a dollar sign,” says ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb.

“By paying in US dollars, these consumers were charged more than they expected to pay, and were deprived of a chance to make an informed decision about whether to make the booking because of this misleading conduct regarding the price.”

Being misled by an overseas digital business is hardly a new experience for many Australians, but it would be nice to think that high-profile companies like Airbnb wouldn’t allow things like this to happen.

 “We took this case to send a strong signal to large digital platforms like Airbnb that they must comply with the Australian Consumer Law and not mislead consumers,” says Cass-Gottlieb. 

How do I get an Airbnb refund?

Airbnb has 45 days as of 20 December 2023 to contact affected customers and explain how to get their money back.

The average compensation per customer is expected to be about $230, but the amount will vary depending on the cost of the booking, the exchange rate on the day and any charges paid to Australian financial institutions as a result of paying in US dollars.

It’s supposed to work like this:

• Affected customers will be contacted by Airbnb and Deloitte Australia – which is administering Airbnb’s compensation claims program – by 5 February 2024.
• Consumers will receive an initial communication from Airbnb via email and text message by that date, inviting them to log on to their Airbnb account.
• Affected customers will then be able to access the Deloitte claims portal via a link in their Airbnb account.
• Compensation will be the difference between the price a customer expected to pay in AUD and the price they actually paid due to the USD/AUD exchange rate, plus any foreign transaction fees.

Hang up on scam calls 

In a turn of events that will surprise nobody, scammers are already cold calling people and offering to arrange Airbnb refunds, presumably by having the customer – if they were one – reveal their personal banking details.

Such information should only be provided through the Deloitte claims portal, accessed from an official Airbnb account.

The ACCC’s advice regarding the Airbnb refund scam is straightforward.

“If you receive a call from anyone offering to help you with a refund, hang up immediately. Never give personal information to anyone calling you out of the blue and never give access to your computer or bank account and never click on a link in a text message or open an attachment in an email if you were not expecting the text or email.”

The post Airbnb to refund $15m after charging Australians in US dollars  appeared first on ÌÇÐÄVlog.