It’s November 2019 and I’m standing in an Airbnb in Battersea, south London. However this isn’t the Airbnb I booked. Every part is barely, confusingly, off. All of the rooms are the flawed sizes, all of the furnishings within the flawed locations. There are hints in all places that one thing is up: the condominium block, a barely completed newbuild sandwiched between Battersea Park station and a Catholic church, is teeming with cleansing workers. There are cleaners within the hallways, cleaners lobbing bin luggage of garbage out of the entrance door, cleaners grabbing armfuls of mattress linen within the elevator. It’s like a lodge—besides there’s no entrance desk, and the allegedly clear cover on my mattress has a human-sized, yellow sweat stain operating down its centre.
“And for trying out…?” I ask the cleaner who has let me in, gesturing on the open door of my sparsely adorned condominium. “Simply depart the important thing on the desk and shut the door,” she replies. “And it’ll lock behind me?” I ask. “No, you don’t have to lock it.” I elevate an eyebrow, and she or he explains that one of many cleansing workers will come and gather the important thing straight after I depart. “So no person lives right here?” I say as she steps out of the open door. “No I don’t suppose so,” she replies, half-laughing.
I shut the door, look across the condominium once more and open the Airbnb app on my telephone. “I’m a little bit confused,” I write to my host, who goes by the title Robert & Staff. “The condominium I’m in proper now isn’t the one I booked.” Inside minutes, a reply: “Hello James, Hope all is nicely. Relaxation assured that you’re on the condominium that you’ve got booked via Airbnb.” I reply, explaining that this will’t be the case. Within the pictures on Airbnb, the kitchen had counter tops on each side. The kitchen I’m standing in has a countertop on one aspect solely. There’s a hallway the place there must be a stable wall. Heck, the entire lounge is totally the flawed form. “Relaxation assured that you’re on the right property,” my host replies, earlier than going silent.
That night time, I knock on the doorways of the opposite flats within the constructing. At one, three males who’ve simply arrived are attempting to work out why there are solely two beds after they had booked an condominium with three. As we communicate, the cleaner who checked me into my condominium rushes previous, her arms stuffed with contemporary linen. On the door of the penthouse, a pair from Newcastle complain concerning the full lack of pots and pans of their kitchen. Standing on the open door, I discover one thing: the paintings on the partitions is identical as in my condominium, so are the sofas, desk and chairs. On the door of the condominium I had really booked via Airbnb, the girl staying there explains she can be within the flawed itemizing. I return to my condominium, open my laptop computer and click on on my host’s Airbnb profile. I depend seven listings for the constructing I’m staying in, all with equivalent furnishings, all with the identical bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne. I flick forwards and backwards between the listings on Airbnb, the bottle of champagne following me, mockingly. Who or what, I ponder, is Robert & Staff?
On Airbnb, it seems, scams aren’t simply the protect of lone chancers. Because the short-term rental goldrush gathers tempo, Airbnb empires are being quickly scaled and monetised, with skilled operators creating scores of pretend accounts, pretend listings and pretend evaluations to run rings round Airbnb, native regulation enforcement and the company who place their belief within the platform. Opinions from company paint a grim image of people that have been tricked into staying in lodging with blocked drains, damaged fixtures and fittings, filthy flooring, soiled mattress linen—or, in some instances, lodging that they merely didn’t e book.
To squeeze each penny out of those inner-city goldmines, scammers have began outsourcing property administration to ill-equipped name centres within the Philippines. The scammers name it “systemising”, a technique of grabbing as many flats as potential, filling them with identikit furnishings, taking professional-looking images after which utilizing each trick within the e book to show them into profitable investments. A few of these tips, although morally doubtful, are completely authorized. However others breach each Airbnb’s insurance policies and native planning legal guidelines, whereas additionally placing the protection of company in danger. As Vice present in October 2019, Airbnb is plagued by pretend and downright dodgy listings. However in London, the place Airbnb enforces an annual 90-day restrict on all “whole properties” listed on its platform, scammers have made a mockery of lax enforcement each by regulators and Airbnb itself, by turning whole new-build condominium blocks into de facto lodges designed for the short-term rental market. And the issue is way worse than anybody realises.
