Virtual assistant fraud

[Cameron45]

Hi community,

we hired a local guy from south Asia to be a virtual assistant to our Canadian listings . Unfortunately I gave the virtual assistant the power to be a host and I became the co host.   He set up the account and we prepared the house .  We found out he gave  his bank information and started to take our payout.  He took about just bit over $1200 and I removed my self being cohost and specific listings  is not showing under my profile anymore.  However he has our properties under his profile.  He’s targeting people like us, Airbnb can’t do anything since we gave permission to be a host.  
Anything I can do to get my money back or taking my listings  from his profile? 

[Sarah977]

@Cameron45  I'm afraid this is a legal matter between you and this "manager". And it isn't really fraud because you essentially handed over everything but the deed to the property to him. 

[Helen3]

I am so sorry this happened, but why would you let him set up the listing and allocate himself as the main host? @Cameron45 

If you removed yourself as the co-host surely your listing is still on his profile and he can continue to take bookings and generate income. 

As an experience SH with over 400 reviews, I'm surprised you would have let someone overseas set up a listing with himself as the main host and have him set up the payment to allocated payments to himself.

Obviously there is little you can do as you gave him permission to do this by sharing the log in details and letting him become the main host. 

It seems strange to ask someone from South East Asia to be your co-host when most would employ a local co-host who can offer on the ground support and who is the same time zone. 

[Mark116]

@Cameron45  You may need to get a lawyer involved.  I would have assumed there is a mechanism for the property owner to remove the co-host, 'host' or otherwise control access to the property and listing.  At least you can change the locks so if he's still listing your properties no one can access them w/out your approval.

[Helen3]

@Mark116  there would be little point getting a lawyer to try and pursue money from someone living in South East Asia if you are Canadian

Sadly @Cameron45  let this person set up the listing appointing himself as the main host so he can't remove them - furthermore for some reason Cameron then removed himself from the listing so no longer has access. Absolutely the locks should be changed. 

[Mary419]

Unfortunately I have no suggestions for rectifying the situation. Clients of mine were told to snail mail a letter to the legal Dept when their former manager refused to remove ads for their houses after she went off the deep end and stopped paying them or communicating with them or guests. Like so many stories they finally got it done by realizing their relative worked for airbnb and was one of the airbnb higher ups. But even then it took weeks. 

I can take this moment to point out that co-host and teams would be so helpful for normal owners if it was setup differently. But as it is it’s hugely risky! I asked why there’s no way to co-host (share messages and calendar) with someone who can’t see the financials. I was told it’s because the system is purely designed to skirt laws disallowing hosts with X max listings. Because some cities made those laws, to prevent mass managers and still allow single hosts.

So the design was never created for normal small time home owners or managers to use helpers/assistants who can do a few tasks without having total financial control and visibility… like the real world needs. Would be awesome if they fixed it but Years have gone by and no change. 

[Donata12]

I cannot believe Airbnb won’t help with a fraud like this. If you can prove the properties are yours rightfully how can they not unlink them from

the fraudolent virtual

assistant ?

[Lorna170]

@Cameron45   Consult a lawyer and have a cease and desist letter sent to this person and if possible a copy to AirBnB.  Report the listings to AirBnB as no longer available per owner. Then, after you have reviewed this with the lawyer as to the legality of it, change the locks and deny guests who booked through that person access to the properties.  

[Gillian166]

Who controls the physical property? All you can do is refuse to let guests stay, and he will get negative reviews and then suspended 

But this punishes innocent guests. 

something is off with this situation.