Airbnb Robbery in LA

[Fabio379]

I come to all of you members today to seek help and guidance regarding a nightmare of an experience that me and my friends just experienced. We booked what we thought would be a 3 bedroom suite on Airbnb and were moved to a different room by our host. He told us to "stick it out threre for the night and tomorrow he would move us to the initial suite. "

So we get there and realized that the back door was not locking and we called our host to ask him and be never got back to us and said "sorry he fell asleep". We come back after a night out and realized everything we had had been stolen, $1500 cash, a $5,000 leather jacket and overall $20,000 in damages and tremense emotional trauma. 

After realized that we called out host and LAPD and had them come immediately. Our host shows up and looks like a comeltely different person than who he was saying he was in his profile photo, was not apologetic at all and due to the amount of "chaos we caused" due to the fit we threw when we found out our most valuable belongings were stolen we had to leave. 

We had nowhere to go, and we called airbnb to set us up in another location because honestly we didnt want to be threre either and they did nothing. They said there was nothing they could do, and we had to spend tons of money booking a hotel last minute after just being robbed and assaulted. We have a strong feeling that we were set up.

Upon speaking to the neighbors they all and and errie feeling about the host and apparently he owns 6 units in the building and is renting them out illegally because Airbnb is not legally permittited in that housin unit. Also, another neighbor told us that theres a review on his website that said that someone tried to get in to their place at 4:30am which also happened to us as well. 

Things are just not looking good here and were even seeking help from a criminal justice lawyer to make sure that we're compensated for our loss, and the emotional trauma that we were put through.

It seems like airbnb has everything set up to help out the host but nothing for the guest. When paying for a luxury service you expect safety, security, and comfort. None of those we received this trip. 

Please if anyone has any help or advice please let me know. 

Thank you for taking the time to reads this. 

 please feel free to email me at **

**[E-mail address hidden due to safety reasons - Community Center Guidelines]

[This case has been forwarded] 

[John1574]

@@ Fabio I'm sorry to hear about your terrible experience.

Can you tell us about the guy who runs the six units. A link to his listing?

How long have you used AirBnB?  Your profile looks a bit slim.

Most definately something does not smell right here.

Please provide more information.  Many scammers out there.

Usulayy it is Hosts complaining about customer service support, but your said,

"It seems like airbnb has everything set up to help out the host but nothing for the guest. When paying for a luxury service you expect safety, security, and comfort. None of those we received this trip."

Keep the community members informed.  We all need to avoid scammers like this.

[Fabio379]

Hello John, 

My profile is a littel slim yes, I have a partner of 3 years and we use airbnb all the time so we alwaus use it on his profile so we can establish credibility through his so I havent had much of a reason to use mine until now because his as all out are previous stays and reviews. 

I can't find the link to his airbnb, is there a way I can look up a host by name? However, I have the screenshot of the booking with all of the information and adress and what not if that helps. 

I'm trying to look up all of the listings in LA and I've been going through several pages and havent had any luck. 

I'm working on getting a legal team involved because he definitely needs to be repremanded if he's behind all of this and is luring people to set them up which is what it sounds like he did. All of the signs added up, it was extremely unfortunate. 

I sent airbnb an email to their customer service team and I'm yet to hear back. 

Let me know if you have any firection you can point me in anything helps. Thanks John!

[Helen3]

I would suggest you put in a claim with your travel or home insurance straight away for the costs of the items stolen.

And ask Airbnb to compensate you for additional accommodation costs.

[Fabio379]

Hello Helen,

I'm working on getting in touch with my insurance as of now. As for airbnb, they've been pretty irresponsive and the customer service number just keeps "passing the puck" and nothings getting done.

I'm not sure if I can speak to a superior. Any ideas?

Thanks!

[David126]

The booking was not done by you so there would be nothing for AirBnB to discuss with you.

Your partner would need to contact AirBnB regarding any refund.

I agree your Travel Insurers are the people you need to contact. 

[Elena87]

The back door didn't close and you went out and left 20 000 dollars of belongings behind.?

I don't see this adding up.

[Cormac0]

@Fabio

write a review:

"Arrived accommodation booked not available, given alternative accommodation for a night with a broken back door from which all our possession were stolen (circa 20,000 dollars). Then we were told to leave!  Need I say more?"

Thumps Down.

[Roberta2]

Hi Fabio

If you go to messages, you should be able to click on the host profile, and from there, you can get the listing from your bookin.

Also under "My Trips" it should still be there. Just click on the Host picture.

Thanks 

[Mike340]

Fabio,

I am glad to hear that you yourselves are safe after such a horrendous experience. It sounds very much like a set-up. 

Firstly, please invest in your health and well being and make sure you yourselves recover internally from such an event. The recovery of your belongings and the "capture" of this host must come second to that.

One would hope that the LAPD will at some point put in a request to Airbnb for all the information they have on the host and the properties he was using. They will no doubt interview neighbours and maybe even the Community block Management to get more details of the host identity. 

That does take time, so for now be patient and put it into the hands of the professionals who can obtain legally that information. 

If you decide to take any legal action against Airbnb they will pass over your entire case to their legal team and you will have no further contact from Airbnb Support. The Airbnb legal department will ONLY discuss your case with your legal team, not you. 

For now, see if you can find receipts or any kind of evidence that you in fact owned the belongings you have had stolen, that will no doubt help in the future.

Also, you might want to keep an eye on internet sites such as Ebay etc where the stolen jacket etc may be listed for sale. 

If the host is renting out apartments illegally, does the local authority know about that?? 

What is interesting is you mention that there was 20,000 dollars of damage....what, to the apartment? 

Good luck and best wishes for a full recovery of everything.

[Letti0]

@Fabio0 What credit card did you use to book it with? My American Express and Bank of America both include travelers insurance on any trips I book. Maybe check out yours and see if you are covered through them.

[John1574]

@Fabio0  @Elena0 @Helen0  @David0

Ah, thanks for the explanation, Fabio.  Can't your partner handle this as he booked and has the operative account? 

This sounds like a bad case.  I'm very curious how it will resolve.

Between guestss scamming hosts and host scamming guests and people trying to scam AirBnB it pays to be super careful.

Buyer beware all the time.

Here is a CC post where you can rate and describe your experience with AirBnB customer service.

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/How-Do-You-Rate-AirBnB-for-Customer-Service/m-p/712486#M...

still can't tag -- must use work-around

[Fabio379]

Hello,

My partner didn't book the airbnb listing. What I was trying to say was that the reason why my profile is slim is because usually when I travel, we go through my partners airbnb account because he has established credibility.

This was booked through a friend of mine (two girls from Australia who'm I was meeting up with in LA to spend time with) I can't seem to find the listing but I do have the hosts profile screenshot, and a screenshot of the booking if that helps.

In regards to the door, we called the host when we noticed it didn't lock. We called him multiple times and he only got back to us a few hours later and "apologized for falling asleep", by that time we had to leave because we had dinner reservations at a nice restaurant that we prepaid for so we had to go.

Assuming we were in a ncie condo in a great neighbohood we figured we were safe, so we thought....

As for airbnb, I still have yet to hear a reply from them. You would think that after a horrible experience like this they would reply with haste. This is not the case.

Please let me know what I can do. 

Thank you all for your time.

[Fabio379]

Also,

I found the booking information and the screenshot of the host's profile but it wont let me upload it. Any idea how I can share this information with all of you? 

[Letti0]

@Fabio0 I have not been able to tag or upload things since the 9:30 am cst us time two days ago. There is some computer glitch going on right now. How no idea when and if it will be fixed.