Payments for bad AirBNB reviews, offered on AirTasker.

[Ross76]

Recently, while browzing a website called Air tasker which give people a platform to offers payment for various jobs and tasks online. I a number of tasks being offered to; -in return for submitting a bad reviews to a random host on AirBNB they would pay $20 for each review. The tasks were posted and taken up very quickly and I have not seen the same thing again since. The ad was offered in Perth W.A by a person in Sydney NSW in Australia. Is AirBNB aware of this activity and what protection have hosts got against this tactic. Kind Regards Ross Peet - AirBNB host. 

[Sarah977]

Well that's freaky and worrisome. But I don't see how anyone could do that, as only a guest who has booked and paid and stayed can actually leave a review, as far as I know.

[Linda108]

@Ross76  I agree with @Sarah977.  The system send a prompt email to both host and guest to write a review.  Any more detail about how someone was supposed to be able to do that?  

[Ross76]

The offer is not being made by AirBNB. It means someone can stay at your place, be the perfect guest, and then submit a bad review and take the scipt of that review to an unknown 3rd party and be paid $20 for posting the review. Some of the larger resorts are doing it tough because of AirBNB. Beware of the new member profiles with no references or reviews and especially no profile photo. AirBNB's security checks are not that great, there have been 16 year olds that have set profiles and booked accommodation that I have read about.

[Matthew285]

@Ross76 @Sarah977 @Linda108 I have heard that the cheapest allowed nightly price for a listing is $10.

I don't know if that is true, but let's just say that it would hard to find a listing for less than $10.

So someone is supposed to

1. Sign up for this "Bad Review" gig
2. Spend at least $10 of their own money (plus AirBnB fees of about 12% because this is a minimum price listing) to book the listing for one night
3. Spend their money on a taxi or bus or their gas to get to the listing
4. Potentially spend money on parking (because what $10 listing has free parking?)
5. Waste their entire night in a $10 room (which I am sure is filled with comfort and entertainment options)
6. Check out and spend more money to take a taxi or bus home, or waste their gas.
7. Wait until the afternoon, and write a bad review.
8. Wait until the people who posted the job verify that the worker posted the bad review
9. Profit! Get paid $20 for spending at least $11.20 plus gas/taxi/bus/parking and wasting your entire evening in a $10 room.
10. (This gets worse the more the room costs)

I think I'll take my chances that the next guest was stupid enough to sign up for this gig.

Also, good luck being able to book a room with that AirBnB account in the future.

[Sarah977]

Well, this needs to be reported to Airbnb.

[Marzena4]

Apart from all of you have written, it's not that impossible. Have you heard of mystery shoppers? Actually, a couple of years ago, feeling bored during holidays, I got a side job as one - mainly banks and car dealers. And all the expenses were covered.

[Matthew285]

@Marzena4, yes! You are correct; there are those mystery shoppers.

I have a good friend who does spot checks for movie theater ads.

I was thinking this was a bit different because the person wasn't being paid to write a review (like a mystery shopper);

the person is supposedly being paid to write a BAD review, no matter what their actual experiene was.

This would not make them a very useful mystery shopper.

[Marzena4]

Well, maybe I didn't expand my thought enough. I meant that the mechanism behind the procedure might be the same - someone being paid to do something. In this case, the principals might be competitors. The agent might need to stay at a particular listing. In fact, unfair competitors came to my mind when I got a number of odd reservations (1 person, 1 night) from booking.com. The reviews I received in 3 cases over there - with rating around 4 out of 10, anonymous and not much text, just the rating - only proved me right.

[Matthew285]

@Marzena4, that makes sense; actually your description makes *way* more sense than paying someone to write a bad review of a random host (as supposedly this Air Tasker does).

If someone is going to spend the time and money to pay for a bad review, you want to target it to someone specific.

Competition must be very cut-throat in your area.

[Marzena4]

It's competition and low season at the moment - I just checked booking.com rates (it's possible to sort by price) and for tomorrow night a couple may rent a private room in a hostel for about $15 all. So that $10 minimum of Airbnb's is all too real in my city, and possibly country (off-season).

[David126]

I know you can buy like by the thousand, would make more sense to me to buy good reviews, then you can send a special offer and never actually have the person stay there.