What does Airbnb do about fake profiles and scammers

[Kamal9]

This year I have had 2 cases of scammers using my property to moonlight as the owner/agent to take deposits off unsuspecting house hunters. Both incidents have been reported to the police and due to the lessons learnt from the first time this happened I managed to prevent it happening again the second time. HOWEVER my concern is how Airbnb have responded. They are more concerned about "third party booking" rather than hearing the words fraudster, scammer, criminal when such activity is reported. At the very least suspending the profile would have shown that Airbnb take such matters seriously. In my experience, there has been a serious lack of action taken in tackling fake profiles. Even though I have reported the guests as scammers I can still see their profiles and the latest one (being only a week ago) has changed his profile photo and is prenteding to be a married man with 2 kids who likes swimming. I have not seen any policy on the Airbnb website regarding what action the company takes to tackle scammers and prevent criminal activity. When some has verified ID what does that mean? The last fraudster had his ID verified however the guy that showed up was not the person on the profile. They pretended to be that person but ran away when asked to produce ID in person. Due to increased fraudulent activity recently, as part of my check-in process I now ask all guests to show their ID even if they have a verified profile.

[Yadira22]

@Stephanie could you possibly help @Kamal9 - thanks 

[Stephanie]

Hiya @Kamal9 ,

Thanks for the tag @Yadira22 ! So sorry to hear you have been faced with this unfortunately scenario, twice! We have a lot of information on identifying and reporting scam/fraudulent listings, hosts and guest which you can review here.

Many thanks,

Stephanie

[Kamal9]

@Stephanie the link you sent me is for "How do I know if an email or website is really from Airbnb?". There is nothing on there regarding how Airbnb deals with scammers and fake guest profiles once reported. 

My concern is that allowing scammers to be active on the platforms undermines trust and facilitates fraudulent activity making Airbnb complicit in criminal activity.    

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Kamal9 

we are hosting for 3,5 years on Airbnb and ever since I am repeating the same thing - hosts should verify their guests personally at check-in.  You can't just give the keys of your property to the complete strangers!

At first it was unthinkable to most hosts but lately, nobody disagrees anymore. It seems hosts finally became aware of how necessary and reasonably it is.

[Kamal9]

Yes, I have been checking guest IDs since the first time it happened. I have been hosting for over 5 years and this year has been the worst in quality of guests as well as scammers. My query is more to do with what Airbnb does once a fake profile is reported. In my experience, it seems nothing has been done about the scammer I reported last week. The guest profile still exists and he will probably go on to scam someone else. At the very least I would expect the profile to be suspended pending an investigation. Airbnb should be actively looking removing fake profiles. 

[Kamal9]

UPDATE: 2 weeks on still nothing. I have been passed form department to department, case manager to case manager and all the agents advise me to notify Airbnb if I feel unsafe or threatened but all seem to be missing the crucial point. What has Airbnb doing about fraudster and fake profiles once it has been report on their platform? Out of shear frustration with the lack of urgency and understanding from all the case managers I have dealt with, I have written to Brian Cheskey - CEO and Head of Community @bchesky to see if would be able to comment.