Unauthorized third party has listed my home on Air BNB

[Maryanna1]

Pls Help....

I have a villa in Santorini Greece which I list on Air BNB.

To my surprise, I have found two additional listings on my home by other "hosts" who "borrowed" pictures from Instagram and created their own listing of my home without my authorization. They even have superhost status!! 

I contacted them a few weeks back and they promised to take off my home from this site and others.

They have not.

What can I do?

Regards,

Maryanna 

[Christian65]

You flag and report the listing and Airbnb will then be notified.

[Maryanna1]

Thanks for the reply, I had tried to do that but found the options given to me aren't entirely relevant.. how do I report it?? .. as spam? as not an accommodation? Wasn't quite sure which way to go...

[Marzena4]

You can write to Airbnb Customer Service directly - use Twitter or the form: https://www.airbnb.com/help/contact_us#/

[Lawrene0]

@Maryanna1, because you say the photos are yours, and the "hosts" have superhost status, it is not likely that these are on the actual Airbnb site. How is anyone giving them five stars? The "guests" are not showing up at your place, right?

Here is how you check. The URL will have "airbnb" somewhere in it, but it won't be airbnb.com, or airbnb.co.uk or airbnb.gr. It will be a longer URL.

It is a mirror site, then, and these pop up all over the place. You can report one, and another shows up. Scammers are everywhere. 

Will you let us know whether this was the case?

[Maryanna1]

Here are the two links of air bnb posts of my home that are not authorized... I am also listed and a host. These guys are just property managers and they got my home from instagram and made it "their own". I contacted them and told them to remove it and they said they would. That was two weeks ago. They are still there and I would like these removed. I don't deal with third parties at all.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/20135890?tier_override=0&check_in=2017-12-01&check_out=2017-12-02

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/20883750?s=51

They have superhost status because they have other homes they rent as well on the island. The reviews are for their other homes.

Regards,

Maryanna

[Maryanna1]

@Lawrene0 I've replied to your question... so you can peruse my response ... any advice on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!! 

[Lawrene0]

Ah, okay, @Maryanna1. Thanks for clearing that up. Yes, just keep reporting, flagging, I suppose. I know a little about mirror sites -  which is why I answered, but that it turns out this isn't - and less about how these managers are pulling off using your photos for their listing. The things people get up to that disrupt the lives of others! Hope you get it sorted. 

[Kelly149 · Accepted solution]

@Maryanna1 Go ahead and report the listing. “This listing shouldn’t be on abb”. Not sure CS ever does anything with this. Every once in a while when I’m feeling futile, I’ll report 20 illegal listings near me. 

You have a stronger case for theft of images. Call abb and get those hosts banned. The scam there is that they get an inquiry about your pictures and then they say, I don’t have availability there but look at this other place...

[Maryanna1]

@Kelly149 Done. Listings reported...

[Matthew285]

@Maryanna1, the descriptions of the other listings seem quite different than yours. Are they actually trying to book guests for your property, or are they just stealing your photos to get booking for an entirely different property?

Or is their "listing" just all four of your bedrooms combined into a whole house rental?

I don't understand what they are trying to accomplish. What would they do if they received a reservation?

Try to book your house?

[Maryanna1]

@Matthew285 So here's what they are doing, its a multitude of things....

1. They know the house is 4 bedrooms so they list the entire house. If someone "books" it a the ridiculous price they have set with the Jeep and Crouise (great spelling)... then they think they can convince me to move out (of the second level of my house)  and give them the entire villa. They have done this and I told them "No".  If I ever hand over the keys to my home, then I have another set of issues to deal with.

2. They want to list the house because using my pictures they can say that the house is unavailable but we have "this house" and give them the one property they actually have.

3. It helps sell them here as maverick property managers when they negotiate to manage another owners home. Its a way of showing other greek property owners "Hey look at me on air bnb dude, these guys trust me and give me their homes to manage!!"  Helps them look good.

4. They have pushed my villa on to the luxury market (again...without my approval) for twice the price it is on airbnb. 

So I'm really getting tired of this, plus it affects my own sales when two others are peddling it and giving it a false identity and redirecting them somewhere else. I really wish there was an avenue for us to report fraud that is effective, I am worried that this will be an ongoing problem for me.

Regards,

Maryanna

[Matthew285]

@Maryanna1, thank you for the explanation!

I hope at least that AirBnB will remove the fake listings. Have you had any luck with that?

[Maryanna1]

Not yet, but I remain hopeful.

[Lizzie]

Hello @Maryanna1,

Thanks for sharing this here, I know how frustrating this must be especially when you have taken the time to create all of these yourself. 

I clicked on the links and it appears the listings are no longer on Airbnb, so thank you for flagging these to the team and for looking out for the community. 

Just mentioning in @Matthew285, @Lawrene0, @Kelly149, @Marzena4, @Christian65, as I am sure they will be interested to hear an update on this.

Thanks,

Lizzie