Airbnb may have more rooms worldwide than Hilton these days, but how many of them actually exist? The platforms making millions from the sharing economy continue to argue that customers do so at their own risk — something that fraudsters are exploiting to make thousands of pounds a “booking”. Sites such as Airbnb argue that they monitor the veracity of “hosts” who post their properties for rent, but horror stories from readers, alongside recent undercover research by Which?, the consumer group, suggests that a large number are slipping through the net. Which? set up fake profiles on Airbnb, Holiday Lettings and homeaway.co.uk, and posted eight scam listings on each. It reports that it took minutes to do so, and that researchers were not asked for
Which? created eight fake listings on Airbnb, homeaway.co.uk and Holiday Lettings to find out how easy it would be to set up fraudulent property listings. All profiles were quick to create, and only Homeaway requested photographic ID, however, this could be avoided if a £478 yearly subscription was taken out. The research suggested that a considerable number of fake listings are slipping through the system, with horror stories from scam victims adding to this concern, even though these platforms state they monitor the "hosts" who put properties up for rent, with Airbnb saying it has recently introduced new security tools.