"Airbnb gives you your money back": the hair-raising scam that gets guests to pay less to vacation rental hosts

Many vacation rental hosts are reporting a new type of scam on social media. Guests are tricked into paying less through sites like Airbnb, by the skin of their teeth, so that the platform instantly refunds part of the money they paid for their stay at the property.

This is according to Maui Garriga, a vacation rental expert, who explains that in just a few minutes, the platforms pay out the money without checking whether the situation is real or a scam: "Airbnb returns them 216 euros without having checked it , obviously, because Airbnb is not at the destination. They are not physical persons who are going to verify that this has happened."

The scam itself isn't complex, as anyone can carry it out. As the vacation rental expert stated, the platform has no way of verifying who is right. The guest in question simply has to take a snapshot of one of the beds and report it to the platform, and they will receive a portion of their money almost immediately.

"Everything was clean and perfect. Ten minutes after arriving, they sent a photo through Airbnb: a bedspread with a hair on it. We immediately corrected it and replaced it," she says. However, in order to protect guests and ensure good service, the platform refunds a good portion of the price paid.

"Where's that hair from? From the laundry, or maybe the guest put it there and sent the photo," Garriga questions. "I'm a host; many guests are professionals in what you're talking about," another user reports.

While it's difficult to take precautions against these types of scams , the best way to avoid problems is to record the entire stay just before new guests move in. This way, you have visual evidence that confirms whether the property was clean or, on the contrary, had been damaged beforehand.

"Absolutely. Some people look for even the smallest detail to get their house back, but then they're the ones who leave the house in the worst condition. Often, we even have to go and clean it for free to remove that hair, the sheet, or whatever they've complained about, as if we were making millions cleaning," laments another host on social media.