It was just before two in the morning on February 8 when Sarah* realised two strangers were standing in the bedroom doorway of her Airbnb. Confused and half asleep, she thought her Airbnb host had somehow double-booked the apartment. But then the strangers started asking for money.
“It could’ve gone really nasty, two total strangers in the house at two o’clock in the morning,” says Craig*, her brother, who made the booking. “She came into my bedroom and woke me up. She says there’s people out here that want us out of the building or they want us to pay up.” Sarah, Craig and the rest of their eight-person group, who were visiting London for a wedding party, had just found out what can happen when Airbnb pulls the plug on a listing that someone had already checked into. And it wasn’t pretty.
The listing in question, a duplex apartment in London’s Elephant and Castle, was managed by Continental Apartments, the company at the centre of a recent WIRED investigation into scam hosts and listings on Airbnb. The scam we uncovered encompassed a network of seemingly fraudulent Airbnb accounts with more than 200 listings and 2,100 reviews. Many of the reviews and host profiles were fake or misleading, and, in some cases the properties listed didn’t exist. A number of the listings were also likely in breach of a legal 90-day limit on short-term rentals in London. Continental Apartments did not respond to a request to comment prior to publication of the original investigation.
When we reported the network of host accounts to Airbnb, it suspended them while it carried out an investigation. The second the company did that, anyone staying in a listing managed by the suspended host accounts suddenly found themselves staying in an Airbnb listing that no longer existed. As the company’s own terms of service state, Airbnb can “cancel a pending or confirmed booking”. And when this happened, Airbnb seemingly looked the other way.
Craig’s ordeal had started earlier that evening. Having checked into the Airbnb, the group changed and headed to the wedding party. “We were enjoying ourselves,” Craig says. Then, at about 16:45, he spotted a message from Airbnb. “It was a very nondescript one-liner saying the booking was cancelled.” The short, automated message was so unremarkable that Craig disregarded it. He’d already paid and checked in, he thought, so it was impossible that the booking had been cancelled.
Then, an hour later, Craig’s phone rang. The caller explained that he was from Continental Apartments, and Airbnb had suspended its accounts, leaving the company out of pocket for anyone who had already checked in. Craig replied that he’d already paid and checked in, was at a wedding party, and wouldn’t be able to sort anything out until the following morning. The call ended amicably. Later that evening, Craig’s phone rang again. And again. He texted the number back, explaining that he was out at a party and, as per the earlier call, would be happy to resolve the problem in the morning.
The group got back to their apartment at about one in the morning. Shortly after that, while everyone was asleep, the two Continental Apartments employees let themselves into the flat. “We went downstairs and had this outrageous conversation,” Craig says. He claims the two strangers were “extremely aggressive” and threatened to “get guys over” to throw them out of the apartment if they didn’t leave immediately, or stump up the €980 (£852) they had already paid through Airbnb right there, plus a £500 security deposit. The duo had a card reader to take the payment. It was at this point that Craig called the police.
“The cops were there in about 30 minutes,” Craig says. After each side explained their version of the story, the police said the group could stay in the apartment until the morning. And so could the two people from Continental Apartments.
“They then sat in the living room, and my brother and my wife sat with them all night,” Craig explains. A short while after the police left, Craig claims that one of the Continental Apartments staff got on the phone. “They said, ‘Okay, send guys over now. We’re going to get these people out now.’ This was at half four, five o’clock in the morning. They did that right in front of my brother and my wife. Overtly aggressive. I’m freaking out,” Craig says.
Worried for their safety, Craig decided to stand guard at the entrance to the building while his brother and wife kept an eye on the Continental Apartments employees. But, unbeknown to him, the building had another entrance. “My brother rings me and says, ‘There are people outside the door’. I told him not to let anybody in. I don’t know how many people showed up because I missed them, but they were outside. And we don’t know how long they were out there, we reckon about half an hour and then they just fecked off.” At this point it was almost dawn, and Craig and the rest of the group decided to cut their losses and get out. “It was a brutal experience,” he says.
And Airbnb’s response, Craig says, made things much worse. “I’m really pissed off with Airbnb more than anybody in this situation,” Craig says. After suspending the host accounts and refunding the cost of the booking, Airbnb also eventually agreed to pay half of the cost of a hotel for the following night. “That’s it. That’s the conversation,” Craig says. At no point in the evening – even when on the phone to the police – did Airbnb offer to book him alternative accommodation, nor does Airbnb’s policy state that it is required to do so.
A few days after his nightmare Airbnb experience, Craig got back in touch with the company to report what had happened. In an email exchange, an Airbnb customer service representative explained that the company was investigating the issue. “Unfortunately, we will not be able to provide you with information about what happens when Airbnb cancels a reservation after check-in as these types of situations are rare,” a message sent to Craig reads.
Rare, but not unknown. Craig, it turns out, wasn’t the only person abandoned by Airbnb on the streets of London that night. Emma* was getting ready for dinner out with friends when she got a message from Airbnb telling her that her booking, which she was sitting in when the message arrived, had been cancelled. She finished getting ready and headed out, confused by the blunt, one-line message that provided no further details as to why it had been cancelled or what she was meant to do.
While at dinner, Emma received a number of messages from Christian Baumann, the director of CB Platinum, another name for Continental Apartments and very much the same company, explaining that she would have to either pay for the booking that Airbnb had cancelled or his staff would take all their belongings and store them in the company’s office for collection and change the locks. “I will need a response in 10 minutes as my team is already on the way to the property to change the locks,” Baumann wrote. In response, Emma sent a screenshot of a page on Airbnb’s website that starts with the question; “What should I do if someone asks me to pay outside of the Airbnb website?” – the first line of which is “Don’t send them money”. Emma and Baumann exchanged a number of messages: he maintained that they had to pay or their belongings would be removed and the locks changed; Emma maintained that she would not pay a stranger over the phone.
A little over an hour later, Emma received a WhatsApp message from one of Baumann’s team. “I am in the apartment now. We will change the lock. I just called a lock smith.” This was followed by a picture of the open apartment door and the message: “They will be here in the next 30 minutes.” Emma panicked. “That is very unprofessional and threatening,” she replied, explaining that she had already paid and it wasn’t her fault that Airbnb had cancelled the booking and refunded the money – which, she pointed out, hadn’t yet reached her account. The threat of their belongings being removed was particularly acute for Emma and her group of friends, one of whom has a terminal illness that necessitates regular medication, most of which was in the apartment.
“The lock will be changed. Please note that. I will suggest you to find someone else to stay or pay for the reservation,” the Continental Apartments employee wrote. “The locksmith will be here in the next 20 min.” Emma asked if they would wait so she could resolve the issue. “If you will like to come please take an Uber and share the trip with me. I will wait 30 min for you.” At this point, Emma jumped in an Uber. “Can you share the trip with me. So I know you will be coming or I won’t cancel the locksmith,” the company representative wrote. Emma shared her location. When she arrived at the property, she was met by two employees of Continental Apartments, one of whom had a card payment machine. Feeling she had no other option, she paid the £730 for the apartment plus a £300 security deposit. The group left the apartment the next day. As was the case with Craig, Airbnb did not offer to book Emma alternative accommodation.
Emma and her sister, who was also staying in the apartment, called Continental Apartments multiple times to try and get a refund. After being ignored for three days, Emma’s sister used the Land Registry database to download details of the freeholder who owned the building she had stayed in. Assuming the freeholder was potentially unaware a unit in the building was being run as a short-term let, she sent the details to Baumann to get his attention. At this point he replied, offering his “deepest apologies” and agreeing to the 50 per cent refund that Emma had asked for.
A spokesperson for CB Platinum says that Craig and Emma’s experiences were “isolated issues” as a result of Airbnb “without any warning or prior notice to us, deactivating our account and returning payment to customers who were already staying at our properties”. The spokesperson adds that the “vast majority” of guests paid up. The spokesperson adds that Craig and Emma “declined to pay on request” and that staff offered to meet them off premises and at a time of their choosing to take payment.
CB Platinum also claims that all its listings have been reinstated following investigations by Airbnb and “other online travel agencies”. This is not the case. At the time of writing, all the listings and host accounts found by WIRED’s investigation remain suspended. An Airbnb spokesperson confirms this, adding that it has now permanently removed all accounts linked to CB Platinum from its platform. A Booking.com spokesperson confirms that all the CB Platinum listings it is aware of remain suspended while it continues to investigate.
But while Airbnb removed the scam accounts WIRED reported to it on February 7, a number of accounts were reinstated due to human error on February 9 – two days before our original investigation was published. Such an error raises questions about Airbnb’s ability to enforce its own policies – even once it’s decided to enforce them. “After taking a closer look, it appears your account was suspended in error. Your account has been fully restored, and you can now use it normally,” reads a message from an Airbnb Community Support representative sent to Continental Apartments and seen by this publication. It is not yet clear what error led to the suspended host accounts being reinstated by Airbnb, or how many, if any, guests stayed in Airbnb listings that should have been suspended on the platform.
When Emma contacted Airbnb about her ordeal, the company offered her a £40 voucher to apologise for the inconvenience. She refused. More than a week later, after being passed from person to person, Emma told Airbnb she was going to seek legal advice. A few days later, someone from Airbnb rang Emma and offered to pay £200 towards the cost of the dinner that was ruined by the ordeal. Despite this, Emma says it felt like Airbnb “didn’t give a shit” about what had happened to her and her friends.
An Airbnb spokesperson says the company was “disappointed” to hear about Craig and Emma’s experiences. “Our original handling fell below the high standards we set ourselves,” the spokesperson says, adding that the company is working with a “small number of guests” to “make things right”. But, while small in number, these guests feel irreparably let down by the support they received from Airbnb. Emma describes Airbnb’s customer service as “terrible”, adding that she was unlikely to use them again.
“We don’t want another group to go through this,” says Claire*, Emma’s sister. “The really awful bit about this is that Airbnb would put a group of potentially vulnerable people in a potentially vulnerable situation, without any support or backup or reason why this is happening. To me, that’s not just poor customer service, it’s actually quite dangerous”.
Read more: I stumbled across a huge Airbnb scam that’s taking over London
The story of Craig, Emma and CB Platinum isn’t just the story of one company. It’s the story of Airbnb. At its heart, this is the story of a platform being hollowed-out by chancers eager to cash in on the short-term rental goldrush. And those companies are potentially toxic for Airbnb’s reputation. Since WIRED’s investigation was published, a number of people have come forward with details of business dealings with CB Platinum, the company at the centre of the Airbnb scam we uncovered in London. These details hint at a problem that is likely widespread across Airbnb – of whole buildings being turned into de facto hotels that are advertised on Airbnb and Booking.com, many of which likely breach London’s 90-day limit on short-term rentals.
One property management company, which leased ten units in a new build in London to CB Platinum with a legal agreement that they would be let as serviced apartments to long-term tenants, claims that Baumann broke the agreement and continued to let out the units on short-term rental platforms even after being served a legal notice. A representative from the company, who does not wish to be named, claims Baumann also refused to vacate one of the units, in which he was living, to stop it from being taken away. A legal letter sent to Baumann and CB Platinum alleges he still owes £30,000 in rent for the ten units.
A spokesperson for CB Platinum says the company signed a leasing agreement with “a third-party purporting to act for the management company”. As a result, it claims that it had entered the agreement “under a false premise”. This was subject to “legal action”, the spokesperson adds. The representative from the property management firm disputes this. Legal documents seen by WIRED and signed by Baumann show that CB Platinum was given permission to “sublet the property and manage commercial clients from time to time but not in breach of the 90 day [limit]” imposed by the local council.
In a separate incident, the owner of an apartment in another London highrise explains how CB Platinum took over a large number of units in the building. The resident, who asks not to be named, claims that Baumann’s company was eventually forced out of the building when the freeholder enforced legal provisions that prohibited apartments in the building being used as short-term rentals.
In this instance, the units in question were all purchased by a company that handed over the management to CB Platinum. The resident claims that the freeholder issued a legal notice to cancel the leases if Baumann continued to advertise the units on Airbnb. “It was a very miserable few months when this was all going on,” the resident says. The apartment owner explains that the building’s concierges were asked to stop Airbnb guests from entering the building, but that the freeholder was required to block this for legal reasons. “They even started doing some check-ins in the underground car park to try to circumvent being noticed. Some of the [Airbnb guests] shared with us that they were told they would be charged a huge fee if they spoke to the concierges,” the resident claims. A spokesperson for CB Platinum says it is no longer operating in this building “by amicable agreement with the landlord”.
Across London, the unregulated short-term rental industry has combined with the Airbnb boom to create a crisis. As Airbnb undertakes a review of all hosts and listings on its platform, the question it will be faced with is this: of its seven million listings, how many are run by companies that use fraudulent accounts, post fake listings and outsource the management of properties to call centres in the Philippines? In London alone, data scraped from Airbnb by City Hall shows that just one per cent of the capital’s hosts were behind 15 per cent of Airbnb listings. Such figures suggest the systemisation of Airbnb listings – think high-yield investment opportunity rather than “unique, authentic places to stay” – has become widespread.
*Some names have been changed
James Temperton is WIRED’s digital editor. He tweets from @jtemperton
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
