Twice recently I’ve had people show up at my front door, with my address in hand, expecting to rent my home as an Airbnb. First, on April 10th and again on April 21st. The second time I was able to get a little more information from the person, but not much. The photos were not of my home, but were of the style house in the surrounding neighborhood.

One time I could understand being a mistake or a typo. Twice is an ongoing problem for me and my family and someone potentially using my address fraudulently.

The Airbnb support experience is… subpar at the very best.

At least the agent I spoke to on the phone (very kind and helpful) did locate a listing using my address, which hopefully means it will be taken down (or, as I suspect, changed so the fraud can continue).

But can we talk for a moment about the “support” email I received which included: A link to www.airbnb.com/uic/page/… which contains a form I cannot complete unless “I am a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA).” Which I am not, so if I don’t check that box, I can’t send the form. My next option was a help article. Let’s see if the eagle-eyed emong you can spot what was wrong with this link?

To know more about Reporting illegal content, please refer to these articles: admin.airbnb.com/help/arti…

I clicked the link and logged in with a gmail account, thinking while this may just be a hostile way to provide support, I’m already accepting this might be airbnb’s way of doing business.

But no, it was just an incorrect link. When I logged in. I was greeted with “Access blocked: airbnb.biz can only be used within its organization”. Guess who does not work for airbnb.biz? This guy.

The link is correct when the admin. is removed from it: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/3506 However, it links you right back to the form where I need to declare my residency in Europe to continue. So we’re back to square one.

At this point what do I have to lose by calling? So I called them.

and for other inquiry Feel free to connect with us anytime via chat / phone at +1-415-800-5959 and @www.airbnb.com/help/contact-us

Surprisingly, my call was answered quickly and I spoke to a very helpful representative who verified my account (which I didn’t even remember having) and was able to verify she saw a listing with the address I provided. And my request is being forwarded to their special team.

So… now we wait to see if anything comes of this or if I need to greet a third group of confused people at my doorstep trying to enter my home.