A homeowner in Rosemead said strangers continue showing up at her front door after a scammer listed their home for rent on a popular travel website.
Alexis Cavish said her home was posted on a fake rental listing on Booking.com. Although the address is correct, the photos included in the post were not of her home.
“We found out our house was listed on Booking.com and we are not renting out our house on Booking.com, so we had some people come show up at our house thinking they had rented our home,” she said.
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A homeowner in Rosemead said strangers continue showing up at her front door after a scammer listed their home for rent on Booking.com, a popular travel website. (KTLA) -
A Booking.com logo is seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Cavish said, not only has she never rented out her home, she doesn’t even have an account with Booking.com.
However, within the last 24 hours, two sets of strangers arrived at her front door, showing her an email confirmation that they had booked her home as a short-term rental through the website. She had to turn them away.
“Luckily, so far, the people [who have shown up] have been really nice,” Cavish said. “But they’re strangers coming to the house where I have kids, I have a playground and I don’t like the idea of strangers coming to my house.”
Her home was listed by the scammer for nearly $400 a night. Cavish said she’s stunned as to how this mix-up could even happen.
“I’m frustrated because the company is clearly not doing its due diligence,” she said. “Why doesn’t the owner have to prove some ownership before being able to charge people money to stay?”
David Lazarus, KTLA’s consumer specialist, said similar rental scams are becoming increasingly popular.
“It’s a common enough scam that there’s a name for it — short-term rental scams — and it’s most common on Airbnb and Booking.com,” Lazarus explained.
Oftentimes, many rental or vacation sites have automated listing procedures, which means no humans are actually checking or verifying the postings.
He said the safest thing to do when renting a place online is to ensure that all payments are made on the site itself and not through a third-party payment app.
“Stay on the site,” Lazarus said. “In terms of any payment, any communication, don’t leave the platform. So, if the listing says they want you to pay with Zelle or Venmo or some other digital payment plan, and especially if they ask for crypto, walk away.”
Lazarus said another way to protect yourself is, when provided with the home’s address after booking, search the address on Google Maps to make sure the home matches the rental listing photos and description.
