{"id":2090,"date":"2019-10-09T10:10:09","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T10:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theholisticpursuit.com\/?p=2090"},"modified":"2019-10-11T19:31:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T19:31:00","slug":"our-very-worst-airbnb-experience-as-hosts-the-dream-booking-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theholisticpursuit.com\/blog\/our-very-worst-airbnb-experience-as-hosts-the-dream-booking-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Our very worst Airbnb experience (as Hosts)\u2014The dream booking scam"},"content":{"rendered":"
It came out of nowhere and it really was too good to be true. It was a guy, supposedly named Jay Young, working for Sitel Inc who contacted us through the app. He said his housing fell through last minute and he needed a place to stay while he was in town for work. Our calendar wasn’t even open for the future months because we weren’t sure when we would be returning home from Europe. We got super excited because anyone knows that longer bookings are a dream, especially when it’s only one person in your house. We have had people come in the past for a month or 6 weeks at a time and they’ve been great guests and the bookings are so worth it. Back to the story…<\/p>\n
Jay told us that his company was going to pay for his housing and could cut us a check that we would receive a few days later. For this reason he asked if we could go outside the Airbnb app to do the booking, because his company couldn’t write a check to airbnb. He even suggested we write a message on the Airbnb conversation saying accommodating him wouldn’t work out. This should have been our first clue.<\/p>\n
Calvin actually called him and spoke on the phone with him for a half hour. He said Jay was SO KIND and that he thanked Calvin so much for coming through last minute. We were just so excited and he was so believable and nice we didn’t even get a deposit!<\/p>\n
What were we thinking?! I mean we literally gave a stranger access to our home after only a half hour conversation. It was not our best or brightest moment. I think we tend to trust people easily because we have had such good experiences 99% of the time with Airbnb. I mean the guy talked about his twin daughters, their family trip to Greece, his business partners volunteer work at a troubled youth center in Clemson, that he was looking for a local church to attend while in the area, and that he loved coffee. He was so personal and seemed to know exactly what to say to us to win our trust.<\/p>\n