Family paid £574 for Airbnb London flat which was a fake

A CARDIFF family paid almost £600 to stay in a London flat – only to discover the property didn’t exist.

Gareth Evans, 37, and his family paid £574 to stay for two nights in a Mayfair flat they found advertised on the accommodation website Airbnb.

The Evans family had planned to stay for two nights in London to celebrate the 14th birthday of their eldest daughter Isobel.

But the listing on Airbnb turned out to be a fake, and the Evans family were left out of pocket.

Mr Evans, an economist, had followed instructions from an email address belonging to the flat’s “owner” which had used the Airbnb logo.

What he didn’t realise is that the address wasn’t an officially provided email used by Airbnb hosts to speak to customers.

These addresses usually include the suffix @airbnb.com but others are also used including @express.medallia. com and @outreach.airbnb.com

Mr Evans only suspected that something was wrong in the week before he and his family were due to travel.

The “owner” of the flat stopped responding to his email queries and Mr Evans reported them to Airbnb.

The website refused to refund the family’s money at first, saying that he should have paid for the flat through the internal system, rather through the method asked for in the email. After being contacted by a national newspaper Airbnb offered the family a full refund “as a gesture of goodwill”.

“In retrospect, it seems obvious the email I received was not from Airbnb,” said Mr Evans.

“At the time, when you are rushing to arrange everything, you don’t think twice about booking through Airbnb because you think it would carry out some checks.”

Mr Evans and his partner Mari McDonald, 38, spent a further £450 booking other accommodation so their children Magi, 11, and Ivor, five, could enjoy a weekend away with their sister Isobel for her birthday.

Airbnb has said the Evans family’s experience is very rare, but would not confirm if the flat in Mayfair exists.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Airbnb said: “Airbnb protects hosts and guests by handling all payment and communication strictly on our platform.

“When you keep your payment and communication strictly on our platform, payments are accurate and your account is secure.”

The company said it never asks for anyone’s payment details through an email, and that any correspondence from it or a host would come through one of 11 official email addresses.