Airbnb said Wednesday that it will review every home and host on its site “with the objective to verify 100% of listings” after a Vice report exposed a nationwide scam that swindled vacationers out of thousands of dollars. “We are introducing the Airbnb Guest Guarantee,” Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky wrote in a tweet. “Starting on 12/15/19, if a guest checks into a listing and it doesn’t meet our accuracy standards, we will rebook them into a listing that is just as nice — and if we can’t, they will get 100% of their money back.” Chesky added that the company will also be “expanding manual screening of high-risk reservations flagged by our risk detection models.” The new measures come after an alarming Vice report detailed a scam in which people posing as homeowners posted fake listings, then essentially forced renters to cancel their reservations upon arrival, allowing them to still collect their money.
