A woman from London has received an apology from Airbnb after she was sent a bill for £5,314 due to apparent damages to a property she stayed at in New York.
The woman had booked the one bedroom apartment in Manhattan for a two-and-a-half month stay while she was studying according to an article from The Guardian. She ultimately decided to cut her stay short at seven weeks due to feeling unsafe in the area, but shortly after leaving the property the host informed Airbnb that she had caused around £12,000 (roughly $16,000) in damage to the apartment.
Some of the things the host alleged the woman had damaged included a robot vacuum, a sofa, microwave, TV, air conditioner, and a coffee table, they also accused her of staining a mattress with urine. They provided some photo evidence to back up their case but the woman refuted the accusations claiming that she had left the property in a good condition and that she could “provide testimony from an eyewitness who was with me during checkout.”
Airbnb told the woman to pay
The company initially told the woman that after a “careful review of the photos” it had been decided she would have to pay £5,314 (Roughly $7,135), but the woman appealed.
Looking at the photos herself the woman noticed that the supposedly cracked table had inconsistencies between the two photos. In one image the crack appears to be a little longer. There wouldn’t be such an inconsistency if the photos were genuine leaving her to conclude that the host had digitally altered the photos, perhaps with A.I.
“These inconsistencies are simply not possible in genuine, unedited photographs of the same object. This should have immediately raised red flags and discredited the host’s claims if the evidence had been reviewed with even basic scrutiny.”
Eventually Airbnb accepted her appeal, crediting the woman’s account with £500. When the woman vowed not to return to Airbnb she was refunded a fifth of her airbnb cost (£854). When she pressed the matter further she was refunded the full amount and the host’s negative review was taken down.
Is this a new scam?
A.I. has been seeing increased use in scams lately. This seems like yet another case in which this technology is being misused.
The woman expressed her concerns for future customers who may not fight back as hard as she did, “My concern is for future customers who may become victims of similar fraudulent claims and do not have the means to push back.” The fact that the company was so quick to charge her without properly examining the photos is cause for concern.
“Given the ease with which such images can now be AI-generated and apparently accepted by Airbnb despite investigations, it should not be so easy for a host to get away with forging evidence in this way.”
What’s even more shocking is that the host was not banned from Airbnb, they were merely given a warning. On Reddit, one individual shared their thoughts on the matter, writing: “They’ve rewarded immoral behavior by not punishing/removing that person from the system.” This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen a host get away with an obvious scam on Airbnb.
This is just another example of how A.I. generated imagery is changing how we view things. Photographs can no longer be taken at face value, meanwhile, companies like Airbnb seem to be doing little to combat the issue which will no doubt ultimately end up costing the consumer.
