Amsterdam AirBnb Scam
A British tourist booked a last minute trip to Amsterdam. He used Airbnb and booked what he believed to be a reasonably priced room in the centre of the city. His taxi driver had trouble finding the address provided. After driving up and down the street where the apartment should have been located the ugly truth revealed itself. His reasonably priced accommodation turned out to be a sea container. As the Dutch would say, ‘Heel brutaal’.
Pure luxury
splendid isolation
Clean and Unique Home
The ad claimed that the room was clean and unique and to be fair, it certainly was unique! He was at least considerate enough to provide a toilet as part of the container.
The shocked tourist attempted to claim his money back but the host refused this. No doubt he denies that forgetting to mention the fact that his ‘clean and unique room’ was part of a container was part of an Amsterdam Airbnb scam but at least Airbnb have refunded the unlucky tourists money. It turns out that the same host also had another container offered as a room on Airbnb in the Spaarndammerstraat in Amsterdam.
The authorities are unable to find the person behind this Airbnb Scam
So far the authorities have yet to find the scammer responsible, however, they’ve impounded and removed the containers so someone is likely going to be left with a huge bill to pay if they’re not returned.
If this is part of the plans that Amsterdam city council has to reduce tourism, I think this one will definitely be a success. Just place lots of fake ads on Airbnb and then provide visitors with keys to sea containers. Genius!
For more on this story (in Dutch) see the post on AT5.nl
No scammers were hurt during the writing of this post.
