Fraud is widespread in the online vacation rental market, according to a new report by the Better Business Bureau. The study found nearly 43% of consumers have encountered a bogus listing.
Nancy Crawford, director of marketing and communications at the Better Business Bureau of the Mid-South, said the internet has opened the floodgates for scammers, so shoppers need to be savvy.
“There’s so much fraud in today’s world. About 26 million Americans are defrauded by some type of scam every year,” Crawford said. “It’s a multi-billion-dollar industry, and it is big business.”
The Better Business Bureau’s Scam Tracker received more than 1,300 reports of rental fraud from 2016 to 2019. The report noted fake rentals turn up on vacation rental sites such as Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway.com, despite these companies’ efforts to weed out scam listings.
Picture: More than 5 million consumers have lost money to online property-rental scams, according to a new report by the Better Business Bureau. (Adobe Stock)
