Airbnb's sprawling marketplace enabled a business called Hands-Free Automation to take hotel rooms from other sites and list them for a higher price.
Getting involved with Hands-Free Automation, or HFA, required a payment of between $20,000 and $30,000 to effectively own a piece of Airbnb listings. Agyeman described it as a "minimal to no risk" path to extra income with a guaranteed return in three to six months of investment, "then pure profit after."
"We have always honored our fiduciary obligations with respect to allocation of company money in the best interest of the company," Hunker said in a written response to CNBC.HFA admitted to customers that it was "continuously encountering problems with" Airbnb "due to the constant changes they have made to their terms and services," according to the lawsuit.
Hunker said HFA doesn't have investors, but rather has clients who pay a "flat fee" for an arbitrage service. Yet, HFA says on its LinkedIn page that it helps "Airbnb investors add 300+ properties to their account without having to purchase the properties." Airbnb acknowledged in its annual report that "perpetrators of fraud" use "complex and constantly evolving" tactics on the site and that "fraudsters have created fake guest accounts, fake host accounts, or both, to perpetrate financial fraud."Agyeman, who started HFA with co-founder Megan Shears, claims to have created proprietary software that would fully automate the arbitrage process by trawling the internet for properties to relist at a markup.
Days went by without word from her host. Kathy, who lives in Texas, repeatedly reached out to Airbnb, but was told she'd have to engage directly with the host to cancel her booking. Agyeman relied on freelancers who would take data from other travel booking sites to use on their Airbnb and Vrbo listings, according to former employees and internal documents. An internal training video viewed by CNBC instructed copywriters on how to recycle the original listings' details for Airbnb or Vrbo.
Carr, who was listed as a property host, said that when it came to his experience with HFA, there was chaos on both sides of the marketplace. On one occasion, he said, he was contacted by the owner of a hotel who found one of its rooms on Airbnb."People are going to the hotels saying I got an Airbnb, and they're like, 'What are you talking about?'" Carr said.
Negative reviews flowed in from unhappy would-be vacationers, outraged investors and a business owner who'd discovered his property had been listed without consent. "I had my family double parked on the Vegas strip for three hours wasting gas while I was running back and forth between the three MGMs in 103 degree weather being told each time after waiting in line that there was no reservation in my name," the guest wrote.
Airbnb told CNBC that it was rolling out a more robust verification process in the U.S. and elsewhere beginning as early as 2024. Hunker said HFA could present records showing its clients profited from the company's services on the condition that CNBC sign a nondisclosure agreement. CNBC declined.
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