"Horror moves" is a series exploring haunted spots, travel disasters and vacations gone wrong. If you'd like to contribute to our future reporting and share your experience as a source, you can click here to fill out this quick form.
The short-term rental that Alison Walsh and her family rented for spring break in San Diego was nothing like what she saw in the listing photos.
Rusty nails were sticking out of the deck, the patio furniture was broken, and duct tape held together the stairs inside the house, according to the Arizona resident. The fourth bedroom labeled as a "casita" looked like a wooden shed from Home Depot.
"The immediate reaction walking in the front door was, 'this is not the listing that we saw on Airbnb,'" said Walsh. She had
booked the vacation rental with another family who lives in Kansas City, Missouri.
Not only did the property fail to match the photos she saw on the listing – which she believes were AI-generated – it also didn't live up to the several five-star reviews.
Walsh quickly reached out to the property management company to complain about the home's condition, which was then escalated to Airbnb. That night, the two families scrambled to find a new place to stay.
"There's absolutely no way that we would stay here with four children. And we just started making it a safety concern because that was part of it. The aesthetics of it and the condition of the home were just – there was no way."
It took about a month of going back and forth with Airbnb before the travelers received a full refund. Walsh said she spent hours of the trip on the phone with Airbnb, and after their complaint, she says the listing showed more one-star reviews that weren't there before.
"This isn't the experience we want for our guests, and we fully refunded this guest and removed the listing from the platform in April when this happened," Airbnb spokesperson Javier Hernandez told USA TODAY in a statement. "We enforce quality standards for listings, including requiring photos to accurately represent the space. If guests do experience an issue, our payment and support protections are there to help make it right, and we take action on listings that violate our policies."
Walsh isn't the only traveler who felt catfished by their vacation rental. In a September 2026 survey by accommodation platform Landing, 52% of 1,000 American respondents said they've booked a rental that looked significantly different than the listing's images at least once. Over a quarter have moved to just staying at hotels because "at least they knew what they were getting."
"Whether it’s a family vacation, a work trip or an extended stay, having extra space and the comforts of home can make a huge difference," said Marcus Higgins, co-founder and president of Landing. "But it’s the times when they’re not great that can really impact a trip. When what you walk into doesn’t match what you thought you booked, you’re suddenly dealing with disappointment and unnecessary headaches when you should be enjoying your time away."
Short-term vacation rentals offer more space and flexibility for travelers, but these platforms' business model can make them vulnerable to scams. Recent data by Saily and NordStellar found a 30-fold increase in Airbnb scam mentions on dark-web forums compared to the first half of 2023.
AI images, fake reviews, bait-and-switch tactics, moving payment to external platforms, and properties that straight up don't exist are just a few of the ways scammers can trick travelers – and technology is only making it more prevalent. Airbnb found that 62% of Americans think AI-generated content makes it harder to identify scams.
Here's what to know about short-term rental scams.
How vacation rentals can be scams
On sharing-economy platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com, travelers trust other people's reviews and even the listings themselves to book accommodations, but it's impossible to verify that they're all genuine, according to researcher Julie Reid, who is a professor of communication science at the University of South Africa. She's also the author of the book "Delusive Speech in the Sharing Economy: Scam Inc.," based on 600 firsthand accounts of people scammed by short-term vacation rentals.
Reid equates these booking sites to "a social media platform because it's the users themselves that are creating the listings; it's the users themselves that are writing the reviews." In the same way you shouldn't believe everything you see on a social media feed, you should be vigilant about vacation rental listings.
Scammers have figured out how to take advantage of the trust travelers have for the properties listed on the site. Despite verification processes and other protocols by booking companies, scammers keep getting more advanced at exploiting platform loopholes. On Airbnb, verifying a listing's location is optional, and even then it only requires photos and videos of the property. Scammers could also use fake IDs to get verified on these platforms.
"In the old days, scammers would have to identify a target; they would then have to find out what that person's needs and desires are; then they would have to work out a scam that plays to that person's vulnerabilities," Reid said. "Scammers today don't have to do that at all because sharing economy platforms are basically purpose-built around needs and desires."
While someone could fall victim and lose money, they could also be endangered. In her research, Reid came across cases of robberies, assaults and other serious crimes.
Haggard Law Firm partner Pedro Echarte III has seen an uptick in vacation-rental cases in the past few years, mainly involving injuries and accidents due to unsafe conditions or properties not up to code. He credits that to the services becoming more popular, along with an inability to regulate the abundance of listings. "What we're seeing is ... most of these places don't have any policies or procedures or standards that are being followed or that anyone's really overseeing," he said. "I mean, we're not talking about a big hotel brand. We're talking about individual people that own homes."
What do booking companies do to protect travelers?
Most platforms have anti-fraud protocols to reduce scammers and flag fake listings, but they're not foolproof.
Every host and traveler on Airbnb must have their identity verified, although the platform does have a disclaimer on its website that it "doesn't guarantee that someone is who they say they are." In 2025, Airbnb blocked more than 265,000 suspicious listings with its "anti-fraud technology," according to a June 2026 news release. The company also launched a pop-up to "remind users in message threads to keep payments and communication on Airbnb." External platforms are often less secure and aren't covered under Airbnb's AirCover protection.
Vrbo said online that all bookings are automatically protected with VrboCare, so a traveler who was scammed would receive a refund from either Vrbo or their bank, based on how they paid. If the host canceled a confirmed booking or the property was misrepresented, they could also get refunded, but it depends on the specific terms and conditions. Vrbo will also help you find alternative accommodations, but reimbursement is on a case-by-case basis.
Booking.com said it uses AI technology to identify fake listings. "If our systems detect suspicious activity, we assign a risk score and carry out additional manual and automated reviews," the platform said, and that most fake listings are detected and removed within 24 hours. The company also has a 24/7 support team to assist in finding other accommodations and raising a dispute with their bank to get a refund.
What rights do I have as a traveler?
It's hard to say. As Echarte put it, the fine print often means companies don't take full responsibility if something goes wrong, especially if you moved to a different platform to pay. But most do offer some sort of assistance.
The first step would be to document everything, including all messages with the host, screenshots of the online listing and photos of the property. Travelers should complain to the host and then also reach out to the platform – all while keeping a record of those communications as well. If there was a serious incident that involves injury or crime, you may choose to enlist the help of an attorney.
When Walsh started complaining to the hosts, she said they became more aggressive. She credits how "extremely persistent" she and her travel companions were in getting back their money, driven by the fact that they had essentially paid double for the second rental. "If we would have given up, they would have been happy to keep our money," she said. "Let's just say that."
The experience hasn't stopped her from booking short-term rentals, especially when she travels with her family of four. "I would definitely be more careful in the future, scouring the photos and pre-asking questions about the booking," she said. "It definitely made me more aware of what details I will look at the next time that I book somewhere."
What can travelers do to prevent scams
Here's what travelers can do to avoid vacation rental scams.
- Do an initial scan. When you get to the rental, take a look around. If something doesn't seem right – even a minor issue – Echarte suggests travelers find other accommodations and report the listing. "If the host isn't taking care of their property, it's not just going to be one issue; it's going to be multiple issues," he said.
- Do your own research. Due to the prevalence of fake reviews, Reid recommends travelers go beyond the listing page to determine if they should book. "The problem is that a genuine listing and a fake listing look exactly the same," she said. "You can't see any red flags because there are no red flags to see." Check Google Street View to see if the property exists or reverse image search to see if the pictures have been pulled from somewhere else.
- Heed red flags. If the listing seems slightly sketchy, follow your gut instinct. Red flags include suspicious behavior by the host, like a request to be paid outside of the booking company's secured platform. If the price feels too good to be true, it probably is.
Kathleen Wong is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY. She's the author of "The Conscious Traveller Hawai'i" and is based in Hawaii.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: She thought she'd booked a dream vacation rental. Then she arrived
