A fraudulent Airbnb listing for a "Bondi Beach luxury villa" has reappeared on the home-sharing platform, despite it being removed and the host banned last month following a Fairfax Media inquiry to Airbnb.
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The six-bedroom "Bondi Beach" coastal pad, which is in fact a home in Florida, has repeatedly appeared on Airbnb.
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It was last removed by Airbnb in February, after a Fairfax Media report revealed the listing. At that time the relevant host was also reportedly banned from the platform.
However for at least the past 10 days the listing for the property has reappeared, now fraudulently using the name and profile of a genuine Bondi-based Airbnb super host.
"It's an awful feeling, I feel like I've been abused," said the host, who does not want to encourage any links to the false listing, so has asked not to be named.
"You put all your hard work into doing something right, you sign all these Airbnb agreements and then some guy just comes along and swipes your profile picture and violates all their terms and it stays up there."
He said he has contacted Airbnb "at least four or five times," spending up to 30 minutes on the phone "getting absolutely nowhere".
"They take it down after a long process and then it's up again the next day. They tell me all these things, that I'm a high priority, all this rubbish, but I've wasted my time. As far as I've seen it's been up there for at least one week."
In 2016 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission recorded almost 200 complaints about fraudulent Airbnb listings, resulting in $88,000 in consumer losses.
Complaints last year had tripled since 2015, when there was $65,000 reported lost to these scams.
This week is at least the third time the Florida-based home has been listed on Airbnb as located in Bondi Beach.
After its initial report in February, Fairfax Media was informed by more than one consumer that they had reported the same listing to the platform in December last year.
Fraudulent activity on the home-sharing platform is managed by Airbnb's global Trust and Safety team, which works "24/7" to prevent fraud and permanently ban "bad actors".
An Airbnb Australia spokesman would not respond to questions about how fake accounts are monitored, nor what mechanisms are used to identify bad actors, but said the platform was "constantly looking for ways to stay ahead of fraudsters".
"Airbnb is a secure online platform, and the only way scams can succeed is if the bad actor convinces you to contact them off of the platform and then gets you to wire them money directly."
Airbnb again removed the fake listing after it was contacted by Fairfax Media on Monday.
ACCC deputy chairwoman Delia Rickard advises all consumers to never make a payment outside the official Airbnb website.
"Anytime you are asked to pay via a wire transfer or gift card, anything that is difficult to trace, that should tell you it's a scam," she told Fairfax Media in February.
For the genuine host that was recently scammed by the listing, the experience has been a red flag that not only guests are targeted by fraudsters.
"Building a good name is everything to me. I want to do everything to the best of my ability and I've done that. But then for some guy to come and take that away from you by using your face is alarming on multiple levels," he said.
