'We travelled to Belgium to find our Airbnb didn't exist'

A holidaymaker said a dream trip with family and friends turned bitter when she was scammed by someone posing as a property owner on Airbnb.

Mehri Jafarpour Shalmani travelled from Birmingham to Montigny-le-Tilleul, in Belgium, for a two-night break on 29 March.

But after arriving at the seven-bedroom house, the supermarket worker and her fellow travellers found a tenant living there – before a second group of tourists turned up saying they had also booked it.

Airbnb said as well as offering a full refund it was investigating its original handling of the incident and added that such issues were rare.

Advertised as a "fabulous place that offers good times", the Belgian house seemed ideal for Mrs Jafarpour Shalmani's group of 12, which included her own family, her sister's family, and neighbours.

"We decided we cannot afford to go on a luxury holiday, but we wanted to take the children somewhere to have some fun," Mrs Jafarpour Shalmani, from Oscott in Birmingham, said.

Although the house had no reviews and the host "Danijel" did not respond when she messaged the day before travelling, it did not occur to her anything was amiss.

After an eight-hour journey, the group reached their destination about 13:30 GMT and the door was answered by a woman who spoke little English.

Despite that, she managed to explain that she was the long-term tenant and the property should not have featured on Airbnb at all.

"While we were waiting, confused, another family came... they said that they are local and they [had] rented the property for their family members," Mrs Jafarpour Shalmani said.

She called Airbnb, but "had no luck for hours".

Meanwhile, another woman arrived and at first said she had also rented the property, then later explained she was a relative of the occupant and would contact the landlord.

Rather than enjoying her break, Mrs Jafarpour Shalmani called the police and photographed their lengthy attempts to reach Airbnb and resolve the situation outside the property.

The landlords also turned up and told officers they had no knowledge of the online listing.

After several hours, Airbnb agreed to fund one night's accommodation for the group at a local hotel and refund the £845 they had spent on the rental.

"By the time Airbnb came up with a solution it was around seven o'clock in the evening," Mrs Jafarpour Shalmani said.

However the chaos was not over and among the options initially offered to the group as alternative accommodation for the night was the scam property itself, this time advertised under the name of a different host, Cherif, but no more genuine than the first.

A search by the BBC revealed this link was still live on the Airbnb site on Wednesday, but has since been deleted.

After chasing the firm multiple times the following day for a second night of accommodation, the group abandoned their plans to travel to Keukenhof gardens in the Netherlands and returned home a day early.

"It was so horrible, it was so stressful," Mrs Jafarpour Shalmani said. "Because of what happened we have all these bitter memories from the trip.

"It's ridiculous how they just advertise properties without making the proper checks or anything."

She said she wanted compensation for the wasted trip, estimating ferry and fuel costs, and a missed day at the botanical gardens totalled £1,560.

“I didn’t actually go on holiday it was just a stress, nothing else," she said. "[I want to] make other people double think when booking with Airbnb."

She said she had previously had a positive experience of using the booking site, but questioned the level of support when something went wrong.

A spokesperson for the firm said they were "extremely disappointed" to hear about the group's experience.

"The listings have been removed from the platform as we continue to investigate and take steps to address our original handling," they said.

"Our team has been in touch with the guest to provide further support in addition to the full refund already provided.

"Every booking comes with AirCover and with 1.5 billion guest arrivals to date, issues on Airbnb are incredibly rare."

The firm confirmed that the fake host did not receive their fee for the booking.

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