A short-term rental advocacy group is claiming that online “pirates” are stealing registration numbers from the City of Toronto’s website and using them to post fake listings on Airbnb. It’s a problem that has cropped up since the City decided to introduce a registration system as part of short-term rental regulation. Cottage country municipalities that are considering or implementing a similar registration system are also vulnerable to this scam.
Since September 2020, Toronto has required all short-term rental operators to register with the city. This is to “prevent the proliferation of ‘ghost-hotels’ and protect critical rental stock by maintaining access for tenants to long-term accommodations,” the city said in an email.
As part of this process, operators receive a registration number from the city, which they use to set up their listing. But all 6,277 of these registration numbers are publicly available online, along with the first three digits of the short-term rental’s postal code. Scammers can access the registration numbers and use them to set up fake listings.
The city is aware of the fake listings being posted. To combat the issue, it performs compliance audits using data discovery techniques. “The city compliance audits flag listings that have missing, inaccurate, or incomplete information that prevents the city from verifying registration status and operators who are not in compliance with the bylaw,” the city said.
If a listing’s information is flagged as incorrect during a compliance audit, the city will take the listing down. When the city flags a “pirated” listing, it may also take down the legitimate listing, penalizing an operator who’s following the bylaws.