After being scammed for a luxury rental home through “LA Exotic Life,” a fake rental site for homes, villas and cars, victims are urging residents of Southern California to use Airbnb as their primary host for rental homes and no other company listed on its website.

According to ABC7, two people in Southern California were recently scammed into thinking they would be able to rent a luxury home for an event, only to find out they were tricked. Scamming can occur in many situations like this and people have shown their opinion regarding this.

RENTING FALSE HOMES

The scammer, whom police identified as Nic Goodwin, had already scammed a few people before victims Jesus Villanueva and Arbel Illya came forward. Both men lost large amounts of money they had put down for the rentals.

Goodwin was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department and his website was permanently shut down.

RENT THROUGH THE WEBSITE

Junior accounting major Caleb Kneale had a similar experience with a different host website that was listed on Airbnb.

“The person who we rented the Airbnb from did not communicate to us that [construction workers] would be outside of the house with a trailer working on the home that we were living in,” Kneale said. “To take it a step further, my family had to work for over a year to get the money back that we had payed.”

Airbnb made a statement regarding the more recent scamming.

“We are permanently banning Goodwin from our website and we are helping with the LAPD investigation,” Airbnb said.