Airbnb Squatters Have Squatted Before, and Will Squat Again
The Startup Swindlers have a long history of running scams. A Valleywag tipster alerted us to another lawsuit filed against the Pashanin brothers. This time, it's a 2009 lawsuit in which pair were accused of squatting a San Francisco SRO hotel room for three months, once again refusing pay rent or vacate the premises.
The Pashanins' 2009 exploit was only the first iteration of the scam they have now perfected. Court documents indicate their then-landlord was able serve them a legal notice without incident, whereas a process server cannot get at the now-disguised Pashanin brothers. Then, in 2012, the Pashanins sued their landlord for construction-related nuisance. Now Maksym Pashanin is boldly bragging that they "would squat again."
It's not clear how much effort Kickstarter and Airbnb put into vetting the Pashanin brothers if they missed this impressive history of exploitation.
Update: a Kickstarter spokesperson declined to comment, but pointed us to news announced this morning that the crowdfunding company has suspended the Pashanin's active campaign.
An Airbnb spokesperson released this statement, telling Valleywag that the company is "reviewing [its] procedures."
17 million guests have stayed on Airbnb and these kinds of stories are incredibly rare. We have a number of security tools in place that help prevent bad actors from using our platform, but we are constantly making improvements. We're currently reviewing our procedures and making changes to our platform to give hosts more information about long-term reservations.