AirBnB-Fake-Review-Networks

This website provides details related to insincere hosts, cohosts and "fake guests" participating in wide spread, commercially damaging, and criminal fake review networks on AirBnB. Those profiled are operating out of Baltimore Maryland and affecting the Baltimore marketplace as well as others as far away as Coachella CA and beyond.

These fake review networks were found during a review of the compromised Baltimore Short Term Rental Marketplace in 2017 and 2018.

The image below was taken in spring 2018. Matt Durrette currently has over 1000 reviews on AirBnB. He's also the head of a large fake review network that he's created with friends of his and those he cohosts for. This image should give you an idea of the benefits he and those he cohosts for have gained from their fraud. Matt was a cohost for Luis and Jen/Derrick, when they came to market...

This publishing is intended to encourage and then track legal complaints related to hosts, cohosts and guests who have committed dozens upon dozens of Lanham Act , Consumer Protection and mail fraud violations in pursuit of profits and premium advertising space on the AirBnB platform. It seems complaints against AirBnB for negligence and possibly fraud are in order too, but are they too big to sue?

Our global commercial system is in great turmoil due to a level of corporate, government, and banking corruption that is unlike anything seen in modern history.

As a small business person, I can't do much about that, but I can try to protect myself and positively affect my own marketplace by taking steps to unmask malfeasance that I'm aware of that is negatively affecting me and those around me.
This publishing and any legal proceedings that stem from them are my way of seeking balance and rectification in a commercial system I'm involved in that has slipped way out of balance with too many inequitable negative affects on me and those around me to be ignored any further.

My intention is to pursue these bad apples until all legal options have been aggressively exhausted and/or satisfactory corrections have been achieved.

This home page includes the following sections:

1) The Baltimore Backstory

The Baltimore marketplace for 3 to 4 bedroom vacation rentals (fully furnished rentals) started in the 2005 time frame.

My property at 627 S. Paca St was one of the first three properties in the marketplace in Baltimore in 2005. As a point of reference, AirBnB was not founded until 2008.

From 2005 to 2014, the market slowly grew and it grew in a generally healthy manner.

The business had a relatively high barrier to entry and the risks were large enough that it kept the market in balance.
Competitors knew and they generally respected each other given they had made similar investments and taken similar risks to enter the market.
While competing against each other, we also worked together to meet the needs of larger groups and we shared leads when appropriate to assist travelers with their needs.
All competition was focused on the VRBO/Homeaway platform and via personal websites. Craiglist was an original source for advertising too , but that platform became disrupted seemingly by those who wanted to sell advertising space.
AirBnB was generally a non-existant player in the full home rental market from 2008 until 2014. The AirBnB business was founded on the idea of couch and room rentals in occupied homes. The idea of renting out a fully furnished, unoccupied home without proper screening systems, security deposit protections, and logical lease reviews prior to a contract ratification did not (and still do not) make sense to those of us renting full, unoccupied homes.

Prior to 2015, the entire vacation rental market for 3-4 bedroom homes in downtown Baltimore had only grown to include about about 25 homes. In 2012 I relocated to California for various reasons including health issues, and at that time I put 625 S. Paca St into service as a vacation rental right next to 627 S. Paca St too.

The market was so small, it was very sensitive to newcomers. A few new properties without a commensurate increase in travelers could be negatively felt by all in the marketplace. Likewise, when a player would drop out, the business would go up for all of us by a few points.

In 2015 there was a slow, but noticeable increase in competitors using unfair competitive means to break into the marketplace. One investor took out an owner-occupied VA Loan to acquire a property that would compete directly with mine and those around me. The VA Loan funded his purchase at 103% LTV (so he got in with no money down). He immediately updated the home and turned it into a vacation rental that competed with all of us in the downtown area. He felt joining the marketplace was lucrative enough it was worth committing a felony. It's believed he and others who entered the marketplace just before him were seemingly also using fake bookings and fake reviews to gain ground on those of us who had been in business longer as well. For more on this fraud, see https://3-cases-of-mortgage-fraud.bryancanary.com/ .

In late 2016 and early 2017 there was a flood of new properties put in service by three or four different investors and/or investor groups with a wide ranging array of unethical and illegal activities which totally disrupted all aspects of the marketplace. This flood was seen by different groups on both the VRBO platform and the AirBnB platform.

In May 2017 the competition had gotten so fierce, I felt forced to sell 625 S. Paca St. That sale was completed in August 2018 when my prize possession was turned over to a new owner. At that time I intuitively knew there to be problems with my competition but the flood from 2016 to 2017 happened so fast, it was hard to get oriented. With a lot of research after the fact, it is easy now to see that much of this competition was engaged in fully nefarious and in many cases illegal behavior with short and/or long term goals.

In late 2017 and then early 2018 myself and another economically injured host started to do an in-depth study of the AirBnB marketplace. A preponderance of illogical pricing and skyrocketing review counts for new hosts that defied the basic laws of economics and common sense was our starting point. .

Pricing for a few 3 and 4 bedroom homes on AirBnB was fully illogical. In two cases, hosts were advertising 3 and 4 bedroom, $280 to 400k investment properties for an absurdly low price of $99/night on AirBnB while advertising the same homes for $499 and above on another. During this time, the going rate for their offerings was in the $250-350/night range. What were they doing straddling the market like that?
In another case, a known political activist with a long record of tiny refinances on a small, modest primary residence in HIghlandtown and her brother, a full time student, bought almost $1Million in property in mostly cash, with almost no registered liens. Their own statements on Facebook indicate they clearly were not a newly minted lottery winners or new heirs to a small nest egg. To add to the mystery, a Baltimore Maryland Real Estate Broker and Licensed Attorney who claimed to be her long time friend and agent on her buys was in fact no where to be found in the MLS transaction records. ??? One can only presume he may have been tied into some funny financing that seems to have transpired but that's just a guess at this time. Needless to say, something strange indeed was transpiring in the marketplace.

A common thread among much of the malfeasance on the AirBnB platform that tied everyone together was the Baltimore Hosts Coalition facebook group, which was founded by Rachel Indek.

As a result of our research, we discovered that three of the Admins of this group ( Rachel Indek, Matt Durrette, Roman Meytin ) and one out of state investor with ties to massive real estate flipping ( Michael Sung ) had in fact been involved in the giving and/or receiving of reviews from friends and family which resulted in the gaming of the AirBnB metrics system for ad placement and other benefits.

The players using the most Fake Reviews for Metrics gaming were Matt Durrette and Roman Meytin.

Matt Durrette has parlayed his network of cohosts and fraudulent review team into a situation where he now has over 1000 reviews, he now controls or influences dozens of homes, and he now controls an estimated $600,000/year in Baltimore short term rental market revenues.
Romay Meytin has partnered with fellow Internet advertising executive John DeMayo to parlay fraudulent reviews on Meytin's properties in Baltimore as well as some massive investment properties in Coachella CA that can generate upwards of $300,000 in just three to four weeks of bookings during the famed Coachella Music festivals.

This publishing below is going to focus on:

The technical nature of fake reviews. How they are created, what qualifies and what benefits are gleaned
The ecosystem that AirBnB has created that is ripe for fraud
The for profit reasons why AirBnB has not responded at all to notices of wide spread platform malfeasance related to fake reviews
Matt Durrette and Roman Meytin's fake review networks, with a lot more attention on Matt Durrette for now.

Since 2017 dozens upon dozens of honest competitors in the marketplace have been pushed out of business just like I was with 625 S. Paca St. I'm hanging on to 627 S. Paca St by a thread. The bulk of that push can be laid on just a few bad apples who are trying to monopolize the Baltimore City marketplace. With this publishing and this push, I am intent on returning balance where balance has been lost.

2) How are fake reviews created, what qualifies, how can you spot fake reviews and how can you prove them in a legal setting?

Fake reviews can only be created AFTER a booking has been ratified between a host and a guest AND AFTER the departure date of the booking has passed.

A review can NOT be created in the AirBnB system without a full booking process.
A full booking process includes an inquiry and/or booking request, an acceptance of a booking (manually by the host or via instant book), and it should include some dialogue in the communication console that makes sense for a booking.

It's best to break down "Fake reviews" into two categories: 1) Those created by "guests" who never stay at a home during a booked time period and 2) those created by a guest who stays at the property, knows the host and/or cohost to a significant degree, and then writes a glowing review (or any review for that matter) while failing to disclose a material relationship to the host/cohost.

Reviews that are written by individuals who never stay at the property are clearly the most egregious and criminal forms of fake reviews. The fake reviewers may be known or unknown to the property owner or cohost.
Reviews written by those known to host that stay at the property but do NOT disclose a material connection to the host in the review should in fact also be viewed as criminal, based on Lanham Act litmus tests and other measure of fair play and deception which will be covered later.

Fake reviews happen during one of two distinct time periods in a listing's evolutionary process.

Fake Inaugural Reviews are fake reviews written as soon as a property comes on the market. These are designed to help a host/ cohost/property get over numerous market entry hurdles. For example, AirBnB won't give a property any star rating at all until three reviews are logged. They also won't include the property in the primary flow of ads until three reviews have been had. We generally categorized anything written in the first month to two months of reviews as being an inaugural review.
Fake non-inagural reviews are fake reviews written after the has enough reviews and seasoning to have been established in the search system. There is no clear delineation for the conversion from inagural to non-inagural reviews. With AirBnB we might state that the first 5-10 reviews should be thought of as inaugural with a major focus on the first five or so.

Fake Reviews are created for four primary reasons:

AirBnB has created massive incentives to fake reviews. These create motives on top of those that naturally exist in any online marketplace. We'll introduce some of these here as well as more natural reasons that exist in all marketplaces, and then we'll get into AirBnB drive incentives more in a subsequent section.

The first review on a new property on AirBnB will earn a referral agent over $400.
Three reviews are required on AirBnB before a property is given a star rating and included with a more normal flow of advertising sort.
If a negative review is written, a fake review just after that be used to counter information in the negative review and/or it can be used to cast negative light on the reviewer who wrote an accurate but negative review.
If there are open nights just a few nights out that the host is confident will not be booked, by having a friend or paid accomplace to place a booking and write a fake review , the host gets the benefit of inflating their reviews metrics for better ongoing ad placement. This scenario is believed to be a major problem on AirBnB. The questionable reviews are often only for one day stays and short stays. They are often glowing. We were unable to nail down any reviewers doing these, but we suspect there is a very large infrastructure on the internet setup to offer this type of last minute booking with a short review for metrics growth only that is flourishing and outside of the scope of this publishing.

The relationship between the Host and/or Cohost AND the Fake Reviewer should be thought of as one of four flavors:

The Host or CoHost engages a friend, acquaintance, or someone unknown to them for a fake booking / fake review. No one will be present at the home during the booked period and no cleaning service will be used after their fake stay.
The Host or CoHost engages a friend, acquaintance, or someone unknown to them for a fake booking / fake review in which someone may appear at the home for minute, a partial stay, or a full stay, solely for the purposes of providing a fake review. We do not believe this is a common scenario as it's easier to just have folks book and not show up, but it may be a part of the protocal for some local fake review groups who thought it might shade their fraud somehow a little better if ever questioned.
The Host or Cohost has created a dummy AirBnB account or taken over control of one created by friend which they use to book their own places and that of others for purposes of then writing fake reviews for themselves and/or others. -- It's fairly clear that an AirBnB user account with the label of "Jenna" is in fact controlled and used for fake reviews by Matt Durrette and/or Jenna Sanders. This "Jenna" supposedly lives in Baltimore yet she's booked 15-20 stays in Baltimore, mostly inaugural but a few just after bad reviews, and she always gives (herself) a glowing review. Magically, this same Jenna has also provided a review at her husbands's parents home, which is 4 hours from Baltimore, not claiming she was in fact at the inlaws home (although they weren't in-laws when the review in question was written).
The Host or Cohost had friends book and stay in the home for legitimate reasons, but upon departure, the guest writes a glowing review while failing to disclose they had a personal relationship to the host. Such a comment is important for transparency and fairness purposes for those who may use the reviews in the future for selecting a home from a list of homes.

Spotting fake reviews and identifying fake reviewers was/is time consuming:

We started by looking at properties related to those involved with the Baltimore Hosts Coalition who also had suspicious and illogical pricing.
We went to he last page of reviews on dozens of listings and started working our way forward from what should have been the first review to the most recent of reviews.
We looked for inaugural reviews that were verbose and those missing basic balancing comments. The Durrette network's fake inaugural reviews stand out like a sore thumb. Anyone who put the time in to look for those can spot them as having been faked for the host or co-host's benefit.
We looked for non-inaugural reviews that countered prior negative reviews. We have a classic situation of this documented when "Jenna" writes a counter review to a negative review received on one of Matt and Jenna's listings.
We noted the first names and city of origin of the guests who seemed to have written fake reviews, and as our research progressed, , we saw the same users writing inaugural reviews on different accounts with the tell-tale signs of fake/loaded verbiage.
Once we had a fake reviewer identified by first name and city of origin, we then did massive work on the internet, only with publicly available information, to try to figure out how they may have known the host or cohost of the property. We'd start with the host and cohosts place of work as a common thread, then we'd shift to their college or university, then we'd shift to their high school and high school home town. Once we got possible leads, we'd use LinkedIn and Facebook and other internet outlets that offered photos to try to make visual comparisons to the profile photos from AirBnB. It was very time consuming work, but we got lots of hits. It was rather fun to make a connection actually...
We were successful matching fake reviewers to hosts with dozens upon dozens of hours of work
Most of our matches for the Durrette cartel were validated when Matt and Jenna posted a wedding website in late 2018 which showed all the members of the Durrette Wedding party. Amazing how many of Matt's Best Men and Groomsmen conveniently had written inaugural reviews on his properties....
This fake review screening was complicated by an "odd system" AirBnB uses for presenting reviews. In late 2016 a few people started to notice the first reviews on a property were not always shown in last position. They questioned and complained about this oddity in a small AirBnB forum post. AirBnB staff indicated they had decided to sort reviews by the guests' country of origin first. The real odd part about that is most of the reviews out of order were written in plain and clear English, and there was no flag on the review indicating guest country of origin at all. What's the point in that everyone asked, and they got no logical response. It's this writers belief that that was an excuse for a system that was implemented to hide fake inaugural reviews. There is a situation on one listing that is documented where an inaugural reviewer who stayed in a home in 2017 would have had to change their nationality between screen shots taken in 2018 and 2019, during which time a fake review was shifted higher into the sort order. This is worth a separate investigation, but again, outside the scope of this publishing...

Things that can be done in a legal setting to qualify or disqualify fake reviewers:

There are two different things that need to be shown 1) Did the reviewer know the host or cohost AND did they write a review that implied they did not when they could have just as easily have acknowledged the relationship as a disclaimer in the review. This is relevant no matter if a stay actually transpired at all or not 2) Did the reviewer stay in the home at all.

Guilt by Association without disclaimer --> In the cases of Matt Durrette and his crew, and Roman Meytin and his crew, we were able to identify the reviewers as friends. In Matt's case, his wedding website went a long way to proving the association, but that wasn't necessary. In one case, one fake reviewer is Matt's reference on AirBnB. In others, they clearly went to a small high school together. In others they worked at the same company. In others they were all in a single internet forum chatting about AirBnB business. In Roman's case, we found his fake reviewers to be friends via internet forums and past work experience. After identifying someone as a friend an object look at the review makes it very clear the reviewer wanted people to think they had no prior association with the host or cohost. In these specific cases and examples, there really isn't much grey matter. The goal in the fake reviews from friends was to appear as if there was no relationship and the reviews are so long and over the top, the simply stood out from healthy, normal reviews with balance. It's that obvious.
Guilt by lack of occupancy --> If a fake reviewer lived out of town at the time of the stay, cell phone records and credit card records would clearly show if they were in fact in Baltimore during the stay.
Guilt by lack of occupancy --> If a fake reviewer lived in town at the time of the stay, a logical reason as to why they needed to book with supporting information should be requested. In addition, cell phone records and credit card records would clearly show they were in fact in Baltimore during the stay (who knows, maybe that was a weekend they were in fact out of town from Baltimore. If so that would show up and debunk their stay claim just like those from out of town)
Guilt by Association without disclaimer and/or Guilt by lack of occupancy --> AiBnB communication console dialogue should be logical for a booking and stay. It should NOT show any review coaching or suggestive behavior.
Guilt by Association without disclaimer and/or Guilt by lack of occupancy --> Email communication outside of the airbnb console should be clean. In theory, they would need to pass phone and/or email information via the console first.
Guilt by lack of occupancy --> Cleaning records should show a cleaning for every booking/ review. Matt very specifically posted information on the internet talking about employing Baltimore Citizens as cleaning and maintenance people to run his growing "business". Everyone with the Baltimore Hosts Coalition also made it a big deal to talk about paying help a "living wage" and the most common and logical help one in this business would need would be cleaning help
Guilt by Association without disclaimer and/or Guilt by lack of occupancy --> If the booking pricing itself was dropped dramatically from typical rates, that would imply a fake booking for fake review purposes.
Guilt by Association without disclaimer and/or Guilt by lack of occupancy --> if the booking was for only a single night, that might imply a fake booking for fake review purposes.
Guilt by Association without disclaimer and/or Guilt by lack of occupancy --> If the booking console dialogue was not typical for a booking that would imply a fake booking for fake review purposes.

NOTE: Any attempt to lie by a fake reviewer in court could constitute contempt of court. While some of the leaders of these fake review programs may feel comfortable attempting to lie with the support of an Attorney, it might be pretty foolish for a person barely involved to attempt to lie to cover up for a friend given the risks and penalties for getting caught lying in court may outweigh the penalties to admitting to their small contribution to a much larger fraudulent situation that was well above their participation level.

3) What laws do hosts, cohosts and fake reviewers violate when creating fake reviews?

When laws are violated there has to be a harmed party. There are four primary parties that can claim harm:

AirBnB can claim harm -- AirBnB can claim this is damaging to their brand and their reputation. Presumably these claims would be filed under some kind of liable or defamation claim, but I'm not sure. AirBnB has not filed any claims at all against fake reviewers, unlike Amazon.com and many others who have fully acknowledged the commercial damage that fake reviewers cause. This is glaring omission clearly contradicts their terms of service which demand fairness and fairplay as well as public assurances of a fair and transparent platform. Any claims by AirBnB that they are not aware of the proliferation of fake reviews and fake review networks in Baltimore are fully false, as they were informed of all of this in 2018 by this author directly.
Competitors can claim harm -- The Lanham Act is a federal that has an unfair competition component and Maryland has a state level Tort that clearly protect competitors from unfair competition. Honest Fraud may or may not be relevant.
Consumers can claim harm -- There are federal and state laws the protect consumer's from being mislead. Honest fraud should be relevant.
The State's Attorney can claim harm for anyone above plus the Government, States, Cities and Communities in general -- The States Attorney should have access to the above laws as well as laws that regulate commerce and interstate commerce. Mail Fraud is seemingly a regular goto for situations such as this (for some reason). Racketeering is not in fact a single charge. Racketeering is a claim that is made when multiple felonious activities transpire which are clearly coordinated in a conspiratorial manner. The possibility for Rackettering charges here should be very real.

The Lanham Act for Anti-Competitive Behavior:

The Lanham Act is a Federal Act that is used most for Intellectual Property issues. However, it has an anti-competitive component with four tests for anti-competitive behavior. The litmus test for anti-competitive behavior are:

objectively false or misleading
used in commercial ad in interstate commerce
It’s use deceives or is likely to deceive consumers in a material way and
Advertising has caused or is likely to cause competitive or commercial injury.

Objectively False or Misleading -- It is expected that most of the fake inaugural reviews documented below transpired without a home stay. That would qualify as objectively false and misleading. Even if a home stay transpired, it it was for a one night booking from a guest who was known to the host, and it resulted in a glowing review without a disclosure of non-arms length transaction, that is also misleading. If a review came after a multi-night stay from a friend known to a host, if the review contradicted claims of multiple other reviewers who were not related, that should also qualify as objectively false or misleading.

Used in Interstate Commerce - Yes

It's use deceives or is likely go deceive consumers in a material way - The fakers would not do it if they didn't expect to earn additional bookings from their fraud. Fake inaugural reviews will most certainly mislead the first few real guests, as properties will show up in ads with star ratings when no sincere guests have ever stayed in the home. After a lot of reviews exist the potency of the fake inaugural review content diminishes but the fake non-inaugural reviews gave a kick start to all reviews and all those metrics stay with the home for life. As mentioned prior, AirBnB only shows 18 properties at a time for a given set of search criteria from a user. Review count and review quality are known to be the primary metrics used for ad placement. Thus consumers are deceived in a material way for the life of the property as any property list of 18 which contains properties with fake reviews by default has displaced properties from that level of search results which did not have fake reviews.

Advertising has caused or is likely to cause competitive or commercial injury - The fakers would not do it if they didn't expect to earn additional bookings from their fraud. My average booking was over $1000 per stay and I average 40+ stays a year. If I lost even 1 booking to a competitor due to their ad position from a fake review or content in a review, that represents over a $1000 loss. If someone stole a $1000 piece of personal property from my porch and got caught, they would be charged with a felony. This fake review behavior should be treated no different than theft of personal property with values commensurate with the booking values, which are significant. In fact, this is far worse than theft of personal property, there is no way to know if the community has lost 1 or 10 or 50 bookings to even a single property in a given year.

4) What has AirBnB done to encourage fake reviews? (how's $7000 in travel credits and 3.6x first months bookings sound?)

AirBnB has created an ecosystem that literally begs people to create three fake inaugural reviews in the first month a property is listed. AirBnB in fact pays them handsomely to do it and they suggest that their earning for the subsquent three months will be 3.6x greater than month one, and they have ad placement algorithms and sales data for the entire geographic area that can be used to make that suggestion a reality for every new host?!!

The benefits of three fake inaugural reviews includes

a $432 payout to a referrer
The earning of a star rating which you can not get without three reviews
Higher ad placement as a result of any star rating which does not exist without three reviews
3.6x more bookings in the next three months if three reviews are recieved in month one of a listing?!!? (holy crap, and they have algorithms that can make this happen by steering searches if they wanted too...)

In addition

Referrers can earn a total of $7000 in travel credits for setting up insincere hosts and providing even a single fake review.
And while AirBnB says there is no transferring of travel credits, if folks have figured out how to book for other parties for fake review purposes, certainly they have learned to do the same thing for the reselling of travel credits. With the travel credits, AirBnB has in fact credited an entire digital travel currency that nearly begs people to commit fraud with handsome dividends.
- Think about these numbers from the perspective of folks living in second and third world countries with internet connections. Making even $10-30 a day on fake bookings and/or reselling travel credits for others can earn one a handsome living and all the while AirBnB metrics would be skyrocketing with "business"

"Earn $432 for every new host you refer .. earn $432 when they complete their first reservation"

From AirBnB Terms and Conditions for Referrals...

AND AS FOR THE VALUE OF THE FIRST THREE INAUGURAL REVIEWS...

1) "Once you get three reviews, you'll get a star rating in search results which will help your listing stand out. New listings that get booked and reviewed int he first month appear more often in search results and get an average of 3.6x more bookings in their first three months"

2) "We'll let guests who are searching in your area know they can save 20% if they book your home. .... only the first 3 guests who book will be eligible for this offer"

3) "The offer will be available to 3 guests. That way you can get 3 reviews and your star rating. After 3 guests have claimed your offer, it won't be valid anymore. "

5) What benefits does AirBnB get by creating an ecosystem for fake inaugural reviews and for turning a blind eye to massive fake review networks and booking fraud?

AirBnB has never, ever so much as acknowledged fake reviews as being a problem in any form, when in fact they are nearly an epidemic run wild at this time with major AirBnB hosts in Baltimore alone.

But they have spoken over and over again about the importance for trust required for this system...

What benefits does AirBnB get by creating an ecosystem for fake inaugural reviews and for turning a blind eye to massive fake review networks and booking fraud?

AirBnB makes commission on bookings no matter if they are sincere or fake
AirBnB's overall metrics look better with fake bookings and fake reviews. This inflates metrics for venture investors which can be used to fake out investors in the next round and when seeking an IPO. These fake metrics benefit them the same way Wells Fargo used account openings as fake metrics for investor fraud.
AirBnB trust is not questioned if they never shine a light on their own very dark, brown and stinky shit.

How much of this is artificial ?

$432 is a massive amount of money to pay out for a new host referal when you are the only game in town. And then, to allow for up to $7000 in travel credits for referals when you are the only game in town?

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2269/airbnb-referral-program-terms-and-conditions

Could AirBnB be using clever money magic systems to buy or fund much of their own growth?

AirBnB had expressed intentions of going public in 2018. The CFO was pulled in February 2018 and that claim of going public was squashed during that time. This writers reporting on AirBnB Fake Review was in the mix just days and/or weeks prior to that change in position. Coincidence?

These AirBnB Terms of Service have been grossly unenforced...

This was one of the "promotionals" that went out on Twitter in 2018 to raise awareness to this problem.

Just because this is new news to you does not mean it's new news to those involved.

They've had over a year to clean up their act. Instead of cleaning up, most have doubled down...

This was one of a half dozen tweets I shared directly with AirBnB (and others) regarding my concerns about the fake review networks.

6) Fake Review Network #1 - Matt Durrette and Jenna Sanders (aka Baltimore AirBnB and now "Cozi")

Deep research into Matt Durrette and Jenna Sanders fake review network was done in two stages. The first stage was in Spring 2018 and the second was in Spring 2019 as a followup

Stage 1 - Research in Spring 2018

In Spring 2018 we found a total of 6 AirBnB accounts with owners related to Matt Durrette that had provided Matt and 9 homes he was cohosting for a total of 22 fake reviews. These fake reviews we are referring to are from Guest to Host, but there was an additional complimentary 22 back from host to guest, so in total there were actually 44 fake reviews logged.

The "Guests" writing the most fake inaugural reviews were "Jenna" and "Jeremy".

"Jenna" wrote 8 fake reviews for Matt Durrette/Jenna Sanders related properties.

Based on review content "Jenna" is presumed to be Jenna herself.
This same Jenna happened to review Matt Durrette's parents home in central Virginia claiming "she and her boyfriend" had a great time. If her boyfriend was Matt, they were simply at her boyfriend's parent's home four hours from Baltimore for a weekend visit...

"Jeremy" wrote 9 reviews for Matt Durrette related properties. Eight of those were inagural reviews.

Jeremy's AirBnB profile indicated he was from Texas
His reviews always implied he was in town for some type of "business meeting" at places like "John's Hopkins".
Based on LinkedIn, Jeremy Eley work as hired help at a winery near the home town where he and Matt went to HighSchool together.
As it turned out, in Jeremy was Durrette's good friend in high school and his best man in his wedding.
It appears Jeremy was writing fake reviews for others outside of Matt's network too. Some of his one night stays overseas should be investigated.
Jeremy was a Journalism major in College. It seems he enjoyed stretching his fictional wings...

Other people in the Durrette Wedding party who wrote fake inaugural reviews included:

Leroy Dalton (another High School friend along with Jeremy),
Malek Thomas ( a coworker at Northrup Grumman)
Justin Mundie (labeled as Justin Joyner below)

CASE STUDY: Benjamin Cohen's Property in Fells Point, which was purchased with a VA Loan owner occupied loan, and Cohosted By Matt Durrette, makes for a great case study on faking the first three reviews in addition to committing mortgage fraud...

Property Owner: Benjamin Cohen (Dumfries VA) (committed VA Loan Occupancy fraud to put home in service)

Cohosts: Matt and Jenna (Matt cordinated listing photo shoot and now controls all aspect of the listing)

Fake Inaugural Reviewers "Jenna", Jeremy Eley, and Justin Mundie

These appear to be the first three reviews on Benjamin Cohen's Listing.

The length and nature of the reviews are "not typical". They were judged as fake right off the bat.

It took a little time to connect the names and images to people related to Matt Durrette, the cohost on this property.

The Justin connection was not confirmed until the Wedding website went up.

The Jenna connection is obvious given all her other posts.

The Jeremy connection was made when the focus shifted to High School friends.

Notice: These are NOT on the last page of reviews where they should be. They are in fact all in the first month of reviews however. This is where AirBnB's desire to shift reviews around should be seriously questioned.....

This chart below isolates the three inaugural reviewers (Jenna, Jeremy and Justin) who provided inaugural reviews on Benjamin Cohen's property.

As a reminder, Benjamin committed VA Mortgage fraud to go into business and then committed VA Mortgage fraud again 6 months later on a cash out refinance, but the criminality didn't stop there. They added three fake reviews to get this going and then he committed mortgage fraud again 6 months later with a cash out VA Loan Refinance... https://3-cases-of-mortgage-fraud.bryancanary.com/

"Jenna" (believed to be Matt Durrette's Jenna or Matt himself...)

This was the third of 12 inaugural fake reviews written by "Jenna" for Matt and Jenna related properties. 14 out of 15 of these reviews are for Baltimore properties and 10 of those are inagural. "Amazingly" the one that is not for a Baltimore property (the second review), is an inaugural review written for Pat and Dennis Durrette, Matt's Parents, who live 4 hours south in Virginia... (you just can't make this sh-t up...)

Jeremy Eley (Matt Durrette's Best Man)

Jeremy Eley was Matt Durrette's best man. He wrote 8 fake inagural reviews for Matt and Jenna. He seems to have been living in Central VA and/or Texas at the time, so should be easy to see if he actually traveled to Baltimore eight times coincidentally timed with 8 new Durrette related properties coming to market...

This table and chart below highlights eight inagural reviews and a ninth review from Jeremy to Durrette related properties. During this time Jeremy was either working in central Virginia at a vineyard and/or living in Texas. From his list of properties reviewed, it appears he was providing fake reviews for other hosts as well. See his international reviews for one night stays, for example.

Justin Mundie (Matt Durrette's Groomsman...)

Finally, the third reviewer on Benjamin Cohen's property appears to have been Groomsman Justin Mundie. This review on Benjamin Cohen's home was his only fake review and actually the only review on his account at all.

Stage 2 - Research in Spring 2018

This Durrette Cartel picked up the pace a great deal between Spring 2018 and Spring 2019. The hope that the publishing in Mid 2018 didn't slow them down at all. In fact, it seems the lack of legal consequence only added fuel to their fire and self confidence.

We've now clearly identified 59 fake reviews, with many coming after the first stage. Most of these are inaugural too and they are related to a lot of new "cohosting relationships" Matt has procured. .

One very well known real estate contractor and investor in Baltimore (Shane Mitchell, Hawk-eye Construction, Green Door Properties) now appears in Matt's cohosting stable with a lot of fake review benefits.
One very well known real estate broker in the Federal Hill (Steve Stockbroker) is now in Matt's stable and the beneficiary of fake reviews.
A home purchase was made in late December 2018 with a single, subsequent fake review by Jenna probably earned them a $400 referal fee, but it also enabled that property and that investor to slip just under the grandfather clause created by legislation pushed by Eric Costello to limit short term rental investing.

Does this qualify for a Cartel yet? If not, how big does it have to get and how many honest hosts need to be steam rolled out before that label sticks?

Matt seems to have some young, new recruits (Chris and Robert) doing the fake reviewing writing for him at this time. Each of these two was up to 6 fakes each as of Spring 2019 and they weren't on the radar in Spring 2018. It seems one or both may be living in Richmond and/or Roanoke VA where Matt has childhood connections. The fake reviewers seem to be getting younger. At this point there is concern Matt may be preying on people to do his dirty work who may not really understand the level to which he's working this scam with many others.

Legal Claim Related Documents

There seems to be several ways to go about filing legal claims.

I could file legal claims in small claims court. That is likely the best "venue" for this from an unfair competition perspective. The problem is that it is limited to $5000 in damages. I could file several suits with a lot of approaches and it could work out.
I could file legal claims in District or Circuit Court. The problem is the entire civil litigation process in general. The civil litigation system is setup such that crime pays. The nature of getting evidence into court is flawed to say the least. People don't have to respond to subpoenas in a timely or appropriate manner. Defense Attorneys don't have to play by the rules. Judges are people and they can be swayed in silly ways too. No one will take on this type of work on contingency. The fact that I have the best man of a Groom, given 9 reviews for his buddy, with 8 of those being inagural reviews should only hinge on the idea we need to prove he wasn't in town, which should be easy enough to query, but the costs of such a venture might outweigh penalties gained. In that situation alone, there are in fact 9 reviews going to Matt and 9 reviews coming from Matt. In theory, with lanham act, the baseline penalty of $500/fraud act should be $9,000. It would seem there should be money there, but the nature of litigation is not simple nor affordable. This is a no go from a civil perspective for an individual.
I could try to encourage the States Attorney or others with a vested interest to file suit. That's what I'm doing...

Financial Penalties could be in the $120-180k range for punitive only with Lanham Act alone...

When a review is written from guest to host, there are in fact two parties benefitting from the metrics, both the guest and the host gets credits for writing reviews. Likewise, each time a review was written from guest to host, Matt Durrette and company wrote a host to guest review back, which benefitted both the host and the guest in metrics. So for each faked stay, there are in fact a minimum of four metrics violations and if the host of the property was other than Durrette, the host benefitted to, so a single stay could have as many as 6 metrics benefits.
Given the Lanham Act allows for $500 per fraud, if you apply $500 x 4 or $500 x 6 to each fake stay and we have 60 of those, the financial penalties could get into the $120-180k range for punitive damages alone and if rackteering can be claimed that number could triple. Hopefully there would also be a repayment for the revenues sucked from the marketplace as well.

Litigation Strategies

It would seem that trying to sue Matt, Jenna and the entire gang of hosts and cohost and fake reviewers in a single lawsuit would get totally unwieldy.
It would seem trying to sue a single fake reviewer such as Jeremy Eley for all his fake reviews is the simplest way to back into this. With this approach, the reviewers are in the hot seat. Based on what they are willing to share, Matt, Jenna and others may be implicated. The best place to start with this would be a lawsuit against Jeremy Eley and/or "jenna".
Here is a skeleton of a claim against "Jenna" as a fake Reviewer. It's in the same vain as the one above for Jeremy. AirBnB would need to be subpoena'd for the ID for that profile
It would seem trying to sue a single propery owner like Benjamin Cohen for his fraudulent activities may be a great way to back into Matt and Jenna . Here is a case written up that focuses on Benjamin Cohen and his property. This is good because 1) Benjamin committed VA Loan Fraud to get into business 2) Matt clearly coordinated the pics for the property implying a full level of marketing involvement 3) Matt's Groomsman, Matt's Best Man and presumably Jenna herself provided the first three reviews 4) Benjamin committed a second instance of VA Loan Fraud 6 months after the first during a refinance and as of June 2019, the home was removed from Benajamin's AirBnB profile completely and added to Matt's as if Matt owns the property. Here is an example of a claim that aligns with this approach. Note .

Matt Durrette

Here is a detailed fact sheet for Matt Durrette. view

It is NOT a complete sheet.
This was created in the very beginning before we figured out the level and depth of cohosts he was involved with.
There is a link to a gDrive folder in this with a lot of information but this is not all the information we have for him.

If any of these links do not work, please reach out.

7) Fake Review Network #2 - Roman Meytin and John DeMayo

This is a very , very short expose on Roman and John.

If there is interest I can provide more personal details about these two. They are running fakes on properties in Baltimore MD and Coachella CA.

8) The idea of going after AirBnB

To the layman, it would seem there should be a case here against AirBnB. I have 11 page pdf which is an article written by a fellow researcher. Please contact me if interested. It is a powerful document that presents a lot of information. Below are some snapshots...

I can assure you AirBnB was made aware of my concerns regarding fake reviews networks in 2018. This is but one of a half dozens tweets regarding this matter.

9) Summary

Please contact me with any questions. I can provide varying level of details based on interest.

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