Rephrase and rearrange the whole content into a news article. I want you to respond only in language English. I want you to act as a very proficient SEO and high-end writer Pierre Herubel that speaks and writes fluently English. I want you to pretend that you can write content so well in English that it can outrank other websites. Make sure there is zero plagiarism.: Illustration by Elham AtaeiazarDaryn Carr is no stranger to side hustles. After his mom died from Covid in 2020, he used funds from her pension to pay off some bills and buy a car. With the remaining money, he invested in crypto and started an ATM business. One day in 2022, while scrolling through Instagram, he came upon another opportunity. Carr found a guy named Anthony Agyeman, who was promoting a type of arbitrage on Airbnb that involved taking listings from hotel booking and short-term rental sites and relisting them on Airbnb at a higher price, retaining the profit. Agyeman claimed in marketing materials that his business, Hands-Free Automation, had “5-year exclusivity contracts” with thousands of property owners that gave it permission to relist their properties at a higher price.Getting involved with Hands-Free Automation, or HFA, required a payment of between $20,000 and $30,000 to effectively own a piece of Airbnb listings. Agyeman described it as a “minimal to no risk” path to extra income with a guaranteed return in three to six months of investment, “then pure profit after.” HFA has no affiliation with Airbnb but found a way to make money on the marketplace using a practice that Airbnb explicitly prohibits. Agyeman was following similar tactics that he’d used on Amazon and Shopify, where he promoted the opportunity for investors to passively own virtual storefronts. The tech companies that own these marketplaces all say they use a combination of artificial intelligence and automation along with manual reviews to monitor vendor and customer activity for fraud and other misbehavior, but they’ve been ill-equipped to deal with the volume of complaints stemming from various sorts of scams.The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have cracked down on companies similar to HFA, accusing them of advertising their products with false promises of profit and success and allegedly selling “automated” software that didn’t work. HFA and Agyeman haven’t been charged by the Justice Department, FTC or any law enforcement agency. Airbnb told CNBC it was unaware of any contact from regulators regarding HFA.For a clearer picture of HFA’s inner workings, CNBC spoke with investors in a lawsuit filed against the company in February 2023, as well as six former HFA employees, an Airbnb customer who unwittingly stayed at an HFA-listed property, and a property owner who said his listings were uploaded to Airbnb by HFA without permission. CNBC has granted anonymity to those who requested it because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on HFA’s operations, or feared retribution from the company.Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, Inc., speaks during an interview with CNBC on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, May 10, 2023.Brendan McDermid | ReutersCarr, who lives in New York, wired HFA $1,000 through his crypto debit card at the urging of a salesperson and borrowed an additional $18,490 to pay for HFA’s entry-level package. In total, Carr paid HFA $19,497, according to the lawsuit, which Carr filed along with 11 other investors. The plaintiffs alleged that HFA falsely claimed it had relationships with the properties, and that HFA’s services violated Airbnb’s terms of service. The case is still proceeding. Carr told CNBC that his investment with HFA disappeared, leaving him in debt and working a customer service job to make ends meet. He claims he got scammed and suspects that much of his money went toward subsidizing Agyeman’s lifestyle.”I couldn’t believe that I lost $20,000 into thin air,” Carr said. Thomas Hunker, an attorney for Agyeman and HFA, denied that customer money had been used for anything except the business. “We have always honored our fiduciary obligations with respect to allocation of company money in the best interest of the company,” Hunker said in a written response to CNBC.’It’s proven and it works’HFA admitted to customers that it was “continuously encountering problems with” Airbnb “due to the constant changes they have made to their terms and services,” according to the lawsuit. Plaintiffs in the suit against Agyeman and other defendants are asking for at least $624,000 in damages from their lost investments. Meanwhile, the defendants continue to advertise and sell products to prospective investors under a new company called Wealthway. They’re deploying a team that aims to generate more than $3.5 million in monthly sales, Wessel Botes, a former sales employee who left the company in November, told CNBC. Hunker said in an email to CNBC that HFA identifies properties to list from third-party websites used by hotels and other property owners to “increase bookings.” That gives HFA “indirect permission” through those third-party sites to relist rooms on Airbnb, he said, adding that the base price of the booking goes back to the property owner.However, Airbnb has banned the practice in its terms of service and community policy since at least 2021. “Using a 3rd party to book a hotel or 3rd party accommodation and listing it on Airbnb at an inflated rate is not allowed,” the policy says. Airbnb told CNBC that business practices such as Agyeman’s aren’t permitted. The company said it continues to improve systems that identify and remove fake or misleading listings, adding that it had blocked more than 216,000 suspicious listings as of September.Hunker said HFA doesn’t have investors, but rather has clients who pay a “flat fee” for an arbitrage service. Yet, HFA says on its LinkedIn page that it helps “Airbnb investors add 300+ properties to their account without having to purchase the properties.”Before connecting CNBC with his attorney, Agyeman said in an interview that he wasn’t involved in the day-to-day operations at HFA and he denied any financial improprieties. Airbnb told CNBC it had no business relationship with Agyeman and had taken action to curtail his operations. The company said multiple accounts linked to Agyeman and HFA had been removed.The opportunity for property owners to make money is fundamental to Airbnb’s business model. The company says that, since its founding in 2007, hosts have made more than $180 billion. En route to upending the hotel industry, Airbnb’s market cap has swelled to almost $95 billion, making it bigger than any hotel chain.Airbnb acknowledged in its annual report that “perpetrators of fraud” use “complex and constantly evolving” tactics on the site and that “fraudsters have created fake guest accounts, fake host accounts, or both, to perpetrate financial fraud.”Agyeman, who started HFA with co-founder Megan Shears, claims to have created proprietary software that would fully automate the arbitrage process by trawling the internet for properties to relist at a markup. HFA’s employees would take care of booking properties and handle guest inquiries and complaints.Agyeman, 27, lives in Texas, as does Shears, 26, according to public records. Their social media posts show luxurious vacation spots next to screenshots of Airbnb bookings purportedly worth thousands of dollars. Several investors said in court filings that they first learned about Agyeman and Shears through Instagram.”It’s proven and it works and you get higher returns than the stock market,” one HFA promotional video said. Investors in the lawsuit say otherwise. And some customers who used the service to book travel say they lost money and were left scrambling for a place to stay. In February 2022, a customer named Kathy booked a beachside Airbnb on Florida’s Sanibel Island for a five-night spring break vacation with her family. Kathy, who spoke on condition that CNBC not use her last name, paid $4,600 upfront for what she thought was a “fantastic” poolside one-bedroom apartment. CNBC identified Kathy as an HFA customer because her name and phone number were posted on HFA’s Instagram account. Days went by without word from her host. Kathy, who lives in Texas, repeatedly reached out to Airbnb, but was told she’d have to engage directly with the host to cancel her booking.Kathy looked up the property’s address on Google Maps. Rather than a tropical apartment building, she saw what appeared to be a vacant lot. “Please refund my money,” she recalled telling the host. Desperate to make sure she had a place to stay, Kathy booked a room at a resort in Fort Myers, more than 40…
I have over 10 years of experience in the cryptocurrency industry and I have been on the list of the top authors on LinkedIn for the past 5 years. I have a wealth of knowledge to share with my readers, and my goal is to help them navigate the ever-changing world of cryptocurrencies.
