Case Study: Couchsurfing achieves 99% increase in review accuracy and automated fraud prevention with Sift

How Couchsurfing creates a safe platform for travelers worldwide

Couchsurfing is a global travel marketplace connecting over 18 million people in more than 200,000 cities, built on a currency of trust. The platform faced rising abusive, spammy, and fraudulent content—including repeat offenders who re‑registered under new identities—and its in‑house, manual tools couldn’t proactively prevent bad actors from returning or creating harmful content.

By adopting Sift’s machine‑learning fraud detection, Couchsurfing uncovered thousands of hidden spam accounts and automated 50–70% of review and deactivation actions (with over 60% of deactivations handled by Sift), delivering a 99% increase in review accuracy. The outcome was fewer fake and duplicate accounts, a drastic reduction in spam and abuse, improved customer satisfaction, and the ability to stop fraudsters before they can harm the community.

CouchSurfing

Don Fultz

Head of Trust, Safety, and Customer Support