Apprentice star Lord Alan Sugar has warned about the dangers of short let scams after an American family was apparently conned out of some £470.

Lord Sugar took to Twitter to say that the family had been cheated after fraudsters told them they could stay at one of his properties in London.

The family turned up, attracted by an image of a property stolen from an estate agent’s website.

“They had been scammed to think they could rent it for 3 days. The scammers took a photo from an estate agents web site and stole over $600 from these poor people. BASTARDS” he tweeted.

Airbnb has told the media: “We were disappointed to hear about this experience and are looking into the matter. More than two million people check-in to Airbnb listings each night and while bad experiences are incredibly rare, we work hard to make things right when they do occur.”