At this point, I've probably booked four dozen Airbnb stays over the past 7 years or so. Given that, I'd say two of the simplest steps you can take to limit your chances of booking really bad Airbnbs are to 1.) limit your bookings to those places where the host only has one listing and 2.) limit your bookings to owner-occupied places. It seems like the worst elements of Airbnb are largely eliminated when staying with the host, rather than insisting on having the entire place to yourself.

I've written-up other advice regarding Airbnb bookings here - https://blog.michaelscepaniak.com/how-to-find-choose-and-boo...

With that being said, scams happen and there's no simple, full-proof way of completely insulating yourself from them.