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Be aware of phishing at airbnb

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Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#51

Post by cabose »

rdam wrote: post #48
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would you trust a company that runs a mostly-illegal apartment rental service? Because the law hasn't caught up to reality yet. Airbnb has made a significant positive difference in my own life. I would've been in a bad spot if not for the places I found via Airbnb. No idea whether the transactions were legal, but in the end I found a place to live and the host found a tenant. Win-win. The problem is when people r…

I was in a bad place until I discovered bank robbery. My life has been one big party ever since. There's just a small matter that the law hasn't caught up to reality yet.

Yes because clearly bank-robbing is exactly the same as subletting.

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#52

Post by Kalium »

wdewind wrote: post #49
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would you trust a company that runs a mostly-illegal apartment rental service? Because the law hasn't caught up to reality yet. Airbnb has made a significant positive difference in my own life. I would've been in a bad spot if not for the places I found via Airbnb. No idea whether the transactions were legal, but in the end I found a place to live and the host found a tenant. Win-win. The problem is when people r…

> The problem is when people rent these places and then throw loud parties. The neighbors' rights are violated in that case. I don't know of a good solution, but I don't think it's worth sacrificing the entire platform due to that problem. The thing that frustrates me is that there are pretty obvious solutions, actually: 1) AirBnB needs to provide a service where anyone can check to see if a building has any AirBnB u…

1) strikes me as a ready-made weapon for hotels to harass AirBnBers.

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#53

Post by [deleted] »

wdewind wrote: post #49
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would you trust a company that runs a mostly-illegal apartment rental service? Because the law hasn't caught up to reality yet. Airbnb has made a significant positive difference in my own life. I would've been in a bad spot if not for the places I found via Airbnb. No idea whether the transactions were legal, but in the end I found a place to live and the host found a tenant. Win-win. The problem is when people r…

> The problem is when people rent these places and then throw loud parties. The neighbors' rights are violated in that case. I don't know of a good solution, but I don't think it's worth sacrificing the entire platform due to that problem. The thing that frustrates me is that there are pretty obvious solutions, actually: 1) AirBnB needs to provide a service where anyone can check to see if a building has any AirBnB u…

[deleted]

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#54

Post by ufmace »

Wait, I've stayed in several AirBnB places, and you always pay with credit card through the website, where they act as an escrow agent. Wouldn't a request to pay through any off-site means be a massive red flag?

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#55

Post by tormeh »

meritt wrote: post #27
cgtyoder wrote: post #23

Interesting - e-airbnb.com now redirects to airbnb.com. whois records still list Australian ownership/Russian name servers though.

Naked requests do redirect but clicked links from their phishing emails probably stay on the phishing site.

That's pretty clever.

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#57

Post by conanbatt »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #43
JohnTHaller wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of airbnb's listings in many of their most popular cities are done illegally. It's kind of the m.o. of airbnb. Take a look at Manhattan and do a search for 'whole apt'. Every single one of those is illegal unless the owner has a bed and breakfast license (the one or two that do will mention the fact that they do). When you run the numbers by searching the 'own room' and 'shared room', you realize that over 50% o…

why would you trust a company that runs a mostly-illegal apartment rental service? Because the law hasn't caught up to reality yet. Airbnb has made a significant positive difference in my own life. I would've been in a bad spot if not for the places I found via Airbnb. No idea whether the transactions were legal, but in the end I found a place to live and the host found a tenant. Win-win. The problem is when people r…

Did you live in the streets before Airbnb came out?

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#58

Post by hammock »

Payment via Moneygram is the biggest red flag here. If you've ever used craigslist you know they warn you, and there are tons of scams that use Western Union/Moneygram.

If you pay with a credit card through airbnb, you have several layers of protection: you could appeal to airbnb, and you could also dispute/issue a chargeback through your credit card company.

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#59

Post by matthewmacleod »

hezone wrote: post #41

Curiosity killed the cat, I just tried "www.e-airbnb.com" and surprisingly it redirects to "www.airbnb.com" Seems it is not a fraud website, why?

This is frequently implemented to add legitimacy to a domain – you can clearly see how it has been effective on you, and I assume you've got some technical competence!

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#60

Post by nlh »

markcrazyhorse wrote: post #9

Thanks for the heads up. I was actually considering using this service in a month or two when I wanted to go travelling

It's still a great service, and you should still consider it. Just make sure to read up on how it works and always pay through AirBNB directly, not an outside site.
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