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Be aware of phishing at airbnb

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Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#71

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#73

Post by k-mcgrady »

addandsubtract wrote: post #64
ufmace wrote: post #54

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?

Yes. Sounds like OP's girlfriend wanted to circumvent Airbnb's escrow service to (presumably) drop the associated fees.

It's stated in the post he recommended it to her so she has probably never used the service before.

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#74

Post by anish_m »

nlh wrote: post #60
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.

If you pay through Airbnb, I think they are responsible for any such frauds.

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#75

Post by wdewind »

Kalium wrote: post #52
wdewind wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Why would anyone want to harass AirBnBers?

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#76

Post by gjenkin »

martius wrote: post #66
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. I don't know who cares of a party in a flat. Noisy parties existed before airbnb. To me, the problem is that since there is no regulation, renting a flat for short periods allows to make much more money than renting it for a long time to a reasonable price. It contributes to the shortage of flats to rent supply, the rise of the rent prices an…

There tends to be a difference between the kinds of parties thrown by someone who is staying in a place for a weekend versus someone who has to face their neighbors days/weeks after said party.

Parties are one problem. I'd be more fearful of theft and destruction of property... and a general discomfort in having complete strangers coming and going from my building. That said, it seems extremely rare that an Airbnb guest would engage in the kind of behavior that would generate headlines.

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#77

Post by joshschreuder »

squids wrote: post #7

We just had a run in with a scam for a place in Majorca on Airbnb. The place looked amazing and was reasonably priced for what it was so I reverse image searched the pictures and it turns out they had lifted them from a resort in the Carribean. The google maps view of the place lined up nicely with the other property so they'd obviously put some time into choosing the right fake. Luckily we cancelled our booking with…

I was looking for apartments in Manhattan recently, and saw numerous listings like this, where the apartment looked considerably better than others in the area which were even more expensive. It doesn't look that realistic, though I can imagine if you hadn't worked out the price -> quality factor for the area you might be duped.

Agree that AirBNB is quite good at taking them down pretty fast, and I reported the ones I could see for being misleading.

Re: Be aware of phishing at airbnb

#79

Post by [deleted] »

addandsubtract wrote: post #64
ufmace wrote: post #54

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?

Yes. Sounds like OP's girlfriend wanted to circumvent Airbnb's escrow service to (presumably) drop the associated fees.

[deleted]
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