Be aware of phishing at airbnb

Having heard good opinions about Airbnb, I recommended it to my girlfriend looking for holiday accommodation in Spain. I personally have never used Airbnb before but having good experience both with 9flats and booking.com so far, I did not expect anything bad could actually happen. Airbnb claims they verify all of their hosts as the other similar websites, so booking a home should be as easy as possible.

After she had chosen a perfect home nearby Barcelona, she started having a conversation with the host. For users' convenience Airbnb provides a possibility to answer the messages sent from their website directly via email. It indeed makes the whole conversation easier (you do not need to log in every time you want to answer the message) however it increases the chance of fraud bookings.

The host was indeed sending the answers via Airbnb until he sent last one including booking details (usual emails from airbnb are sent from express@airbnb.com, his email was express@e-airbnb.com). Provided URL was also redirecting e-airbnb.com instead of airbnb.com. The website was looking exactly as airbnb does and included all booking and payment details. All the other links available on this fraud website were redirecting to real airbnb website.

Unfortunately, she has done the payment via Moneygramm (as it was described in the payment details) and since then there has been no contact with the host.

Airbnb has been also informed about this issue. As they guarantee hosts' verification I would expect them to get more interested in this case. Sadly, it took them 2 days to apologise and it seems like they do not take any responsibility for their hosts ....

Hopefully, thanks to this post at least one person will save his money while booking on airbnb. We have lost almost 2k euro ...

I've had similar phishing attempts on my Airbnb account. The service seems to be a target for it. A few tips:

Always check the URL before you log-in to any site. Don't ever send money through unverified means (mail, western union, etc) for any transaction over the Internet. If you use Gmail, report phishing emails to them. Report phishing attempts to Airbnb.

Yep, but since the user was in the hands of the enemy and was unaware of that policy, they assumed that Moneygram was a blessed option since the website said it was.

This is a pretty sophisticated fraud attempt. Everything is totally legit until the last possible moment and human nature makes the last bit much less suspicious than it would otherwise be. ("Apropos of nothing, would you wire $4k to an anonymous stranger in a foreign country?")

Many, many, many users will fall for it.

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 within 15 mins. To their credit airbnb have taken it down pretty quickly.

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