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Finding a suitable vacation home on the Airbnb booking platform quickly leads to a certain amount of booking euphoria. But you shouldn’t be naive. You should be particularly careful if you are supposed to contact the alleged landlord by email, as Airbnb supposedly does not accept requests. The consumer protection portal “Watchlist Internet” warns that this could be a scam.
According to the portal, anyone who responds to the email will receive a reply stating that the accommodation is available but that there are technical problems with the Airbnb calendar. You are then asked to continue the booking on the Booking.com booking portal and are sent a link. However, this link does not lead to the real Booking.com page but to a fake page that is a deceptively real replica of the real page.
This can only be recognized by the Internet address (URL), which differs from the real one and starts with “booking.stays,” for example, as Watchlist Internet writes.
The tricky thing is that the personal data is already entered on the fake site, so all you have to do is initiate the transfer—but if you do this, the money goes straight to the fraudsters.
What helps against fraud?
The scam makes it clear: you should only book accommodation directly via the platform, for example, via Airbnb. The request to contact a landlord by email and the redirection to other platforms indicate fraud.
To be on the safe side, Watchlist Internet recommends checking the accommodation by searching via Google Maps. If inconsistencies are found, caution is advised. It is also worth searching for accommodation on Booking.com beforehand. If you can’t find it there or if the details differ, you should leave it alone. Another option is to contact Booking.com or Airbnb directly and ask whether it is a normal booking process.
What to do in an emergency
If money has already been transferred, you should act quickly: Contact your bank and, if still possible, block the transfer. Also, the incident should be reported to Airbnb and a complaint filed with the police.
- source: APA/picture: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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