SCAMMED WITH FAKE WEBSITE

[Alexandra1230]

I was actively looking for an Airbnb for myself and 5 friends in Byron bay Australia, I found one and booked in through Airbnb as normal, then I refreshed the search on Airbnb and saw on the top of the page a listing for an amazing house for a similar price, with more rooms etc. I clicked on the add and in the images there was a screenshot message stating to communicate with the owner via WhatsApp, also note she was a super host and my other friends that also saw this add also verified with me that she was verified, and the house looked great. So I contacted her via WhatsApp and I have attached the entire conversation and screenshots of the listing to this email. As you can see from the conversation she sends me a link to Airbnb, have a look at the URL it takes me straight to Airbnb however, this Airbnb website actually turned out to be fake, but it looks absolutely identical to the real website hence I was so deceived! I was then fooled into paying for this Airbnb as it looked identical to the website and I found the listing through the real Airbnb website search feed. 

Please assist me in how I can regain this money or seek compensation from you so I can trust Airbnb for future trips, 

Also to add, since this issue arouse I have so far, filed a report to my local police, contacted TransferWise (see screenshots) in attempt to stop the transfer (it was too late), I have also attempted to stop it coming from my card but the money had already transferred, therefore all that's left is to seek your assistance as of course the fraud came from your site. 

I have attempted to fill in the "Offsite payment fraud" but it would not allow me to submit my answers even despite many tries on different devices and browsers, I have kept every little bit of detail regarding the fraudulent case as it is a significant amount of money I have lost and have lots of screenshots of everything I experienced. See attachments. I have also left a drobox link with all the evidence below. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

hi @Alexandra1230 This is a community centre not Airbnb customer support so little help is possible I am afraid.

Do you have the ability to initiate chargeback on credit/debit cards in Australia. If so this is your best approach.

[Anonymous]

@Alexandra1230  There's nothing Airbnb can do to recover any payment that you made outside of their payment system. They do put a lot of warnings out in their email communication and in the payment protocol against making any offsite money transfers, and they auto-censor phone numbers and personal contact details in listings. Is the listing that asked you to contact them on Whatsapp still active, or has it already been removed for the really obvious violations? 

For what it's worth, the vast majority of established and reviewed Airbnb listings are genuine. But you can't trust any web platform blindly - you have to pay attention to what you're doing and verify, especially when an offer seems too good to be true.

More information to help you avoid getting scammed again in the future:  https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/971/how-do-i-know-if-an-email-or-website-is-really-from-airbnb

I hope you haven't lost your original booking and can still enjoy your holiday in Byron.

[Sarah977]

As a guest, you have a responsibility to read up about how Airbnb works before booking anything and if you had, you would have known that you never send money to a host- all payments are made through Airbnb with the payment method you have on file with them.

The fraud didn't come from the Airbnb site, although it may have been listed there originally- you contacted this scammer via Whatsapp,  went to another site, which was a fake and proceeded to deal with a scammer who told you all sorts of things which isn't how Airbnb works at all.

I'm sorry you got scammed, and I hope you can recover your money (it seems doubtful, though) but no one should ever send money to some online stranger and I can tell you that Airbnb isn't going to reimburse you, so pursuing that will be a waste of your time, although it certainly should be brought to their attention.

@Alexandra1230

[Lisa723]

@Alexandra1230 as others have said Airbnb isn't going to refund you anything as they didn't charge you anything. Please report the listing and the host if you haven't already. I'm not familiar with TransferWise-- in the US, in this situation you would report the fraudulent charge to your financial institution to get it reversed.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/4/how-does-airbnb-help-build-trust-between-hosts-and-guests

[Sarah977]

Transferwise is a quite legitimate online money transfer service- there are many- Xoom, XeTrade, etc. You can move money from bank accounts in one place to those in another. It's not just used to pay someone else, many expats use those online services to transfer money from their home country bank accounts to bank accounts in the country where they are living. I think it would be quite convoluted and likely impossible to try to get the originating bank to reverse the charges, but of course it's worth a try.

@Lisa723

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Alexandra1230  I am sorry you encountered a scammer and I hope you will be able to get a refund somehow.

 I don't think any booking platform is 100% immune to scammers because as soon as one is detected and removed the new one is here trying to catch another naive victim. The best is to go directly to Airbnb website (to type Airbnb.com in your browser) and then just follow the procedure - find the listing, look if it has a lot of reviews, read the reviews, read the listing's description, look all the photos ... and if you have any questions you can contact the host through the message thread (not outside of the platform.) And payment should always go through Airbnb platform! Don't ever send money outside of Airbnb.

The warning signs are:

1. the price is too low
2. the host wants you to contact him outside the platform BEFORE booking (by email, Whatsapp, phone...)
3. the listing's URL doesn't look like https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/13525942  (numbers are different for every listing, this one is ours)

Unfortunately, you are not the only one who was fulled, there are others as well, even if the approach may be different. Here is another thread about it with more than 1000 comments, it's worth reading https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Rental-scam-using-Airbnb-How-should-I-go-forward-if-at-all/...