Our Account Was Hacked, our payment stolen and AirBnB haven't give us any help whatsoever

[Ray96]

We have a guest staying (for one month).  When the payment (approx. £1000!!!) never came through our normal default method (which all of our payments have come through), I looked into our account.  There was a new, unfamiliar 'bank' account associated with our a/c and had been made the 'default' payout method.  We are 'Superhosts' (have been pretty much since we started three years ago) and have hosted 60 or 70 visits.  We got ZERO help from AirBnB, other than to say it had been 'escalated' and was being investigated by a specialist team.  This specialist team have done NOTHING.  They won't provide any information about the account they sent the money to 9it looks like a Chinese operation).  They have stopped responding to our pleas for help.

We are disgusted.

[Emiel1]

@Ray96 

Sorry to hear you have been victim of criminals.

Airbnb need offcourse to investigate, but can take long time these days.

As i read on similar cases in this community the "trust and safety" department never communicate directly with the host.

No need to say you have to change password and reset payment method.

BTW did you not received a notification your payment method waas changed ?

I think such sensitive changes should at least be notified.

You can also check the login log ("device history"), maybe giving a clue when and where the change was made.On same page is also info how to setup a "2 -step verification".

Hope this helps,

Emiel

[Ray96]

Looking back, there was an email saying they were depositing $00.01cents into our bank.  I didn't pay attention to it as I get so many spammy looking emails.  I did speak with them before the payment was due to hit that account (5 or 6 working days after check in) and was told (by the 2nd or 3rd person I spoke to) that the payment was 'on hold' and could relax.  Not one single person since then has been of any material use or assistance to a very significant theft.  In fact, they've willingly obstructed further investigation.  They said the new a/c was set up from a 'trusted device'.  Our company have an excellent IT back-up company and they tell me this is nonsense as the criminals would need to have possession of my phone or laptop (which they don't).

Utterly miserable, depressing, poor business behaviour/support.

[Sarah977]

@Emiel1  It wasn't for a hacked account issue, but I have gotten correspondence directly from a Trust and Safety rep before. The way I get my issues escalated to the correct dept (altho I haven't been able to host my home share for months due to COVID, so haven't had to deal with them since their CS dried up) is in my initial mesage to CS, I say "Trust and Safety Issue", or "Tech Dept. Issue", as the case may be, in the first line of my message. It then, so far, has been passed to the correct dept. and I get a prompt response. I think the front-line CS reps are quite happy not to have to try to figure out how to deal with an issue or decide which dept. to pass it on to.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Ray96 

Do you know when the account change was made?  You must have some idea as you said you had received a payment notification.

The reason I ask is because there was a major security breach where hosts could see other hosts bookings and settings and you were maybe 'hacked' at that time. Hacked may not be the correct term, in that case it was 'allowed access'. That allowance was an Airbnb problem and if traced back, they could be liable.

[Robin4]

@Ray96 

Ray, you need to be vigilant all the time to the settings associated with your listing and account.

Just in the past week we have seen 3 posts from hosts who have said that certain settings in their accounts had suddenly changed without their consent or knowledge.

Airbnb daily prove they will not take responsibility for actions that happen on their platform, so you do need to be pro-active here Ray.

Glitches do happen all the time and every day I do a quick scan of my settings to make sure Airbnb don't suddenly start offering my listing at a 30% discount, or opt me into 'smart pricing', or open up dates I have blocked. These little changes should not happen but, they do!

Now, having said that, in this instance it is not Airbnb's failure I am afraid, it is yours Ray for not heeding the red flags along the way!

Within an hour of changing any of your account settings or listing details you will get an email notification  letting you know that changes have been made. This email goes to the personal email address you list on file with Airbnb.....it is not a general email!

In your case the email you would have got would look like this.....

This is automatically generated whenever any changes to your payout settings are made!

You should have responded to that email immediately.

Next, because you did not respond, Airbnb assumed the changes were made by you and sent notification that they have tested the validity of the account change by depositing a small amount of money in the new account....Once again no response from you Ray.

The specialist team have nothing to investigate Ray, they have done nothing wrong. Users change their account settings every day and Airbnb go to considerable contact lengths to establish that these changes are genuine, they can't do any more than that.

If you are going to ignore warnings that something is happening to your account, then I am afraid you are just going to have to suffer the consequences Ray!

Cheers......Rob 

[Liv]

Hi @Ray96,

I'm really sorry to hear about that and thank you for raising the issue here.

I have checked on your case internally and the team is currently working on it. They should get back to you shortly.

I hope this helps.

Liv

[Ray96]

AirBnB did eventually resolve this for us.  I had given up on it, but they did come through and make good on the payment, which we are very appreciative of.

[Beth4038]

We are currently in a similar situation. Payout was stolen and sent to an unauthorized account that is not mine...and I was not notified had been added to my account. How long did it take for your issue to be resolved?