Not trusting a guest enquiry

[Asif0]

This may have happened to you....

I am a verified host but the last 2 enquiries have gone along the lines of the followinmg.  So watch out for it...

"Your property is posted by another host at another price. Check this listing link"

They provide me a link.  The first time this happened I clicked on the link and it let to an irrelevant airbnb page.

Airbnb emailed me to say that this is likely to be scam:

"Rarely, fraudulent individuals misuse our site in the attempt to obtain offsite payment or to gain access to one’s account by communicating via personal email or phone, or by sending malicious links meant to capture your login credentials, and we wanted to alert you to the possibility of such a scam."

What I am doing is clicking the flag icon next to the suspicious messages, which Airbnb will look at and investigate.

Hope this helps.

[Clare0]

@Asif0 Thank you for your post!  Unfortunately these types of phishing attempts are becoming rampant and I fear the number of hosts who respond to them is on the rise.  Once a scammer gets the login information they then go on to reset notificationa and  set up phony listings under the host's compromised account.  With a listing that looks real on the Airbnb site, guests are then lured into making reservations and paying off the Airbnb payment system, usually by wire transfer.  

These scammers are very, very sophisticated and know how to push a host's buttons.  They mimic Airbnb's logo and style of communication so unwary users still think they are dealing with Airbnb when they are not. 

I wish Airbnb would send an alert to hosts so they can pre-emptively prevent these types of inquiries instead of dealing with them after the horse has left the barn, so to speak. 

I hope many hosts will read this post!