Card being charged for a reservation I didn't book.

Answered!
Aamir3
Level 2
Germany

Card being charged for a reservation I didn't book.

Hi,

 

Today I was checking my credit card statement and saw that my card has been recently charged for a AirBnB trip I didn't book. I could not find a helpline number or email to write to AirBnB support directly.

 

Can somebody please direct my query to AirBnB Support to look at and contact me immediately? Following are the transaction details, I could see a booking id there to start the investigation.

 

Amount -1.437,12 EUR
Posting text 
AIRBNB * [Personal information hidden]
 
Many thanks,
Aamir
1 Best Answer
Steve143
Level 10
Limerick, Ireland

Hello @Aamir3,

 

Sorry to hear that that happened to you.

You should change the login password on your Airbnb account, contact the bank that issued your card and contact Airbnb customer service.

You can contact Airbnb customer service by phone, Twitter or Facebook as described here https://www.airbnb.com/help/contact_us#/

and here Contact-Airbnb-A-Community-Help-Guide

 

Hope it all works out OK for you.

 

Steve.

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81 Replies 81
Tara545
Level 2
Modesto, CA

Me tooo!!! Thought I was going crazy. Printed out my statements and Inoticed five trips I never took. I am SOOOO MAD!!!

Lina3843
Level 1
Bogotá, Colombia

Just happened to me. Huge amount. Hopefully will get some solution. Card blocked, and waiting reply from airbnb.

Cybil2
Level 2
St Louis, MO

This happened to me last week. I get texts for every card transaction and I received a text for an Airbnb booking while I was working. I haven't booked through airbnb for a year and a half. There were no bookings showing on my airbnb account. No one has access to my card details or physical card. I immediately called my bank and AirBnB to file a dispute. My experience is the same as everyone's here. Multiple times, airbnb asked me if friends or family have access to the card at which I stated a resounding No. Twice after, they stayed they could not refund due to finding in their investigation that a friend or family member used it unintentionally.

1) how do you know who my friends are

2) if it was unintentional, contact them and demand a new payment method! I mean seriously..

When I requested the name on the booking, booking location, booking date, today airbnb stated they could not provide without a subpoena from a govt agency or law enforcement. Really? It is my card, and I am the only person on my bank account, why require a subpoena? Hopefully my bank obtains a subpoena, I will contact my bank again tomorrow and ask if they are contacting law enforcement and obtaining a subpoena, if not I will. I know this is a fraudulent charge.

 

I will never use AirBnB after this. Whether my card information was taken from their site or stolen some other way, I will never give my business to a company that clearly supports fraud and theft and I will tell all friends and family to steer clear of this business.

 

Lisa6099
Level 1
Fairfield, CA

Same thing happened to me today...I was paying my bills and noticed and Airbnb charge on my card.  Neither my husband or I remember booking anything recently.  Contacted Airbnb with the confirmation code and they said they can't give me any info because it wasn't booked under my account.  I said that it was booked under my card and I have the confirmation number, so why can't you give me the details of the reservation?  They said for privacy reasons, but it could have been friends or family who had access to my card.  I told them that if they can't give me details, then as far as I was concerned, the charge was fraudulent and I would be denying the charge with my credit card company.  So frustrating.

António136
Level 2
Lisbon, Portugal

It happened the same to me. I didn’t book anything and I found the debit today when I was checking my account. I already phoned to the urgent telephone number of my credit card and cancelled it for fraud. I contacted the Airbnb support. I started with a bot and then was told that I was going to get connected to the “right” person. I was told that the Support Ambassador would take 5 minutes to contact me. I’m waiting already for 35 minutes!

António136
Level 2
Lisbon, Portugal

I found this site in the net. It could be helpful for people with the same problem:

 

https://www.airbnbhell.com/contact-airbnb/

 

 

Martha813
Level 1
Fort Collins, CO

This just happened to me. What a disgrace from AIRBNB for not doing anything about it!

Brian2036
Level 10
Arkansas, United States

@Martha813 

 

I don’t know what Airbnb could do about it. The credit card company should cancel the transaction and remove it from your bill or credit a refund if you already paid.

 

Credit card fraud is a serious global problem and any kind of online transaction is an opportunity for thieves.

 

It’s unlikely that someone stole your credit card information from Airbnb. If their system has been hacked they would know.

 

 I hope…

Nina1259
Level 1
England, United Kingdom

This also happened to me at the weekend. A booking was made for £595 using my credit card, which wasn’t a card I’d used with Airbnb. I reported it to my credit card company who raised a fraud investigation. They had to cancel my card which is a massive nuisance because I’m abroad for a month. When I joined Airbnb they took steps to verify my identity, so how come they let people make bookings using credit cards not registered in their name?  They need to sort out their security!! 

@Nina1259  Most businesses allow customers to pay with credit cards that are not in their name. For instance, I have booked airline tickets for my daughter, who does not have a credit card- the passenger's name and ID is hers, the credit card is in my name. You could hand anyone your credit card to make a purchase- the store or company only cares that the card is valid, and not reported stolen. So Airbnb isn't operating any differently than any other business in that regard.

 

That said, I'm sorry this has happened to you. Your card must have been compromised somewhere. ( FYI, never let an employee of a business, like a waiter, or a hotel receptionist, take your card away to process a transaction- you yourself should always insist on putting your card in the machine. There are also fraudsters who put card readers in ATM machines)

Adam1576
Level 1
Oakland, CA

This just happened to me as well.  Airbnb still has not fixed this.  Someone used my previously cancelled credit card on file but it still went through my bank said because Airbnb works with Visa to get the new credit card numbers and somehow this person was then able to charge it.  Why does Airbnb have access to my new credit card information without my consent??? That should be illegal!!!  

@Adam1576 the same thing happened to me this past Saturday. My account was hacked, and has $7,000 in transactions made. Charged my grandmothers card, and the charges went through. (Luckily found by my frauds detection by her credit card company in time) BUT the card that was charged isn’t even active anymore. She cancelled the card months ago, so how were they even able to still charge the card??

 

unbelievable. 

they charged another card for $4,500 for “extra services” that was stored in my account. It was a friends debit card from an air bnb we shared in 2021 but used my account. Air bnb is being practically useless in helping, so hoping them filing disputes with their banks is enough. I will never use air bnb again.

Jacqui286
Level 1
Australia

I just made a booking yesterday on the AirBNB website.  Paid $1375 on their website as a deposit.  Now have discovered it was a duplicate listing.  Contact the other listing on the site and only one of them is the actual listing.  This is all completed on the AirBNB site.  Now their claim it wasn't on their site, but i have all the details on the app as well as on my Airbnb account.  They offered full cover for something like this, and now they as shirking their responsibility saying I need to contact my financial institution.  This is simply not good enough.  AirBNB  site is useless if people are able to hack into it, post false listing and claim peoples money.  I will be contacting a higher authority to obtain my money back, someone needs to be accountable.

Kirk142
Level 2
Soquel, CA

This has now happened to me. An errant  AB&B charge for $4761.00!  I immediately contacted AB&B and they said  "we have confirmed that there has been no unauthorized access to your Airbnb account" . When I protested, they were  of no help, they  robo mailed me 3 times that they were working on it. I phoned my credit card company and reported fraudulent activity. AB&B contacted me and said i shouldn't have reported it as fraudulent activity because this will now wind on for several weeks to a month.

I was still confident it could be resolved because  curiously the charge was for a date 8 months off into the future, in 2023! I had never heard of the vendor before. It's not like it's a 2 day booking in the 4 Seasons during the Super Bowl. It's a week long booking for a little a frame cabin in Ohio! I've phoned them  and they haven't returned my call.

When I first phoned my credit card company Citibank, they temporarily cancelled the charge, and issued me a new card , then for a  month they appeared stymied, I didn't hear anything from them until I tried to make a purchase and found the card was at it's limit because the $4760 charge had been added back to my  account with no notice from them.  I phoned them back and then they  seem to act like they were processing this for the first time, and then a week later they send me a new card that I didn't  even request!  So now I'm told by ab&b it's been escalated. Every rep I've talked to, whether it's on ab&b or Citibank sympathizes but what good does that do? 

Can anyone give me advice or suggestions? 

Hello Kirk, that's really unfortunate. From my experience, your only saviour is your card company. Perhaps directly reach out to Visa/MasterCard (whichever is the card provider) if your bank isn't helpful. Card providers have the power to squeeze out the money from these fraud establishments. In parallel, please tweet your case to AirBnb's CIO/CSO/CEO on Twitter. Share the tweets here so we can retweet and amplify. It's AirBnB definitely at fault here for failing to secure users data.