Fraudulant duplicate listing

[Louis4]

We have discovered that our entire listing, including description, photos, etc. has been usurped illegally by another individual.  We are extremely concerned that this individual is now receiving reservations as well as banking information for this illegal fake listing.  We are also concerned as to how someone is able to so easily hack into our account, and what other information has been hacked.  Airbnb have been contacted and we are awaiting their response.

[Ginny7]

Wow! Scary! Keep us updated please. And thank you for posting.

[Lizzie]

Hello @Louis4,

Lovely to meet you. I can imagine this is quite upsetting for you. I do hope you are OK. 

I wonder have you reported the other listing to Airbnb at all? There is a quick way of doing this on the actual listing by clicking on 'Report this Listing', you will then be asked to state your reasons for this. This will then be highlighted to a specific team within Airbnb to look into further. Here is an image of what it looks like:

I hope this helps. 

Lizzie

[Louis4]

Hello Lizzie,  Yes we have clicked on the "report this listing" within the fraudulent ad.  We have also spoken to two people within the airbnb customer service department.  We have sent emails with the fraudulant url (fr.airbnb.ca/rooms/14290708) as well as photos airbnb requested.   Half a day later, the fraudulent ad still appears on the airbnb site!  This situation is extremely disturbing and feel that it requires immediate response.   We are concerned as to what other information this individual has obtained, as well as the potential for airbnb customers and hosts to become victims of this scam.  We are awaiting a resolution to this matter.  Thank you.

[Linda108]

How did you discover the fraudulent listing?  It would be important for all of us to know in case this is a wide spread issue.  I hope this resolves soon!!

[Louis4]

Hi Linda,

We went on the site last evening to adjust our price.  We then checked on our ad to see if the price had been adjusted.  This morning it still had not.  We then thought to look at other apartments in our area (Montreal, Canada) to see comparable listings to be sure that we were within the proper price range before attempting to reapply the price change.  While doing so, we happened to see our apartment photos and ad appear (this time in French, as we check both French and English ads in our bilingual city) with our price change, under another person's name! This situation is extremely disturbing. We sent airbnb the fraud report, so far no action appears to have been taken.

Thanks for your interest.

[Louis4]

The fraudulant ad has finally been removed, with an apology letter from airbnb.  Although we are aware that there is no such thing as zero risk, this experience has left us quite nervous and shaken to say the least. We stumbled upon our duplicated ad by accident by viewing the French language site for Montreal.  Are there security measures in place other than hosts or customers stumbling onto a fraudulent ad, especially if placed in another language?  How did this individual hack into our account?  How can we be sure that this does not happen again? How many others have been victimized unknowingly, in another language?   These are some of the questions we are asking airbnb. Thank you.