Hacker left reviews for guests! Anybody had this problem too?

Hacker left reviews for guests! Anybody had this problem too?

Hello!

 

A couple weeks ago I reveived a regular email from Airbnb saying that both my guest's and mine review were live since I had left a review. The problem is, I hadn't left a reivew and the email from Airbnb came with Chinese characters all over it!

 

I immediately logged into my account went to the reviews page and saw that someone had left 3 reviews for guests! I changed my password and contacted Airbnb immediately.

 

The first customer support I talked to was incredibly unhelpful. He was actually terrible and did nothing to help. He just kept saying everything looks fine with your account.

 

I called 2 more time and was able to get them to send the issue to the Trust & Safety team. It surprises me how difficult it was for them to escalate the issue as they have NO access to backend data.

 

The reponse I got from Trust & Safety team was a cut & paste response saying everything was ok with my account.

 

Now, I know I didn't write those reviews, I know I got a confirmation email with Chinese characters and I know nobody accesses my computer because I keep it at home and it requests a password every 15 minutes to reactivate.

 

I would be very curious to see if anybody else had a same kind of hacking problem, where they left reviews!

 

BTW - the 3 reviews only said "Good" which tahnakfully is not detrimental to me or the guests. But my reviews are always in depth. I'm still trying to get Airbnb to look further into this and to allow me to write a real review.

 

Any insights appreciated.

 

Thank you!

 

Bruna

4 Replies 4

So someone logged onto your account and just wrote reviews?  They didn't change your password, change your bank accounts, or make any reservations?  They just wrote a few reviews?  That's an interesting hacker.  

You can go to your Account Settings, in the Privacy tab, there is a Login History.  Does it show that someone logged into an your account from somewhere other than your own computer? The Trusted browsers will also support which browsers are allowed by you.  This should only be the computer you use if that's the only place you log onto Airbnb.  

Thank you again for replying!

 

I know, it's pretty weird. The thing is I don't know if they did anything else. The password was not changed. I will take a look at the privacy tab. Airbnb says there wasn't a login from a different computer. I don't understand hacking, but I do imagine they must be getting more sophisticated...

 

It was pretty eerie to login to my account see those 3 reviews with only the word "Good", recieve a confirmation email with Chinese characters and have airbnb tell me there were no logins from other accounts. But to think that someone broke into my house, figured out my computer password, my airbnb password and wrote three "Good" reviews is even crazier. What about the confirmation email with chinese characters?

 

Today on the phone the Airbnb customer representative did confess that they are having a lot of hacking going on. I believe they got into my account using some sort of sophisticated new way... I don't know! They were probably going for my bank account etc. but because they weren't able to access it they did something else...that's how I'm making sense of it.

 

It's really weird and confusing and unsettling.

 

Thank you for your input. Would love to hear from anybody else as well.

 

Bruna

hi Bruna,

i can't help with the hacking thing, just want to tell you what an amazing place you have! it's a dream home, i hope i'll get to visit sometime!

Thank you Sabine!