Hacking

[Veronica111]

On 3rd November I received an instant booking by a young actress, F, from New York who informed me that she and her husband wished to stay at my listing for 8 days while touring South Africa. They wished to arrive the next day. She had booked only for herself and her husband.

The next day, two large men arrived at my house with no luggage. They seemed surprised that the listing was shared with myself and family even though it is explained that we live on the premises. They then explained that they were here to work on a music video and they would be expecting visitors. They then send F would only be arriving later with one other person. A couple of hours later a third man arrived on the premises, carrying a large amount of luggage. They then said that F would only be arriving tomorrow.

One man left with a spare key as he said he wanted to go out and would come back later. Another also left saying he would rather go stay in a hotel. It became extremely suspicious as F was not answering her phone and her arrival seemed to keep getting pushed back. After the man had left with the spare key, AirBnB called and informed me that the people in my house are not the people who booked. They told me to remain calm and make an excuse to leave the house and go straight to the police station.

I managed to get hold of the police who accompanied me to my house and arrested the remaining man. They managed to ensure that the spare key was returned safely.

I am unable to contact AirBnB. I don’t know if I am the first to experience this and I have no idea what AirBnB is doing about this. I am concerned that AirBnB has not addressed this publicly as I feel that people should know that this can happen. It is clear that checking references and profiles of the person booking your listing is not enough.

[David126]

Why did you let them in, why did you give them a spare key?

I looked at your listings and one of them does say whole house btw.

[Alice-and-Jeff0]

Airbnb called you out of the blue to announce that the guests were frauds?  How would they know if you did not contact them?  Why are you trying to contact them about it now if the men have been arrested? You have some duty to not let strangers into your home and give them keys, what would you like Airbnb to do about that? 

At a minimum, flag the woman's profile on Airbnb.  Going to assume she never showed up with her husband.  

[Charles186]

my account was hacked in 3 times this month, i have to change the password each time it happened and in a week it gets break in again, when i try to regain access to the account after being hacked i need to go through this "access code send via text" thing, funny thing is that seem like in the airbnb system there is a phoen number that does not belong to me, from the country code seems like it from spain, i thought maybe the hacker added his number in my profile so all i have to do is delete it, but when i look at my profile there is the number that belongs to me.  please help. 

[Lisa2052]

FYI  Watch your account folks, my daughter-in-law was hacked last night and her account was drained of $3000. Her profile was changed to Chinese, we live in the US. I do not think Airbnb cares about the host or the guest!