Is this a scam?

[Nuno141]

Hi!  I'm looking for long term house renting and I found one I like. I contacted the host and he sent me this:

"Hi again,

   I bought the apartment for my daughter when she started her studies in Portugal. All the bills + 1 parking are included in the rent.
Now my daughter returned to Switzerland, where we are working as doctors and an agent will contact you to schedule the visit.

To can complete this deal we will use the biggest estate agency from world, Airbnb because they will keep the money in their custody until you will visit the apartment.
  I chose this option because last month i came to Portugal to meet a person very interested to rent it but when i arrived, he never answered on the phone, so i lost the money paid for the flight tickets, taxi...etc.
 The maximum period for rent is 6 years.

 Very important!!! No matter if you already are an Airbnb member, to be able to publish the apartment on private link, i need the following informations:
 - your full name and full address:
 - a copy of your citizen card or passport( Airbnb need to verify your details ), i will also send you my citizen card.
 - your phone # (a valid mobile number where Airbnb can contact you)
 - whatsapp for a faster communication;
 - the date from when you want to move there
 - how many persons will live there
  1. The next step is to publish the property on Airbnb and i will send you the private link to book the apartment.
  2. To can book it they will ask for the first 2 months of rent + 1 month security deposit which will be refunded at the end of the contract.
  3. The payment is just a formality and it won't obligate you to rent the apartment, its just to be sure that is not a joke and i don't pay the Airbnb fees for nothing .
  4. I will go with the contract and the keys to the Airbnb office from Switzerland and it takes 2-3 days until the rental package will arrive to the Airbnb office from Portugal then the agent will call you to schedule the visit.
  5. The agent will be able to call you to schedule the visit only after the Airbnb will confirm your booking. If you sign the contract when you visit it, you can start to live there in the same day.
 6. If you do not like the apartment the Airbnb will refund all your money back.

Thank you,"

Is this legit? Does Airbnb have this functionality? Thank's in advance for your answers.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Nuno141 

of course it is fraud 🙂

If you have found it on Airbnb then flag/report the host and his message

[Nuno141]

@Branka-and-Silvia0I'm worried that I'm losing a good deal simply because he hasn't asked for money yet. Are you sure it is fraud?

[Branka-and-Silvia0 · Accepted solution]

@Nuno141 

100% sure

It seems Airbnb is under attack lately, You are not the first one, there were many posts as yours here on CC, it is a well-known fraud.

Airbnb doesn't work the way he explained.

To book via Airbnb you have to:

1. register on https://www.Airbnb.com
2. Browse through listings
3. Find a listing with a lot of excellent reviews (read them), with 5* ratings and if possible chose the Superhost (see the badge on my profile picture?)
4. Then you can contact the host if you have any questions before booking ... or...
5.  you can instantly book (if available for this particular listing)
6. Your payment has to be / will be processed through the Airbnb.com website
7. Exchanging emails /bank accounts/phone numbers BEFORE a booking is made is against Airbnb policy and forbidden and usually impossible (scrambled)

Be careful, there are a lot of fraudulent websites which look almost exactly like Airbnb but they are not.

- The URL of the listing should look exactly like this: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/13526118  (this is my listing and the numbers at the end will be different for each listing but everything else in front of numbers should like exactly the same as mine)

- you should be able to click on the profile picture of every guest who left the review for this listing and it will lead you to the guest's profile page (on fraudelent websites you can't click on them)

REmember - if the offer is too good to be true then it is not true, it's a scam

[Nuno141]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 

Thank you.

[Ana1136]

@Nuno141 there is a thread on this forum with almost 500 posts about this exact scam which has been arround for years now. 

[Nuno141]

@Ana1136  alright thank's 🙂 I'll report it then

[Susan17]

@Nuno141 

This is one of the oldest scams in the book. There are even services out there now that provide ready-made fake Airbnb websites for the more prolific fraudster... 

Interesting article below from security expert Ray Krebs. 

"Scammers who make a living swindling Airbnb.com customers have a powerful new tool at their disposal: A software-as-a-service offering called “Land Lordz,” which helps automate the creation and management of fake Airbnb Web sites and the sending of messages to advertise the fraudulent listings"

"Airbnb could help by adding some type of robust multi-factor authentication, such as Security Keys — which would defeat these Airbnb phishing pages. According to twofactorauth.org, Airbnb currently does not support any type of multi-factor authentication that users can enable"

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/04/land-lordz-service-powers-airbnb-scams/

[Susan17]

@Nuno141 

This is the thread @Ana1136 referred to above.. 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Rental-scam-using-Airbnb-How-should-I-go-forward-if-at-all/...

[Susan17]

And for anyone who's interested, a couple of good articles below on "credential stuffing attacks". 

Credential stuffing is a type of  cyberattack where stolen account credentials typically consisting of lists of usernames and/or email addresses and the corresponding passwords (often from a data breach) are used to gain unauthorized access to user accounts through large-scale automated login requests directed against a web application. 

Compromised credentials of Airbnb accounts are freely available on dark web sites such as Dream Market, at a price of $1.50 apiece. Moral of the story - use a different password for Airbnb than your other accounts, and change it regularly.

The Economy of Credential Stuffing Attacks
https://www.recordedfuture.com/credential-stuffing-attacks/

Hacker Lexicon - What Iis Credental Stuffing?

 https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-credential-stuffing/

• "While some companies may choose to implement multi-factor authentication (MFA), which blocks the credential stuffing attack vector, other organizations may not be prepared to choose security over convenience"

[Terri183]

Hi I'm new to hosting on Airbnb and I would like to have a more long term renter, and just got a text and notification (at 4 AM) from a foreigner who has no history as a renter. Can someone advise me if this could be a possible scam and how to know? Thanks

[Animesh-Keshav0]

Hello team airbnb
few days ago when i was searching for an apartment on some famous website i came across this guy name 'yuliyan' who was offering an apartment for 550 euros so I contacted him. he told me he is from london and has a home which he don't use in karlsruhe Germany. i asked him that i want to rent it
he said that there is a specific procedure to rent the apartment and the procedure was exactly like this

he wrote this to me!!

((
This is how they work:
 
1) I will make the delivery papers at AirBnb Company.
 
2) After I will make the papers for delivery they will require for your payment confirmation of the first month and the guarantee deposit(€ 550.00 + € 1100.00 = € 1650.00) to the company . AirBnb Company will send you a delivery notification to let you know they have the Keys and the papers in their custody. AirBnb Company will give you further instructions about the money deposit.
 
3) After the payment is confirmed the delivery process will start and when you will receive the keys, you will go and check the apartment and in maximum 3 days you must contact them and tell them if you keep the apartment or not.
 
4) If everything is in order and you want to keep the apartment, Airbnb will manage the monthly rents.
 
5) If you refuse to rent the apt, AirBnb Company will give you a full refund (€ 1650.00) and you will give them back the keys and the contract.
 
If you are interested to rent the apartment please send me your information, so I can make the deal:

))

today he also sent me some kind of papers. on which there is watermark of airbnb and stamp also but on the stamp i noticed that it was 2016 written so i got curious and sent this to you guys. if you guys want i can also sent you that document .i think something is wrong. please make a serious investigation to it and if the guy is right.Please inform me.

thank you very much