Need advice on a long-term booking through airbnb.

[Rohit8]

Hello everyone. I'm new to airbnb and i'm looking for advice.
I recently moved to Germany to study and i'm currently in a dormitory. I have to move out of the dormitory soon and i found an offer for a single room apartment on another rental site. After i contacted the person offering this apartment through the rental website, i get an email explaining that the owner of the apartment is Finnish and that they are working in an oil rig in the North Sea. As they will be away from Germany for a while, the rental contract and agreement will be handled by airbnb. I was sent pictures of the apartment and that i would have a day to inspect the apartment in the presence of an Airbnb agent before signing the rental contract. They want me to first open an airbnb account and send them the username so that they can forward it to airbnb. I found all this reasonable enough. The problem is that they want me to pay the rental value of the first month 310 EUR + 500 EUR (about 960$) as a security deposit in Airbnb's trustee account before showing me the apartment. The reason, according to them is that no one lives there and responds for the security of the property. They have promised to refund my money in case i do not like the apartment. Now I am not sure if this is a genuine offer or a fraud because they are asking me to deposit a large sum of money in advance. What can i do to make sure this is genuine? Thanks for any help.

[Marzena4]

Hello @Rohit8. The problem is that there is nothing like " Airbnb's trustee account" you mentioned. How did you verify that the agent is Airbnb's agent? I haven't heard of any. 

Read how deposits work on airbnb:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/140/how-does-airbnb-handle-security-deposits

Also on long term rentals:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/245/how-do-i-pay-for-my-long-term-reservation

No trustee accounts, tho.

[Rohit8]

Hi @Marzena4. Thans for the advice. Like I said, I'm completely new to airbnb and do not know that there are no agents or trustee accounts. I will be careful not to make any payments offline. 

[Marzena4]

@Rohit8 If you are already there, why don't you look through some local ads? They might provide more offers than airbnb since the latter is good to book remotely, e.g. for travel purposes rather than to find a permanent accommodation. 

[Rohit8]

@Marzena4 I have mostly been looking through local websites. This was also found through a local rental wesite, but the owner wanted me to go through airbnb. 

[Marzena4]

@Rohit8 Imho, just to lull you into it. 

[Rohit8]

I think so too.

[Linda108]

@Rohit8 and @Marzena4  This is the second time I have seen a posting of this type of situation where the "host" is seeking an offline deposit while posing as an Air BNB host.  I wonder if we are seeing a scam in Germany.  I think the other post was Germany as well.

@Rohit8  Was there an Air BNB profile?  If so, please flag it using the flag under the profile name.

[Rohit8]

@Linda108 There was no Air BNB profile involved.  But this is definitely a scam. Just a little while ago i received an email from them asking me to transfer money to their account. They used this email: payments@financialdepartment-airbnb.com