Rental scam using Airbnb? How should I go forward, if at all?

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Rental scam using Airbnb? How should I go forward, if at all?

I have been trying to find an apartment and found a listing on a popular rental website (not Airbnb). We started e-mailing, and the owner told me that he lives in Spain and will be using Airbnb's services for payment. It didn't seem strange until this last email. What bothers me about this is that it doesn't seem to follow any of Airbnb's practices. It also threw up other rental scam red flags, such as the fact that he wants me to pay before seeing the property, he's asking for my personal information outside the Airbnb platform, and the place doesn't come up on the Airbnb search list. Here is the portion of the most recent e-mail that I find odd, copy/pasted, edited for clarity:

 

"If you decide to proceed with this transaction, I will need your phone number along with your full name and address where you can be contacted for the keys and the rental contract. Then I will start the process through Airbnb here in Spain, providing them your information. Next you will receive a notification message from them, containing a receipt with all the instructions that you need to follow in order to complete the process and receive the keys and the rental contract.
Regarding the payment, you will get all the necessarily [sic] instructions on the invoice, so you can deposit the money for the first month along with the warranty, into an escrow bank account from AIRBNB. They will hold and insure your money until you check the apartment and decide if you want to rent it or not.
As soon as you will complete the deposit of $1,100 + $1,100 = $2,200 into their bank account, an agent from Airbnb will meet and show you the property. You will be given one day inspection period to take a decision and [in case you are not satisfied with the apartment], next day the total amount will be refunded to you by Airbnb. If you'll like the flat then you can keep the keys, sign the contract, and we will fix a date for the monthly payment, that it has to be done by you directly to my personal bank account."

 

There's a lot about the whole exchance that seems quite.... off. The more I think about it, the stranger it sounds. There is nothing on Airbnb about "escrow accounts," etc. It just smells terribly fishy, and I want to make certain that my eagerness and need for a place to go doesn't get me ensnared into some scammer's net. 

 

So, what are your thoughts on this? 

1 Best Answer
Quincy
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1,196 Replies 1,196

I also received an email from an Anna Stark (not the Game of Thrones character) who claimed to be a cardiologist specialist from Canada who had a 1 bedroom to rent out in Beverly Hills for $800 a month with utilities included and you can have pets.  Lol!  The email address was from 

leads-rvk2mzx8uz47@apartments-costar.com

I didn't respond to the email but I got nervous because I clicked on the link to view pictures of the apartment.  If you google Anna Stark cardiologist or Anna Stark Canada it's one of the top search results.  

Vanessa900
Level 1
Albuquerque, NM

Thanks everyone! So glad I decided to google his name. I sent him my info except the picture ID since I’m already registered through Airbnb. I agree, no time or money to be scammed while I still need a place for me and my family!

Oh my, I also just almost got victimized by this the same content and email about using AirBnb for inspection and using bitcoin service for payments of 1st month and security fee. Mine was from someone Heather Johnson a cardiology specialist now based in Canada for an apartment 650 Montgomery St, Jersey City. I almost got tricked, what I thought were red flags were why the property is not on AirBnb and it seems the e-mail has just screenshots of Airbnb logo and the texts at the end of the email and the sender as well. I compared all of them with my most recent AirBnb reservation and I also did due diligence and saw AirBnb never allows a payment outside their website or app. Scammers are everywhere! They take over Craiglist, Zumper etc. I gave some of my personal info already except IDs so I hope nothing won't get compromised. I reported it to AirBnb as well and shared screenshot of entire email.

Kurt115
Level 1
Dallas, GA

All - I just got hit by someone claiming to be Diane Snyder.  It's unfortunate too that Mac mail doesn't show you the person's real email address but only their NAME.  However, If you right-click on the name of the person in mail, you can see the fake email address.  The first step you should take when trying to figure out if this is a scam, is to see if there's something fishy with their email address.  In my case, right-clicking on the name "Diane Snyder" shows their email address as: sector5@allianzagents.club

 

Scammers can indeed still use fake names such as first.last names.  However, most real people have a proper email address with a reputable domain such as gmail.com, yahoo.com or hotmail.com.  However, in this case, the user's name is "sector5" which sounds like a hacker name for sure.  However, even more telling if the fake domain of "allianzagents"  & even more suspicious is the ".club" domain.

 

The internet is full of liars and thieves and if you try to just search for allianzagents.com, you'll see this scammer just created their own fake domain as well.  There is no actual web page,  It's just a temporary page for that allianzagents.club domain - hosted by the very real but questionable domain registrar called Namecheap.com.  scammers use that registrar because as the name suggest, they're "cheap" and don't ask too many questions of the scammers to allow them to set up a domain with email they use in their crimes.

 

Since all domains must be properly registered by some domain registrar, you can search the ICAN "whois" registry (https://whois.icann.org/en) on the web to locate the "owner" of this site.  I put quotes around "owner" because it turns out the internet is littered with criminal fakers and liars who create temporary domains to scam people and no one really monitors this.

 

In my case, my WHOIS record shows up as below.  You will note below, there is a proper "abuse" email address listed in the record where you can at least send the scammers details to the domain registrar and they are, by law, supposed to investigate or block that domain site from sending any further criminal  email.   So please go ahead and send the scammers email address with some detail of your interaction with them to the abuse email listed;

 

I am NOT an internet fraud security expert - however, If you've already sent money or been defrauded of your personal information, I would suggest you start by contacting your local police department for your city.  Also I would suggest you immediately contact the credit card company you may have used and or your bank to see if you can get your money back.  Your local police department may also tell you to record the details of your fraud using the I3C website - the IC3 is supposed to be the governing body which should be fighting against fraud and scammers.  The I3C complaint form site is below:

 

https://complaint.ic3.gov

 

In my case, however, I'm satisfied this is a faker and I haven't sent any money. I've just had a single email contact, so I've lodged my complaint to the domain registrar by sending an email to:

 

abuse@namecheap.com

 

as that is the domain registrar for the fake domain called "allianzagents.club" (for my case not necessarily yours.)

 

Hopefully, they will shut down this faker and hopefully that guy will eventually be found and go to jail.

 

But please, please, before you send any money, you should be doing your research on these scammers, fakers and liars!

 

Here's the output from the whois record - I used this WHOIS website to locate this record;

 

https://whois.icann.org/en

 

Again, on that page, just enter the person's domain from the email (in my case = allianzagents.club) - just the domain portion of the email and NOT the whole email address.

 

One more note - you will notice if you read this WHOIS record that the actual owner of this domain, naturally, left all of the specific details for the actual record owner blank except the county which is set to Panama or PA.  which is obviously fake.  Why the I3C cannot simply "validate" real people before they allow domain creation, I do not understand that logic.  There literally is no compliance here.

 

And by the way, trying to stomp out this illegal activity is not going to be getting better as the Obama administration allowed the I3C organization to leave the U.S. so there's no possibility of the U.S. stopping this abuse in any way.  So everyone should be very diligent when dealing with people over the internet.  

 

...And here's what the actual scammer entered for his registration, yes just the bare minimum of Country = PA or Panama which of course is fake.  

 

Registry Registrant ID:

Registrant Name:

Registrant Organization: WhoisGuard, Inc.

Registrant Street:

Registrant Street:

Registrant Street:

Registrant City:

Registrant State/Province:

Panama Registrant Postal Code:

Registrant Country: PA

Registrant Phone:

Registrant Phone Ext:

Registrant Fax:

Registrant Fax Ext:

Raw WHOIS Record

Domain Name: allianzagents.club
Registry Domain ID: DCF297B344C1742E5BC2EE0AA99D141B3-NSR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Updated Date: 2019-07-16T20:25:23Z
Creation Date: 2019-07-11T20:25:22Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2020-07-11T20:25:22Z
Registrar: NameCheap, Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 1068
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@namecheap.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.6613102107
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name:
Registrant Organization: WhoisGuard, Inc.
Registrant Street:
Registrant Street:
Registrant Street:
Registrant City:
Registrant State/Province: Panama
Registrant Postal Code:
Registrant Country: PA
Registrant Phone:
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: Please query the RDDS service of the Registrar of Record identified in this output for information on how to contact the Registrant, Admin, or Tech contact of the queried domain name.
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name:
Admin Organization:
Admin Street:
Admin Street:
Admin Street:
Admin City:
Admin State/Province:
Admin Postal Code:
Admin Country:
Admin Phone:
Admin Phone Ext:
Admin Fax:
Admin Fax Ext:
Admin Email: Please query the RDDS service of the Registrar of Record identified in this output for information on how to contact the Registrant, Admin, or Tech contact of the queried domain name.
Registry Tech ID:
Tech Name:
Tech Organization:
Tech Street:
Tech Street:
Tech Street:
Tech City:
Tech State/Province:
Tech Postal Code:
Tech Country:
Tech Phone:
Tech Phone Ext:
Tech Fax:
Tech Fax Ext:
Tech Email: Please query the RDDS service of the Registrar of Record identified in this output for information on how to contact the Registrant, Admin, or Tech contact of the queried domain name.
Name Server: dns2.registrar-servers.com
Name Server: dns1.registrar-servers.com
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2019-07-27T20:09:58Z <<<
The above WHOIS results have been redacted to remove potential personal data. The full WHOIS output may be available to individuals and organisations with a legitimate interest in accessing this data not outweighed by the fundamental privacy rights of the data subject. To find out more, or to make a request for access, please visit: RDDSrequest.nic.club.
For more information on Whois status codes, please visit https://icann.org/epp

.Club Domains, LLC, the Registry Operator for .club, has collected this information for the WHOIS database through
an ICANN-Accredited Registrar. This information is provided to you for informational purposes only and is designed
to assist persons in determining contents of a domain name registration record in the .Club Domains registry
database. .Club Domains makes this information available to you "as is" and does not guarantee its accuracy. By
submitting a WHOIS query, you agree that you will use this data only for lawful purposes and that, under no
circumstances will you use this data: (1) to allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass unsolicited,
commercial advertising or solicitations via direct mail, electronic mail, or by telephone; (2) in contravention of any
applicable data and privacy protection acts; or (3) to enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that apply
to the registry (or its systems). Compilation, repackaging, dissemination, or other use of the WHOIS database in its
entirety, or of a substantial portion thereof, is not allowed without .Club Domains' prior written permission. .Club
Domains reserves the right to modify or change these conditions at any time without prior or subsequent notification
of any kind. By executing this query, in any manner whatsoever, you agree to abide by these terms. You agree that
violation of these terms would cause .Club Domains irreparable injury.

In using the WHOIS system, you agree to consent to the jurisdiction of courts of the State of Florida over your person
in matters related to your WHOIS query.  You agree to consent to Florida jurisdiction regardless of your geographic
location at the time of your query or your nation of citizenship.

NOTE: FAILURE TO LOCATE A RECORD IN THE WHOIS DATABASE IS NOT INDICATIVE OF THE
AVAILABILITY OF A DOMAIN NAME.

Contact information: Disclosure of contact data is restricted because of UK and EU Data Protection
legislation. The contact details for this contact ID may be available by looking up a domain object in the
WHOIS system. The information can also be obtained through the .Club Domains Special Access Service.
Visit http://www.nic.club for more details.

 

 

**********************Include fake email from Diane Snyder (SCAMMER)******************

 

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. We own the place and our daughter lived there until 2 month ago when she got married and she moved to WA.
That`s why we decided to rent it.

Unfortunately, because of my job, it will be a bit difficult to meet you personally now for the moment we are in NY now and I am unable to travel right now.
Last week I came there to meet a couple who was interested, but they never showed up, and I think you can imagine that it's not very comfortable to fly back and forth from NY, especially when work commitments are made. Because of that we decide to make everything through Airbnb, an international company that mainly deals with rentals.
They will organize the inspection and will also assist you in managing the payment.
First of all, I`ll have to make the booking registration for you with Airbnb, and they send you the booking confirmation containing all the rental information including the payment instructions to secure the booking.

You`ll have to make a down payment of 1 month of rent to Airbnb and after they will receive it, an agent will be assigned for your reservation, which will contact you to schedule the perfect time when you can inspect the place. Can be even the same day when the down payment was made.
If you like the place, you`ll sign the lease, you`ll get the keys from the Airbnb agent and you can move in right away.
The down payment is a simple formality, after the inspection if you do not like the place and you do not want to rent it, Airbnb will return your down payment in full immediately.

If you would like to proceed, please give me your details (full name, current address and phone number) and we will make the registration for you with Airbnb.

Thanks,
Diane Snyder

**********************end of Include fake email from Diane Snyder (SCAMMER)******************

Arielle41
Level 1
Santa Monica, CA

 
SO HAPPY I FOUND THIS PAGE BEFORE GOING THROUGH WITH IT! I found an apartment for $1800 in West Hollywood which was already too good to be true and then she sent me this message below saying that she is in Canada and would not be able to come show it in person but could use airbnb:
 
 
Thank you for accepting my proposal to use Airbnb to complete this rental.
The rental procedure is very simple. I just have to open a reservation via Airbnb and register you for an inspection. For this, I'll need your contact details (name, address, phone number). Then you will receive an invoice from Airbnb with all information about reservation and payment instructions to secure the property. You will have to send the payment for the first month of rent and the security deposit to Airbnb. The payment is a simple formality and by paying you are not obliged to rent the property, as Airbnb only wants to verify your identity and to have a confirmation that you have the funds available if you decide to rent the property. Once you have confirmed the payment, you will be contacted by Airbnb to schedule a suitable date and time so you can view the property. You will meet an agent who will show you the property on my behalf and who will also help you with all the necessary formalities to become the new tenant. 
 
If you will be satisfied with the apartment, all you have to do is to sign the rental contract and Airbnb will release the payment to me. 
I'm quite confident you will like the apartment, but if not, you still have the option to cancel, and get your full payment back from the agent, immediately.
 
Let me know your decision.
 
Thank you,
Anna Stark
 
 
I responded to her with a link to this website and told her that there were wayyy too many people getting scammed like this all over the world and that I would only send her money after I had seen the apartment in person. DO NOT SEND OVER ANY MONEY BEFORE SEEING AN APARTMENT. I have been scammed too many times to fall for this again.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Raven24
Level 1
Virginia Beach, VA

I messaged someone saying “I’m in the army and I need someone to take care of my home while I’m away. It’s cheap because I don’t do it for the money.  I just really need someone to keep it up” 

Im in a desperate spot so I gave up basic information, nothing too damaging. But now I feel like a fool! 

Blu2
Level 1
Los Angeles, CA

RE: Two Bedroom Apartment / $800 per month / Utilities included
 
 
 
 
Lars Van Dijk <lars.vandijk@zumerland.com>
1:01 PM (3 hours ago)
  
to me
 
 
 
 
 
Hello!

Thanks for your email regarding my apartment. My name is Lars Van Dijk and I'm originally from Amsterdam, Netherlands. I have worked in the United States three years and I bought the apartment during my stay there. I'm the owner of it. Now, I have moved with my work in Madrid, Spain for the next 3 years and I'm interested in renting through Airbnb only for a long term, minimum of 6 months.

This is a 2 bedroom with 2 bathrooms apartment. It's fully furnished and it was renovated 2 months ago.
The Address is: 1603 North Edgemont Street, Apt. 307, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Here you can see more pictures: https://myalbum.com/album/nZKsXfeScbeA

The rental price per month is $800.00 which covers all the uti...






Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Blu2  Total scam.

lmao I just love that as soon as I read 2bd 2b for $800 a month in LOS ANGELES... I was like, hold up, let me google this. I just love how Spain is the choice for all of these. I have submitted to AirBNB in case this person/place exists within their whatever you call this type of business...

@Blu2 Yeah, and with utilities included, no less. Good thing you're savvy enough to realize it's too good to be true- sad that so many people so badly want it to be true, congratulating themselves for having found such a great deal, that they go ahead and wire money to these scammers.

Kim1057
Level 1
Kamloops, Canada

How do i forward an email to Airbnb fraud department. Im pretty sure the apartment is a scam. 

report.phishing@airbnb.com

Tina679
Level 1
Wehrheim, Germany

Just watch out   - I just received the following email in regards to a listing in Lausanne from Christine Freitag: 

I received your contact for my apartment situated at Avenue de Tivoli 6 1007 Lausanne.
 
My name is Christine Freitag and i am the owner of the apartment and I'm from Italy.

I bought this apartment for my daughter during her studies, but now she is back home in Italy permanently.

The apartment is available for rent in good condition, fully furnished and well equipped like in the photos. It is available immediately and for unlimited time.
The monthly rent is CHF 570 and include all utilities (Internet/Water/Gas/Electricity/Heating/TV Cable).
I want in advance the payment for the first month of rent plus the damage deposit of CHF 1000 ( I request this deposit because everything in the apartment is new and i want to be good kept..hope you understand ), in total CHF 1570 . If you agree you will pay the rent directly to my bank account each month without any extra costs for you.
The deal will be handled by Airbnb. I will pay the fees so you won't have any extra costs ( no agency fees ). Airbnb handle rentals for people who are unable to solve them alone, which are abroad etc., so they will take care both the inspection and payment. I've done more transactions with Airbnb and never I had problems.

Before we go any further I would like to know a little something about you, like how many persons you intend to live in the apartment, and for how long.
 
Thank you and I'll wait your answer.

 

 

Ewa60
Level 2
Gdańsk, Poland

Hey, same thing happened to me 🙂 

 I found an apartment to rent in Geneva on the rental portal and e-mailed the advertiser. 

 

He told me this story about owning the apartment in Switzerland, that he lives in Rome now, and that his daughter used to live there during studies. He even sent me the passport scan, to be more reliable (that's funny, I'm wondering whose is it actually). Then I get the "confirmation" of the contract from "Airbnb". Of course in details there was his personal bank account number and all data, nothing that goes through Airbnb. Actually whole confirmation e-mail looked quite poor and it came from airbnb-longtherm-rentals @ europe.com which sounds so lame. 

I already reported it to report.phishing@airbnb.com and customer service.

 

Remember that:

 

Legitimate emails from airbnb will only come from the following domains:

  • @Airbnb.com
  • @ext.airbnb.com
  • @airbnbmail.com
  • @e.airbnb.com
  • @Host0.airbnb.com
  • @Guest0.airbnb.com
  • @Airbnb.zendesk.com
  • @airbnbaction.com
  • @outreach.airbnb.com
  • @Express0.medallia.com
  • @noreply@qemailserver.com
  • @research.airbnb.com

Cheers!

Liubov7
Level 1
Lausanne, Switzerland

Exactly the same thing happened to me... the guy said the same story. Did you pay this guy? I did omg .. :((

 

Don’t trust  this guy  - Daniel Bruno