@Matthew285 wrote:
@Susan1188 that seems like a good reason to hack your account (to get the money that is due to you), but it still seems rather silly to attach a listing to someone else's account.
You are right, it only works for a short period of time until somebody figure him out. But over a short period he could get a number of payouts from you, here's how:
Hacker gets acces to your account, be sending you a phishing message that you fall for and they get your userid and password.
He goes into parameters and turns off all your security notifications.
Then he sets up a fake email similar to yours, changing one letter or something. And he changes your email in Airbnb. This gives him total power over your account and you can't log in anymore.
Just before changing your email in airbnb, he spam bombs you, enrolling you in thousands of newsletters and online promotions, so that notifications that your email has been changed on Airbnb are drowned in hundreds of spam per minute. If you used the same userid and password for PayPal, he will now take over your PayPal account in the same way.
Then he changes YOUR bank account for airbnb payouts, to HIS bank (paypal) account. You don't get any notification, because by this time the email and phone on your account has been changed to his!
Money starts coming in, in two ways:
(1) if you had a guest arriving shortly after he got into your account he knows! He quietly waits while you do the check-in. Then changes the bank account overnight and when Airbnb releases the payout for your guest, it would go to him instead of you because he changed the bank account. It might take you weeks to see what happened.
(2) if you had no arrivals soon, Hacker puts a fake apartment or house on your site, stealing photos from other websites. He makes it VERY interesting, 8 bedroom house in Ibiza for 65 euros a night! Parties accepted! Smoking accepted! Animals accepted! Maximum capacity 20 people! He also turns your property to last minute instant book and puts the price super low. Yes you will probably notice this, but so many hosts are clueless.
(3) Someone is going to click on one of these properties and last minute instant book. When the payout is made, it goes to the hackers account. Of course he is counting on the fact that the guest doesn't know how to get support when they arrive at the fake property, in the ensuing confusion and reclamation process he will have taken his money and disappeared. He can also use smoke and mirrors, say the guest went to the wrong address, the guest didn't show up, etc etc for a few days. After all, he's a Superhost with 30 trusted reviews!
YES this scam only works until the fake apartment gets flagged. That's why he creates 3 or 4 and also uses yours! He can get a payout for each one in the few days after his hack using instant booking and last minute reservations.
Once they get onto him, he disappears back to his St Petersburg office to start again the next day.
