Host Account hacked - Payout account changed fraudulently

Julie742
Level 2
Terrigal, Australia

Host Account hacked - Payout account changed fraudulently

I am hoping to hear from other hosts who may have had experienced hacking on their account. Unbeknowest to myself, some time in December somehow my payour bank account details were deleted and a new overseas bank account added. Over $6,000 dollars has gone missing!!! I have contacted airbnb and told my case is being referred to a specialist area fro them to investigate. I have changed my password and checked my notifications are listed to go to my proper email/mobile. I received NO notifications in December of any changes to my account!! To say this situation is alarming is an understatement. I have no way of knowing is my account is safe nor when someone will contact me from this "special" team. How am I supposed to make mtge repayments?? Feeling very angry and betrayed!!! Any advice/suggestions welcomed. Thanks

55 Replies 55
Julia888
Level 2
Atlanta, GA

Hi there,

I just had the same experience. It really upsets me on how Airbnb handled the case.

I noticed this Sat. that I haven't received my Sept. rent, so I called Airbnb customer service. They told me that payment were issued to my other bank account. I was really surprised since I never added a second bank account. I logged  into my airbnb owner's account, to my surprise, another bank account was listed on there and set as a default. My Sept. rent were all issued to that account. I don't own this account, I've never added it. My alert was on for all activities. I checked my emails and never received any alert about the new bank account.

Airbnb customer service forwarded my case to their trust and safety team. I am very dissappointed that the Trust and Safety team sent me an email today saying "We've reviewed your account activity and everything looks normal according to our records. The payout method is consistent with the account activity. We have confirmed that there has been no unauthorized access to your Airbnb account.

As an online platform, Airbnb is not privy to any outside agreements you may have made granting others access to your account. As such, disputes regarding this payout method should be addressed with anyone who has access to your account."

I never share my password. How can Airbnb simply assume that it was because of I shared password with other people, what about the possibility of inside job or the system has being hacked! Airbnb is being irresponsible to their customers by giving this kind of response. 

If you have similar experience please let me know. 

--Julia

@Julia888 hi Julia

I have had fraudulent activity on my account and several 1000s of dollars redirected to an unrecognized bank account? Were you able to recover your funds? How did airbnb resolve?
thank you

anna 

Hi Anna,

 

I'm sorry to hear that you had the same experience.

 

Airbnb didn't return any fund to me. At my request, Airbnb forwarded me the bank name of the fraudulent bank account. It was an internet bank called Community Federal Savings Bank. I called the bank, they told me Airbnb could simply withdraw the payments. But the bank refused to tell me who set up the bank account.

 

When I asked Airbnb to withdraw the payments, they said since the payments had been issued for more than 10 days, they could not withdraw. That was the end of my payments.

 

When were your payments sent to the fraudulent account? You should immediately ask Airbnb to withdraw the payments.

 

Another thing you could do is to report this to police or FBI so they can contact the bank to find out who set up the bank account.

Hope you'll be able to recover your money. Please let me know how it goes.

Julia

 

Springs0
Level 2
Los Angeles, CA

The same happened to me. I just found out that someone hacked my account and that thousands of dollars have been sent to them for three months. This is super scary. Airbnb's response was "we don't know, but we'll look into it". Really? The answer should be: We pull back whatever was paid to the thief who hacked your account and we cover your loss.

I feel left in the dark and I feel totally unsafe. If this happens to me (as I'm seeing this happening to others), it must happen to many others. This means Airbnb is being hacked and hosts have no way of stopping this. Who has the time to check that every booking is coming into the right account?  Airbnb must step in and stop this and it must protect its hosts. The account added was under the name of Magnus Boisen. Did anyone have the same?

Golf0
Level 2
Los Angeles, CA

I'm following this conversation and have to say that it is NOT correct that Airbnb sends automatic notification for hosts to approve. My account was hacked in December, a new payment method was added and the funds went to a third party. I had no idea this was going on until I realized it months later. I did NOT receive ANY notification that this change was made. I lost thousands of $$$. Airbnb say they have no explanation and they are looking into it as we speak. Clearly, other hosts had the same issue I had. This appears to be a larger problem. And, it leads me to believe it's the work of sophisticated hackers who are hacking Airbnb and stop the notifications to be sent to the host.

Hi , my account was recently hacked. Would you kindly tell me if this was resolved by airbnb and $$ returned to you?

Wendy117
Level 10
Bexley, Australia

This thread is sooo disturbing.  So hard to work out how it can happen.  Is it possible that login and passwords are saved to your computer so you can auto login, and someone has gained access either remotely or in your home to your computer?  I myself use Paypal payment method and dont provide my bank details anywhere online, but that would not stop a new payment method being added to Airbnb if there is a sophistcated hacker out there.

Kamil27
Level 2
Eskişehir, Turkey

My account got hacked yesterday with 3 reservations at the same time, all in New Zealand and all for the same time schedule (April 29th to May 3rd). I got notifications 2 hours later than the payment was done. I reached out the customer services immediately I got the notification emails about the reservations and havent heard anything yet. There is some security problem with the payment section I believe. 

Stephanie
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hi there @Kamil27 

 

Sorry to hear you are having issues with this. Can you let me know if you have reached out to the customer support team regarding this? Here's a link that will help you, if you've not yet: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/contact_us

 

Thanks,

Stephanie

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Carla706
Level 1
Australia

Hi. Yes I've been hacked too. My payouts have gone elsewhere. What do I do. Does Airbnb fix it?

Bruce307
Level 1
Allambie Heights, Australia

We have been hacked quite a lot. The hacker got into our account and turned off notifications, changed our bank to a paypal account  so we knew nothing about it until my wife's phone had a warning badge pop up, we rang airbnb who were not much help. I tried to delete my account and airbnb want me to MAIL my ID to Ireland to verify who I am. I asked for an email address to send it to and nothing!

So my account is still there with bank details on it which I can't delete. We have blocked all dates until June next year. For the last  couple of days the hacker has logged into our account from various parts of the world and I've logged them out and changed the password to a jumble of letters ,numbers and symbols and he just logs in again over night !!

 

Jean14
Level 1
United States

I have been hacked by a paypal account never received notification like many of you here been with AIRBNB since 2015 and never had this ever happen with many homes listed while reconciling i see money deverted to someone paypal account.

 

I really hope this does not take 3 weeks for the specialist to take care of this as it is december as I can see in this post but year 2019.

 

Anyone that can provide support as soon as this post we are updating all emails passwords .

 

This is amazing that our funds can be diverted without a notice...more security!

Premier 

Hey did you ever get your money back from airbnb? I have a similar issue and wondering how long the resolution took?

Jen234
Level 2
Seattle, WA

Just finding out now my account was hacked in December 2019.  someone changed my default account to a different paypal account and scored over 5,000$.   This feels awful and it makes me even more upset this is happening to so many other people and nothing has been done to avoid it!    Is there anything we can do beside change our passwords and do more monitoring of our accounts.

 

 

Yes, @Airbnb could implement 2 factor authentication on account logins, requiring a code to be sent via email or text in order for a host to log in. I would like to see Airbnb take host account security seriously and implement this change. My account was just last night accessed using my email and password which had been part of a large data breach elsewhere. I had not yet changed my airbnb pw. I did however receive the emails from airbnb alerting me to the payout change, so I was able to change my pw and remove the fraudulent account (which was a paypal to **) before any damage was done.

 

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