SCAM OR NOT?

[Anonymous]

Yesterday night I received a very strange mail: an invitation for an airbnb event in SF on 19th april (9am-12am). First this mail don't look like normal airbnb notification (poor design). Then the invitation is for next Tuesday with a fly departure on sunday!

I can't imagine Airbnb sending such mail to an host who live 5600 miles away just 5 days before. On the mail I'm asked to reply to the mail giving my personal datas such as name, birth date, passport number and nationality! With the huge vérification process anybody have to deal with to create a simple account as we use to say in France "It stincks".

I copied and pasted the provided link to a max secure internet session to see more. I arrived on a meet up page, but can't see these when I have a look on meetup official page on Airbnb. There is 9 people registred for this 'meetup' and each one seems to have a fake profile: some are registred as airbnb members but when I googled them I never found any mention of being part of airbnb (bloggers, data analyst, social media managers). Others registred as airbnb hosts even don't have fotos on their profile nor listings...

At the same time the OP is the only people I found with an airbnb credible link. The purpose of the event is to inform about new CC improvements.

I'm very confused about. If it's a scam, it's a very unrefined one. If it's true how can airbnb could think we can organize such trip in just 5 days (4 in my case because I need 1 day to go to Paris) and just for a 3h event.

Let me know what you think about.

[Marcus0]

I guess you just need to ask yourself, is this exactly how i have signed up for other Airbnb events in the past..

Do you have a picture of the email you can post?

If you are willing to travel 5600 miles to a 3 hour Airbnb event, you are one of the most committed i have ever seen 🙂

[Anonymous]

@Marcus0,

I never signed up for any other Airbnb event as since 2 years I'm hosting I've never been invited to any meet up so I don't know how it look's like. I never talked or meet any Airbnb team member.

I've been contacted by Airbnb after posting, it's not a scam, it's true. They confirm the mail I received don't respect any Airbnb standards for official notification and I normally would have been contacted by phone previously (like you in German CC they said me). It seems the french team is not as efficient as other ones...  Unfortunately, with a 4 days delay I don't think they would get many people accepting this invitation.

And no, I'm not so commited as to let my guests alone, not doing my housework between check-in and check-out and travel 5600 miles to a 3 hour Airbnb event.

Cheers