AirBNB
Complaint 300163 Details

Description of the case of a financial fraud

1. Type of fraud:

Rental Fee Fraud at the amount of 3.521 EUR (three thousands five hundred and twenty one euro)

2. Description:

Our party, consisting of 3 families, booked a winter house with Airbnb for the period 4-12 January 2014.

The house was promoted via Airbnb as “Lovely 5* Chalet in the Dolomites”.

The host, according to Airbnb was supposed to be a certain Mrs Lucia Agostini (last photo).

The contact with the owner was established via the Airbnb platform on 16 October 2013 by the standard way – I have contacted the owner via Airbnb and received a message via the Airbnb platform providing an agreement for booking. This message was also send as SMS (Airbnb.com/z/q/25481723). The message itself provided an e-mail for further contacts with the owner - Ms Agostini. The booking agreement was then followed by an e-mail message with payment instructions. We have followed the instructions and transferred the agreed amount to an Airbnb bank account in Barclays Bank in London on 21 November 2013. (proof of payment here -)


By chance, on 23 December 2013, we discovered that the chalet in question belonged to a respected hotel – Rosa Alpina (http://www.iergl.it/dolomites.php?id=2). We contacted immediately the Hotel to check about the ownership and learned that the property promoted via Airbnb did in fact always belong to the hotel. It became obvious that somebody stole the photos and sold it as his/her own property. (correspondence with hotel Rosa Alpina attached here -)

We contacted immediately Airbnb customs service in UK by phone, who informed us that Airbnb message with payment instructions for a bank payment was a fake message generated by a fraudulent host and that it is not at all Airbnb responsibility that we have followed the instructions, which arrived by mail.

Meanwhile, the property, which was previously available at https://fr.airbnb.com/rooms/1949901 was removed from Airbnb site.

We have asked our bank – Bank Populaire in France, to stop the payment. Equally we contacted directly Barclays (e-mail attached -) but we have however never received any answer.

Following, we have also reported the case to Action Fraud on 24 December 2013.

3. Issues and Claims

We believe that we are victims of a well organised financial fraud scheme, which is based on deficiencies and weaknesses of both Airbnb and Barclays.

A. As regards Airbnb:

1. Airbnb, despite the stated security commitments and assurances, failed with the verification, at least in this particular case, of the property ownership. Airbnb promoted and made available on its platform a property which does not belong to the stated owner but to a completely different body.

2. We used the Airbnb platform to establish contact with the supposed owner. We received the owner’s e-mail via the Airbnb platform. We did not use an external website.

3. We have accessed Airbnb site and communicated via it. We have never received a warning alerting us on eventual financial scam. Even when the property was removed from Airbnb, Airbnb has not warned us about problems with this property, although the communication could have been easily traced via the dashboards.

4. The scam is very well prepared – it could be that some internal information on some security issues was used. The fake e-mail with the payment instructions had all the insignia of Airbnb (logo, link to Airbnb property, safety policy, etc). The account holder of the provided bank account is also Aibnb. A client can easily be mislead, especially when clients believe Airbnb, which is supposed to be a market leader in this niche. This is why many people have been victims of this scam. It seems however that, despite the numerous reports since more than a year, Airbnb has never recognised that there is a problem. Airbnb therefore failed to address the expectations of its clients as regards security measures.

Airbnb of course claims that they have provided information – it is true that relevant information is available in the section on questions and answers, under question 199. However, when an obvious problem is detected, fair business behaviour would require visible alerts to the clients instead of deeply hidden information. Still, putting alerting messages to attract the attention of clients on potential risks of financial fraud seems incompatible with the Airbnb policy – and this in its turn provides new opportunities for future fraud of the same nature.


B. As regards Barclays:

• Barclays has allowed a criminal to open a bank account in the UK Bank.

• Barclays does not check their account holders even in numerous cases of fraud implemented via the same bank. As obvious from the forum (http://www.scambook.com/report/view/181558/AirBNB-Leader-For-Welcoming-Fraud-Scams-Complaint-181558-for-$10,070.00) the same fraud scheme operates since more than a year and in many cases Barclays has been involved.

• Barclays does not check account holders even when it comes to multiplication of bank accounts related to an international brand such as Airbnb.


4. Complaints filed

• Law enforcement

US Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) - Complaint ID: I1401141337311971
UK Action Fraud -
French police - Pending submission

• Consumer protection

US Federal Trade Commission – Report ID: 50821654