I used Airbnb to book a villa for eight people… I thought I did anyway. Prior to that I had contacted several hosts and got exactly the same reply every time. I liked a villa whose host was named Sandy. Villa Vouglemeni looked great. I received a confirmation email and was then told the payment needed to be made via bank transfer as it had been confirmed but not yet booked. We turned up at the place after paying £2355. The villa was real, but the booking was a fraud. Eight people were forced to book hotels at a peak travel time (Easter). The real owner had spoken to Airbnb ten days ago saying the listing was a fraud but Airbnb did nothing to prevent further fraud from occurring. They left the link up, so we booked and got conned. Then we had to pay again for alternative accommodations. They ruined our holiday. We lost all our money and they refused to listen or help; they just kept sending the same form letter. Help me share this story and get my money back and everyone else’s.
You ding dong! What led you to believe paying by bank transfer was a good idea? Don’t you know wire/bank transfers are con artists method of stealing your money? if you didn’t know, I bet you do now. Hard, expensive lesson but don’t be so stupid in the future lest the Nigerian con artists trick you.
You were not conned by Airbnb. You were a greedy gullible fool who tried to cheat the system when it says CLEARLY not to pay off system. No sympathy for you.
This is a terrible scam, but Airbnb specifically states that all payment must go through them.
These scams are happening when the host gets hacked, not Abnb. It was up to the host to go in and fix his passwords and make sure his financial info was correct. Sadly we are hearing more and more stories like this.
Post the problem on the abnb facebook page and see what they do.