My PayPal account was charged over £669 on September 3rd, 2016 by Airbnb: £422 from my bank account and £247 from the backup credit card listed on my PayPal account. I was not a guest and I had not booked or tried to book anything via Airbnb, but they still charged me. Fortunately, I had set up the PayPal email warning system to tell me every time my account is used and my husband noticed the warning. I have never used Airbnb or had anything to do with them, having seen all the reports in the UK press about the horror stories. I did not lose anything, as the charges were eventually reversed. However, there have been no details from PayPal about how this could have happened. I have emailed them several times asking how it was possible Airbnb could apply charges to my account. So far, all I’ve heard is silence and a load of standard emails telling me they are always trying to improve their security systems. My opinion: they’re not good enough.
Tag Archives: paypal
FRAUD WARNING! Airbnb site may not be secure!
On Friday, 2/19/16, I tried to make a reservation on airbnb with Valorie in Santa Clara for a room. For some reason in making the reservation, I could not use my paypal account. I closed out of airbnb to try to investigate what was going on in paypal and everything was okay. There should have been no reason why my transaction would not have gone through. On Friday, the same day, I got a text from airbnb security with a 4 digit pin code to complete the transaction. I resumed trying to make the reservations for the room, and attempted to use paypal again, without success. Getting a little bit desperate to get this reservation completed, I entered my chase credit card number and continued trying to make the reservation, but I still needed to complete more information. The website asked for permission for me to verify myself and they wanted the following: Your e-mail account, access to your e-mail contacts(!!), and a picture of your drivers license, which I took a picture of and uploaded to the airbnb website. For me, to get an airbnb reservation for $50 a night, it was not worth revealing so much personal information including a picture ID which i did submit. When it requested my facebook, link’d in, e-mail and access to my e-mail contacts, I had to log out. I then logged back in and deleted my account. I will attempt now to contact technical support on airbnb’s www/https:// website. It is not secure!
UPDATE:
Two days later, on Sunday, February 21st, I got a chase credit card fraud alert with 6 new charges amounting to more than $879.00!! It seems obvious that these events are related! I had to cancel my chase card immediately.
Be warned your information may not be secure when using the Airbnb website!!