sry u got scammed but no way in hell 99% or anything close to that number would fall for it. obv its still good that you posted this to raise awarness.

i used airbnb several times and to me it was very clear that you book (and pay) on their website from the first time on - which afaik you cant even do by bankwire. i can only select paypal and visa when i book a place.

like others have said, its very very easy (at least it used to be about a year ago) to send emails from whatever address you want. it doesnt have to be 'airzbnb.com' or whatever, you can make it appear that any email came from any address, even if its the exact same address some legit business is using. its also possible to find out if some1 used this 'technique'.

tbh i think its very careless to wire 36k to bank info you got through email and im pretty sure im not the only one who would have quadruple checked before wiring that kind of money to anyone. even tho i can def see how you assumed everything was normal and how a lot of others might as well, you dont need to be suspicious to do your homework. the fact that 36k and the internet are involved, should encourage you to be very meticulous about it.

wish you the best of luck getting your money back, scammers are a **** plague. i really think you should handle things like that booking yourself tbh, i would never ever let anyone book/wire/whatever something for me for 36k. and it has nothing to do with a lack of trust in their intentions/morals whatsoever.

really not trying to kick you when youre down or anything like that but you should realize that you handled it foolishly to not do something similar in the future. its pretty crazy to think a 'very very high %' would have done as you/your wife did. 36k is a lot of money and you dont think that most people would do some research on how airbnb works or even google 'airbnb scam'?

I feel like I get that pop-up all the time in the g-mail (and my wife uses g-mail fwiw) but maybe I don't. I am not sure. Seems like a typical thing to X-out when you think you are dealing with a reputable party - a random false positive you don't pay attention to unless you know the scam exists. Again, easy to see in retrospect when you google "Air B n B scam" or whatever. I imagine she probably got it and didn't pay attention to it. I can't prove it, but I believe a very, very, very high % of people would do the same. Perhaps not in this community (sadly, do to all the scams) but overall.

I also don't think that the vast majority of people know you can create whatever e-mail you want with a basic e-mail software. I am not completely technically brain-dead and I still didn't know that as of yesterday. It's not exactly common knowledge.

You don't know what you're talking about. Go try to open a corporate bank account for a legitimate business. Then come back here and opine.

It's not easily done unless the bank is letting you do it illegally by not following the most basic compliance procedures and common sense.

A more fair reading of the situation would be something like "what the hell is wrong with Barclays - they've known about this specific scam for two years + and allowed it to keep going at ONLY their bank, even after Air B n B has told them from the VERY top to cut it out..."

Or blame the victim(s) for being unintelligent. That's fine too, I guess.

revils were you aware that you only pay for 1 month at a time? And not an entire payment for 6-12 months?? I researched this stuff before I made my first booking on the site!

I already said I know nothing about it.

That may well be the case. I just said it seems readily done. If Barclays doesn't prevent it after multiple warnings then by deduction it is readily done (especially by the same person that did it before).

That can be true whether the scam is sophisticated or not.

I don't recall ever getting any false positives, at least not from e-mail addresses from large well-known corporations like airbnb. I think it's pretty negligent to just click ignore when you're dealing with a $36k transfer, but I suppose it's understandable if you're under the impression e-mail is a secure form of communication that can't be spoofed. I do find it strange that someone who has been around for 10 years and "seen pretty much every scam in the book" would think that.

None of that really matters anymore though. If you're right about Barclays failing to follow compliance laws/procedures, you probably have a pretty legitimate lawsuit against them. I know the banks use the name on the account as a basic security check but have no idea what consequences it has with respect to the law. If you haven't already contacted a lawyer, I'd get on it ASAP.

Out of curiosity, what was the exact business name they used on the account?

thread moved to fast and my post was outdated already, so i'll just add you can see the real e-mail address that something was sent from by checking the headers. There are different ways on different sites, you should be able to google for instructions, but here's how to do it for a bunch of them. https://support.google.com/mail/answer/22454?hl=en If you post it here we can find it for you, but the real e-mail will be listed in there. not that it will really do a lot of good to find it, but if you're curious.

Your intention is reasonable, and I don't mind admitting I didn't know that e-mail wasn't secure. There's a lot I don't know. Like I said, I don't think the vast majority of new users on this site would know that, much less think anything of it. Nor do I think it's reasonable to assume people know that. Sure, everyone has heard of phishing attempts, but to say it's reasonable for a mass-market to suspect e-mails being spoofed is just not fair or rational. Just because you know doesn't mean most people do, or even that it's fair for some minority of people not to have this knowledge and then to explicitly and manifestly warn that group of people. It's just pretty basic, I think. Far more basic than having this knowledge of e-mail spoofing etc. to begin with.

$36,000 sounds like a lot but in fact when you're talking about long-term rentals, it's not really all that much. At least it's something that should be explicitly covered in the FAQ. Instead, if you go on https://www.airbnb.com/trust you are told in every which way to trust them, they'll handle the money, etc. There is literally no warning for anyone not suspecting scams are rampant on their site, transacting large dollar amounts, or doing a longer-term rental.

When you do find this warning, it takes 5 of 6 clicks, and they warn about a bunch of different payment methods - the standard scam ones like Western Union and MoneyGram etc. but not about international wire, which is the clear default payment method for this kind of money for just about everything.

There are very good lawyers involved already, obviously, and actions have been taken. There's a clear precedent to follow here.

For JSpill, who seems to think I'm at fault here. As always on 2+2, you're entitled to your opinions, I'm entitled to my facts. For the record, the facts are that the precedent here is extremely clear (with this specific situation and players and other similar situations). It is Barclays fault and liability in the eyes of the courts, and depending on the circumstances, it is potentially Air B n B's fault, not mine. They have paid out in the past if pursued, but rely basically on it not being worth it to pursue them for $1,500 when it could cost as much if not more to pursue them. Their conduct is so wrong that it's clearly a criminal offense, and there's no debate about it. This is not my legal opinion - these are facts of what has happened in the past, and what will happen here. The arguments you are making are objectively absurd.

On your motives, I'll let you decide whether you want to be the guy essentially laughing at and simultaneously blaming someone who just got scammed out of $36,000. That's up to you.

I just looked around the site for awhile and found nothing significant about longer-term rentals. It may very well exist, I just didn't see it. Where'd you find this?

'Long Term: First month down payment, 30 day notice for lease termination'

https://www.airbnb.com/home/cancella...cies#long-term

Didn't take me long to find.

I'm not blaming you revlis I just think you'd be naive to wire money off-site to a bank code in an email. The 'clear default payment method for just about everything', to borrow your term, is to pay on-site via HTTPS.

That's the only argument I've made, but just like in the sitout script debate we had before you divert attention to other points - here the email spoof and barclays - and away from the main issue.

I've linked a couple helpful support threads for anyone reading this thread / google search bots, and said what I wanted to say, so I'll quit derailing now.

This is pretty brutal and I think you can probably get some money back from a lawsuit.

However, this is basically the most basic scam in the book. You did zero due diligence before sending a 36k wire to an unknown bank account number.

This may be hard to swallow now because you have to justify the actions to avoid the mental anguish, but almost no one would fall for this in today's age.

I would like to see some justice done to the scammers though. No one deserves this and I feel bad for your situation. I hope they get punished and you get your funds returned.

You're right. The main issue is my stupidity. I should have known.

You seem to delight in my circumstance which speaks for itself.

Personally, I'd rather be the stupid guy than the one that delights in someone else's misfortune. That's just my own preference, of course.

It's not that sophisticated. You wired $36,000 to a bank account of somebody you didn't know. Most people are not that stupid.

Why not just offer to wire a deposit and then pay the balance after the service has been delivered like a normal, non ******ed person?

Directly wiring even a small amount money for xxxxxx, the first thing I'd do is google "xxxxxx scam", where in this case, the first result is from their actual site: https://www.airbnb.com/help/question/199

"We will never ask you to pay through your email. If you receive a personal email from anyone (including an automated@airbnb.com or any other username@airbnb.com email address) asking you to pay or accept payment off-site, immediately report it to safety@airbnb.com and end communication with the sender."

Yay for being in the 1%

i wonder if the scammer is a fish who wanted some revenge from these seating scripts

I know very little about the scam or the scripts but maybe possible?

to quote rounders:

"It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money."

Huh? From what I can tell, revlis found an apartment on the site and then had email conversations with the guy "leasing" it. I don't think he was approached 1st.

I prefer to be the guy with 36.000$ on my account.




(GL to get your money back)

you are correct...it was a bad joke

being serious though I thought it was pretty commonly known to never give out any personal information to anyone who contacts you via email as this happens quite frequently never mind sending large sums of cash......

pokerstars even says this in every email they send out and Im pretty sure most other big businesses do as well that they will never contact you asking for personal information....and sending that sum of money without even calling to make sure it was the correct banking information seems a little too trusting and silly to me...

and not reading any of the terms and conditions which others have said don't even pay for more then one month at a time

it is good that you posted to ensure no one else in the community gets scammed like this and I do hope you find out who did this and get your money back or they will just keep trying to do it others...

Correct.

But forget the details or anything. The whole point was the timing here and that it made the entire thing extremely believable. We weren't cold-called/e-mailed etc. It seemed all very much part of a process we initiated.

Thanks for your consideration Chis. It seems that the details don't matter. Nobody is dumb enough to get scammed until it happens to them.

jesus why the hell do people bash the victim in these situations?

be appreciative he posted this for the community's benefit at the possible expense of his embarrassment.

i hope this turns out well.

Thanks.

All I can say to certain people is their comments reflect on them, not me.

In terms of the facts:

The idea that one should have to hold even an above average understanding of the internet and computers, "spoofing" e-mails and "basic e-mail software" that can do this etc. is ridiculous. This company, seeking a $10b valuation, is basically built on the idea of trust and caters to the masses - not to a few guys who know how to make up e-mail addresses. I am not exactly an amateur, by the way. I've traded several million USD in the last few years in the HS thread. It goes without saying that everyone overestimates their intelligence (read the book by the Wharton professor on this...can't think of it right now) so it's helpful to remember that's part of almost all of us.

The fact is you have to look pretty deeply and have a reason to look for the warnings or instructions that would have helped this not happen. It's easy to find with 6 clicks or something after the fact - but a warning is supposed to be for BEFORE you do something dumb/bad for you.

And by the way, not everything happens on the "platform" of Air B n B. At least as it's been explained to me. As I've learned from my wife, when she was using the "platform" messaging service, Air B n B ALSO sent her an e-mail saying "you have a message" - so saying that everything happens on the web-site, going off-site is obviously dumb/easy to know when you're doing etc. is a bit tough to see as being reasonable as Air B n B is actually sending plenty of legitimate e-mails as well that are "off-site."

But revils the whole idea of Air BnB is that you fill in your payment details on their site and then they handle the escrow and payment to host. To me that seemed like the most obvious thing in the world.

Very strange that Barclays bank would allow a random person to have a bank account with them under the name Air BnB.