Germany

Airbnb Host Refunds Only 50 Percent After Woman Cancels Reservation Due to Suspicious Activity on Her Account

Airbnb alerted a woman to suspicious activity on her account after she booked a rental in Germany, so she canceled her reservation immediately, but she said she only got half of her money back until she contacted NBC4 Responds.

Erin Tesch said she used Airbnb for the first time planning an upcoming family trip.

“Well, I knew a lot of people that had used Airbnb, and they had great experiences, and my son, in fact, had used Airbnb in Thailand last summer several times and he had wonderful experiences with it,” Tesch said.

She found a place with a little kitchen, a living room and two bedrooms and booked it, she said. Immediately after paying $1,683, she received an alert from Airbnb about suspicious activity on her account.

“There was a phone number for the host, so I picked up the phone and I tried to call that number,” she said. “That number was a non-working number, and at that point I knew that the host was fraudulent. I felt sick to my stomach, so I immediately canceled the reservation.”

She said she automatically got a 50 percent refund per the host’s cancellation policy.

She tried contacting Airbnb to find out when she'd get the rest of her money.

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“So I literally contacted Airbnb almost every day,” she said. “I sent them emails; I made phone calls.”

After two weeks, she contacted NBC4 Responds, which reached out to Airbnb.

Airbnb credited Tesch the rest of her money and recently took steps to crack down on account takeovers.

“We had seen some hosts and guests were suffering from these types of scams, and that's unacceptable to us," said Nick Shapiro, head of trust and risk management for Airbnb.

One of the new measures in place is multifactor authentication. If you log in from a device you've never used before, you'll have to enter a code that's texted to you before you can continue.

Users can also flag suspicious listings on their mobile devices.

If malicious activity is detected on an account, the user will be notified by text message and email.

“I don’t think I will use Airbnb again,” Tesch said. “You know, I think they do a lot of good, I think they serve a purpose but I think they need to improve in their customer service.”

To protect yourself from fraud while using Airbnb:

  • Keep all communications with hosts and guests on the Airbnb platform.
  • Do not make any payments through any other services. All payments made on Airbnb are protected.
  • Make sure your password for Airbnb is not the same as any other accounts that you use.
  • If you get an email that looks like it's from Airbnb but you're not sure verify it's really from the company.
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