Airbnb Example Scam

27-12-23 00 / episode: 345

Airbnb be careful

Airbnb is a great way to travel around the world and stay inexpensively.

you might even get to meet some local people and feel like you're really in touch with the place that you're visiting.

on the other hand there's also Airbnb scams. the Airbnb scams can be pretty sophisticated and there's quite a few of them.

there's always bad guys looking for money.

let's talk about one of the scams that you need to be really careful about.

hi and welcome to the Les Perras podcast episode number 345, which is all about an Airbnb scam.

this scam is phishing.

That’s spelled with a ‘ph’.

in this scam the bad guy will send you a link to a site that looks just like an Airbnb site.

it has the same logos, it has the same colors, it has the same style look and feel.

the problem is it's not the same site.

it's on their web host.

on the site they ask you to log in.

this is the dangerous point.

if you log in you're giving them your username and your password.

now they have your username and password and they can take it to the real Airbnb site and they can log in and they can change your password and lock you out of your own account.

now they control your account and they can cause an huge amount of grief for you you might have to pay a lot of money.

how can you avoid this problem?

well first of all take a look at the URL.

the URL is the only way to identify a legitimate Airbnb site.

the URL is the address of the site.

it's the one that starts with https. when you open up the website on a browser, look at the URL and confirm that it is https://www.airbnb.com/.

After the.com and the slash, there can be all sorts of different things you don't have to worry about that.

but the part up to.com is crucial.

if you get anything different even one letter different you're not on airbnb.

for instance, it might say www.airbnb1.com.

That's a different site owned by a different company or person.

it's a phishing site and you're in danger if you give them any information.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think Airbnb is a pretty good site.

it's a pretty good service and you can have wonderful vacations if you're careful.

on the other hand if you're not careful,

you could end up in a lot of trouble spending a lot more money and not having any fun at all.

this is a little bit different from going shopping in the store or booking through your travel agent.

you're out on the internet, the world wild web.

there's a lot of good guys and there's a lot of bad guys out there. it pays to be cautious.

always check the URL of the site that you're visiting.

if you get lots of experience you'll start to understand which is a good site and which is a bad site just by looking at the url.

Go out travel have fun and be careful. good okay