$500 Covid Credit

Research
1

Received a text message purportedly from Airbnb stating that I have a “$500 Covid Credit” and the instruction to click on a link to claim it. No such message from Airbnb in my Inbox or email. Sounds fishy; I have not clicked on the link. Did anyone else get this message recently and, if so, is it legit? Can’t call Airbnb because they don’t answer the phone anymore.
PS, it is not the 25% of 50% Covid booking credit that was given earlier this year. Those credits were just sent directly to my bank account.

2 Likes
2

It’s a scam, do not click the link and delete the SMS.

JF

6 Likes
3

I’d vote spam, and since you said you didn’t see it in the Airbnb site, even doubly more so.

Thanks for letting others know :+1:

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4

SCAM.

Awful. Thank you for the warning.

The bad guys are getting really creative it’s getting worse. My Total Wine account was recently hacked and they tried to order a $400 bottle of tequila! My Walmart account was hacked for a PS5 purchase. My favorite credit card was pirated and they tried to buy $75 pizza in NJ! My friend found her checking & savings accounts empty, they hacked her debit card. This is all within the past few months.

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Always easy to spot a scam - just click on the email the message comes from and you can clearly see it is not from Airbnb, your bank, utility company or whatever company they purport to be coming from. @RobR

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6

The OPs message is a text. Those can be harder to spot

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No bank or legitimate business will send you texts with links to click on, in my experience. I’ve never gotten a text message from Airbnb aside from alerts that I have a message in my inbox, request, inquiry, etc. and those verification codes they send once in awhile to keep accounts secure.

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NEVER CLICK A LINK ! If you click you will give away your password and your account will then be hacked. Since there is no message in your AirBnb, then you already know the answer to this.

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NEVER CLICK A LINK ! When you click a link to attempt to log in, you will give them your password and that is how your account is hacked. And if you use the password in other accounts then they get really lucky! You provide to them the information. The scammers can be as creative as they want but as long as you NEVER CLICK A LINK they wont get your information.

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Thank you all for the comments and I have not clicked on the link! The odd thing is that the message and link came in on a feed that had legit content from Airbnb Help in the message history. I’m also surprised no one else received the message.

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With the right knowledge it is extremely easy to “spoof” the sending number, so when the message reaches your mobile, your phones software automatically assumes the message came from the the legit number, and then simply adds it to the message archive for that number.

JF

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12

Never ever respond to a text message if you don’t know or trust where it’s coming from. I unfortunately get scammy texts often. Glad you didn’t respond to it.

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The link gives a web address

14

good insight, John. Thank you,

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Send it to Airbnb as they probably need to know about it