Found this in my inbox…they used my username on this site, but somehow it went to my main email address which is not affiliated with that username other than this website.
Oh, NEVERMIND!
It’s a PM here that also showed up in my email box!
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Thanks for clearing that up but we really don’t want people using this site to solicit business by posting and certainly not by PMing people.
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Yes I did.
2010222020
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I received the same email from Tankeyou. I asked them how they make money if neither guests nor hosts pay and received a ludicrous response.
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Yes and I asked Tom the moderator about it. I also emailed them and asked why they were saying “no guest fees” when guest fees are in their terms of service on their website, and how they planned to make any money with no guest or host fees! They said they have enough funding to waive fees for 2 years and will also rely on income from their “places” feature, which I think is their version of experiences. If you read the history of Airbnb culling an initial host population off of Craigslist through some fancy programming and messaging, it is eerily similar! (There are two versions of the story I’ve read, one of which claims Abnb had no idea that their sales contractor was doing any such thing.) Welcome to the capitalist marketplace!
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I got it too. Is that allowed on this site?
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Yeah, it came in as a PM. Never heard of them so I replied that I would look into it and give it some thought. My only thought was why did they stick an “e” between Thank and You.
Then I went to bed.
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I suspended (blocked for 2 weeks) and told them not to use the forum to promote their business.
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I got it yesterday too – as email, not a PM. Good to hear they’ve been blocked!
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I asked the same thing and was similarly unimpressed by their answer. ;D
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Oh I asked them that too - and received an nonsensical answer…as to their proposed marketing approach…
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I’m convinced it’s a scam. You would have to be completely stupid to rely on investor funds for two years in a business where you can immediately make a profit. However, if you get “guests” and “hosts” to give you their banking/credit card information it’s very easy to steal funds.
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Ew. I didn’t think of that. I checked out their website and assumed the photos of weirdly generic happy guests were stock photos, but that was as far as I got, suspicion-wise.
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My antenna went up when I saw no press announcement or other public commentary. Although I’m having trouble seeing how it could be a very effective scam. How much start up volume of guests and hosts could you get lined up in order to hit the credit cards/bank accounts – before they all pulled out after not getting that first payment or finding that their first booking was nonexistent? Easier to mine identities, do fake Airbnb or other lodging accounts then close them down, rather then setting up an entire fake platform, yes?
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Well, the domain name was purchased on 30th March this year so they are hardly an established company. They have zero followers on their Twitter and Pinterest accounts, only about 100 on Facebook.
Hypestat says that they have zero daily views (although I just gave them one - bet they’re delighted!), no Google page rank, no Alexa ranking etc. etc.
It always amazes me that these people start to promote their services without getting their marketing organised first.
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I got a private message too. Exactly the same wording as in the first post of this thread (by @brook2adks) . Are they spamming everyone, or being selective? I replied telling them that they did not appear to have any Indian listings.
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I didn’t get it. So they must be selective but I wonder why? At first I thought that it would be because of the location but they wouldn’t necessarily know that from our posts.
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Maybe they’re just selecting random people? Only they could answer that, I suppose.
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True. But as my post above shows, they are disorganised and have no concept of marketing so maybe their method of contacting hosts is equally disorganised and totally random.
It might well be two teenagers in a back bedroom somewhere trying to leap onto the Airbnb bandwagon. 
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