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Lots of hosts worldwide are receiving weird reservations supposedly from “South Korea”
Message just reads
"This is a reserve listing, I may not be staying, please understand"
Then those get canceled and hosts get money, but lots of people are concerned these might be coming from stolen credit cards and might compromise their accounts.
any ideas what could be happening?
Never heard of this scam @Giorgi. Who are all these hosts that it has happened to?
If the booking gets cancelled, how are the hosts still getting paid?
Has it happened to you? If so what did Airbnb say when you reported it to them?
They get payed because of the strict cancellation policies.
It is happening in many countries, reservations are coming from 2015 created accounts, no reviews, all from South Korea (contact number from Russia)
Airbnb says no foul there (So far)
S. Korean guests can cancel without penalty (regardless of your cancellation policy) so it really doesn’t make sense.
S. Korean guests can cancel without penalty (regardless of your cancellation policy) so it really doesn’t make sense.
Why can a SK guest cancel regardless of policy?
That was the special special agreement made with the South Korea government in order to allow their citizens to join the site
But does that mean that Airbnb pays their hosts with strict cancellation policies or do the hosts get screwed as usual?
Special deal
Here it is
You agree when they book
https://www.airbnb.com.au/home/updated_cancellation_policies?korean_strict_policy=true#strict
Ugh! And what if they cancel before noon but don’t actually leave until 9pm?? And how do we know if this guest is under this policy, is it only if they list their location as South Korea? What’s to stop ANYONE from doing that?
It comes up when they instant book. It will tell you straight away that they’re from south korea and what the policy is.
However having so many bookings from them sounds like a scam to me
Yes. It sounds and looks like a scam, however I don’t understand what is the end-game here?
Hosts from various countries are reporting same day booking, always booked around 11pm-12am (Malaysia/ASIA time)
And no, they are not canceling, it is just a no show.
Identity theft? They get more info about you (address, phone number) once booked, yes?
So much of that information is on the internet anyway this doesn’t seem like an efficient way to get this info.
