Our expert advice will help you make sure your holiday accommodation really exists
Our expert advice will help you make sure your holiday accommodation really exists
Listings with the host’s email or phone number
This is a dead giveaway. Both Airbnb and Holiday Lettings ban direct contact outside of their mail systems to deter fraudsters (and protect their commission). They are able to detect and automatically remove obvious attempts to include email addresses, but fraudsters have found ways to beat these checks – for example, by adding an email to the property photo or description and suggesting you contact them directly, often to get a better deal.
Hosts that suggest you avoid paying through the website
Avoid any listing that asks you to pay outside of internal systems. The most common scam is to ask people to send payment by bank transfer.
URLs sent by email
We’ve seen several imitation Airbnb websites set up by scammers that look utterly convincing. If you’re asked to log into your account via email, go to airbnb.co.uk or holidaylettings.co.uk and do it there. Don’t click on 5airbnb.com or any other similar-looking URL.
Properties that look too good, or too cheap, to be true
They probably are. Try a reverse image search on photos of the property (on Chrome browsers, right click on the image on your mouse and choose ‘search Google for image’). Many scammers use the same picture for several listings. If you find the same picture being used for several properties, it’s probably a scam.
This is a dead giveaway. Both Airbnb and Holiday Lettings ban direct contact outside of their mail systems to deter fraudsters (and protect their commission). They are able to detect and automatically remove obvious attempts to include email addresses, but fraudsters have found ways to beat these checks – for example, by adding an email to the property photo or description and suggesting you contact them directly, often to get a better deal.
Hosts that suggest you avoid paying through the website
Avoid any listing that asks you to pay outside of internal systems. The most common scam is to ask people to send payment by bank transfer.
URLs sent by email
We’ve seen several imitation Airbnb websites set up by scammers that look utterly convincing. If you’re asked to log into your account via email, go to airbnb.co.uk or holidaylettings.co.uk and do it there. Don’t click on 5airbnb.com or any other similar-looking URL.
Properties that look too good, or too cheap, to be true
They probably are. Try a reverse image search on photos of the property (on Chrome browsers, right click on the image on your mouse and choose ‘search Google for image’). Many scammers use the same picture for several listings. If you find the same picture being used for several properties, it’s probably a scam.
