That's pretty bold! Here, fraudsters have not just faked an advertisement, but have also created a complete Airbnb clone, which is dangerous on several levels.

Airbnb is a portal where you can usually rent apartments or rooms for your vacation quite cheaply from private providers. It is precisely because of these low prices that the portal is quite popular.

To prevent fraud on the platform, Airbnb includes certain security mechanisms such as verification or reviews. But scammers show how you can bypass the whole thing completely.

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Because none of these mechanisms work if you simply recreate the website completely and spread the link to the fake page virally or via email. Accordingly, there are websites that are confusingly similar to Airbnb, but can be an expensive trap!

Fake site Airbnb
Fake site Airbnb

This fake page is visually based on the original, but the URL was also constructed using a trick: using a subdomain, the original name “Airbnb.com” was inserted into the address, but is not the actual website that you end up on.

Danger 1: Advance fee fraud

First and foremost, this is an advance payment fraud. When you make a supposed reservation here, a “Diane Saathoff” from Belgium answers. Everything that happens then seems normal at first and you get the supposed reservation confirmed.

However, the problem here lies in every payment that has to be made in advance: As with every advance payment fraud, the money is gone here too! Since the advertisement or the entire website is a fake, there are no benefits.

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Danger 2: Phishing

Since the fake Airbnb page is a page with partial functions, you can also log in to the page. At least you think you can log in. The problem: If you enter real existing information here, it is likely to end up in the hands of fraudsters, who will then gain access to the real account.

Our antivirus software reported directly to the fake website and pointed out a possible scam.

Airbnb fake / Screenshot Kaspersky Labs
Airbnb fake / Screenshot Kaspersky Labs

False Airbnb page: detect fraud!

Offer fantastically cheap? Communication going too smoothly? Advance payment necessary? These are already indications of fraud. Furthermore, it is always important to look at the address of the page. Is it correct or rather unusual or even artificially recreated with a subdomain?

If in doubt, always go to the official website manually and search for the advertisement. protective software can also be helpful and warn of fraud.

This might also be of interest:

Housing scam! The evil game of looking for an apartment


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