airbnb - regular fake owner in Barcelona

[Normandie]

From the Telegraph...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/trave ... eader.html

If you're booking a property in Barcelona, take care to book via airbnb... though, of course, scammers will fake any property in any country, it's just that this one is persistent.

[e-richard]

Persistent yes, but I wonder why he is targeting Telegraph readers ?

[Normandie]

Somebody has to.

What interested me is that according to the article, he was advertising the property again just a few days after he'd been deleted and airbnb weren't aware until the scammed traveller reported it.

The article said:
<< I clicked on the “contact host” link on the property’s website page and the owner responded by asking me to email over my address details directly so he could send the rental agreement and preapprove the booking. >>

I thought airbnb prevented direct contact outside the booking site? Or is airbnb one of the sites that allows it? I always doubt the accuracy of newspaper articles.

[annedab]

I am currently dealing with a confirmed airbnb booking. I am pretty sure that last year we were able to see the guests e mail address, but now everything goes through airbnb and the addresses are scrambled at each end (I can, however, see her phone number now that the booking is confirmed). There is a message at some point that says any e mail addresses included within the correspondence will be removed so it isn't really clear how the "owner"/guest managed to send theirs.

It is possible to reply direct from the enquiry e mail without logging into the dashboard but as far as I know the guest still doesn't see our actual e mail address (although I guess it is still showing on the info pack we sent as an attachment!)

[Hells Bells]

I've just taken a booking via ABB , email address was scrambled, although once she completed my booking form, she included her real email address on there, but otherwise there was no way for me to contact her via her proper email address, or for her to contact me via mine. You can however use the ABB email address in your own emails without going through ABB.