After she had chosen a perfect home nearby Barcelona, she started having a conversation with the host. For users' convenience Airbnb provides a possibility to answer the messages sent from their website directly via email. It indeed makes the whole conversation easier (you do not need to log in every time you want to answer the message) however it increases the chance of fraud bookings.

The host was indeed sending the answers via Airbnb until he sent last one including booking details (usual emails from airbnb are sent from express@airbnb.com, his email was express@e-airbnb.com). Provided URL was also redirecting e-airbnb.com instead of airbnb.com. The website was looking exactly as airbnb does and included all booking and payment details. All the other links available on this fraud website were redirecting to real airbnb website.

Unfortunately, she has done the payment via Moneygramm (as it was described in the payment details) and since then there has been no contact with the host.

Airbnb has been also informed about this issue. As they guarantee hosts' verification I would expect them to get more interested in this case. Sadly, it took them 2 days to apologise and it seems like they do not take any responsibility for their hosts ....

Hopefully, thanks to this post at least one person will save his money while booking on airbnb. We have lost almost 2k euro ...