Host has offered me an off site deal for Airbnb

score:9

Accepted answer

Scam

The person wants you to pay through some sort of "e-transfer of cash". Presumably, in advance. This is the red hot glowing flag of scammery.

If the person had said "let me send you a PayPal invoice", okay maybe - since PayPal has Buyer Protection. But this person wants you to pay using their preferred method which of course will be irreversible. This is outrageous! No legit hoster would have a problem with a scheme with buyer recourse e.g. Visa-Mastercard.

Stacked on top of this is the absurd claim that AirBnB (literally, Air Bed & Breakfast) would only support one room per account/venue. Real Bed & Breakfasts have between 3 and 20 rooms typically, so that would mean AirBnB couldn't handle its namesake!

The desire to go off-airBnB for most of the stay is, in itself, not that alarming. Regular hosts want to do this too. But combined with these other things, it becomes another red flag.

There's a possibility that this is a hacked account. Perhaps the account had gone inactive (an active host would immediately notice hacking) and the true account has only one unit to rent. That would explain why the scammer claimed that; to open up the other dates to create more slots to scam people. Business must be good.

If you wanted to toy with the person, you would say "be happy to pay you actual cash in-person at the venue". That will get you a clever excuse! Then you could offer to take a PayPal invoice. It's unlikely the scammers would agree, but if they did, thet'd flag it as a "gift" (no recourse) rather than a "purchase of goods and services" (recourse) and hope you did not notice.

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