Airbnb Drama

Sun, 14 May 2023 19:35:59 +0700

I came into 7-Eleven store in Thailand and purchased a SIM card five months ago. Some time later, I received an SMS from Airbnb.

Your Airbnb reservation request for May 13-14 in Yerevan was accepted

Initially, I was momentarily afraid of being hacked, but I soon discovered that SMS was sent to Thai phone number, even though I hadn’t registered Airbnb account to it. Probably, that was because of number recycling. A traveler used that SIM before, then left Thailand and the mobile operator assigned the same number to me.

Curious about the situation, I attempted to log into that strange account, filled a new code from SMS, and…

Enter the code we emailed to ti***@gm***.com

That’s a positive sign, that means Airbnb thought about number recycling issue. Although, there’s “Need help?” button. I pressed there and explained the situation to a support team.

Do you think they connected to me? Well, they did, to some extent. I received a new SMS.

You have a new Airbnb support message in your inbox. Go to your inbox: https://air.tl/XJbsUVeD to view the conversation and reply

Four times, four different links. And if I try to click any I get redirected to “Log in” page which I can’t bypass.

At this point, the story could be ended, but then I decided to write this blog post. While copying the email address I briefly wondered whether I should publish someone’s address, even with asterisks. I paused typing and had a sudden realization. I opened a chat with my friend to confirm… Ops. Uh. Ah. That wasn’t very smart.

Welcome, Timur. I know you’re reading this blog post. You were in Thailand with me five months ago, and recently you visited friends who moved to Armenia. I knew it! But it take a while to solve the riddle!

AND WHY DID YOU REGISTER AIRBNB ON MY NUMBER?

Friends on xie

Airbnb Drama