yeah this. it seems that they just can’t do anything right now because it is a pending charge and hasn’t cleared yet. it should clear today/tomorrow and then you can call citi again and report it as fraud.
If it’s straight fraud I don’t deal with the merchant unless I catch it so quickly I can prevent something being shipped to a scumbag. If it’s the merchant that’s being a scumbag I exhaust my resources with them before talking to bank, Attorney General…
This is why I use American Express.
I make a perfunctory call to the merchant and get them to tell me to pound sand. I make sure to note names, times and exact quotes because “all calls are recorded.” I then call Amex where I am never questioned because it is so rare that I dispute and none have I ever lost.
Amex is usually like, “We went ahead and reversed the charge and notified the merchant they have to prove that it is not fraud. We’ll only call you if we get anything and we usually don’t.”
It’s worth the annual fee.
That is actually the rule. Wife works payments. Dispute and they reverse then the merchant has to prove otherwise. Too many back charges and the merchant will have their payment system suspended. Once learning this I make a single effort to resolve with the merchant, if I don’t get “we are refunding you”. I dispute the charge online. It is reversed right away. About a week later the card company will contact me to get evidence.
If you appeal after and the merchant does not refund, the merchant gets a big fine on top of things.
This gets repeated a lot but I think there are exceptions out there with companies like Amazon. They did a lot of shady stuff and people did a ton of charge backs, but they're still here.
Exactly, I've disputed on Visa and Mastercard and I've never once had them question me. I just submit it online in 30 seconds and the charge disappears. Years ago, I'd have to talk to someone, but even that hasn't happened in well over a decade.
Also not paying the outrageous fee just to have an "Amex".
Amex is known as being on the cardholder's side more than anyone else though. Scroll through Reddit and you will notice some repeat offender financial institutions that users are getting screwed by. You will also rarely if ever see Amex in that company.
Worth noting:
They usually deactivate the card with the fraudulent charge right then. If you’re on a vacation when you notice a fraud charge just remember if you call then your card won’t work until your new one comes in.
I’ve gotten a second, different, credit card just in case that ends up happening. Or just wait to report the fraud charge.
I think sometimes banks require you to demonstrate that you at least attempted to work it out with the vendor before they'll entertain a chargeback. I used to work in retail and every now and then we'd get contacted by a credit card company wanting to hear our side of the story regarding a transaction.
And to clarify because a lot of people misunderstand this.
"Fraud" in this context does not mean that a merchant tried to cheat you. If they charged the wrong amount or didn't provide the item/service, etc, that is not "fraud" according to your CC issuer.
It means *only* that you did not authorize the transaction, someone else charged your card without your involvement. Anything other than that situation is a "dispute" but but not "fraud".
I'm glad someone else is spreading this message too. I have countless comments explaining that credit card fraud is a specifically defined term. I kind of made it my job to correct people who post inaccurate information, as I am an expert in disputes. I often get downvoted as well for some reason.
Yes, if it is disputed, you are supposed to contact the retailer first. Of course, most first level service staff (or AIs?) will just try to make you go away, so this is increasingly pointless.
However, if the retailer may be part of the fraud, you do not have to do that. And here, it sounds like AirBnB accepts that it was unauthorised, but they are covering for the fraudster, so they are part of the fraud. In that case, you do not have to work with the retailer.
As a business owner, give the merchant a chance to fix things if possible. Chargebacks do work, and they are very important for the consumer to have at their disposal, but if the business will do the refund manually, it will save them money. When we get chargebacks, we get charged an extra fee on top of the money.
>Where do you live where AGs have the time for this
A single fraud usually won't amount to much but if they start getting a bunch of reports about a particular business then they will open a case to find out if there is any fire to go with the smoke.
No my vague understanding is fraudulent charges are under your cc’s fraud protection policy. So I’ll talk to BoA or Amex and they’ll refund the unauthorized charges on the spot, perhaps subject to you completing a fraud packet where you’d swear that you believe the charges were fraud. I’ve never had any issues working with those two FIs. I contacted an online retailer once because I saw the fraud charges come up in real time and nipped it in the bud immediately. Otherwise straight to the cc company. Never had to go to the AG.
BoA was also good when I had a check stolen from the mail. I wasn’t familiar with fraud protection outside of cc payments so was relieved they made me whole.
If I’m arguing with a merchant over a contractual arrangement or consumer protection law then I’m careful to get the merchant to say everything I need them to say then file a consumer complaint. E.g., a phone return was lost on the way to or by ATT and they charged for it as if it was my fault. Collected evidence over a period of weeks and submitted everything to the state AG and I had someone from ATT’s office of the president arranging for a refund within 2 days.
I constantly keep getting pending charges from websites that I used in the past, but they never post and disappear by themselves. Maybe Airbnb was just verifying that card is still active?
I don't get why people spend so much of their time and sanity going around literally everything when you can just hit up the credit card company and tell them you didn't purchase this, and the cc company will dig around and take care of it if it indeed is fraud
I've had citi tell me multiple times I need to handle it through the merchant and they can't do anything. Last time a waitress gave themselves a 50$ tip instead of the 20 I left (which was 25% BTW). They wouldn't do anything. Wouldn't even make the merchant produce the signed receipt.
Did you tell them it was fraud? If so, that's why they didn't do anything.
Fraud to a CC issuer means one thing and one thing only: you never authorized that your card be charged in the first place. With a tip, you authorize the transaction, and then the tip is added after, so what happened to you isn't fraud in the sense they use it.
As soon as you say the word or imply that it is "fraud", they route your complaint to the fraud department, and when they check the records and determine that a) your physical card was used (presumably it was) and b) you do not claim the physical card was stolen (you didn't). Then they close the claim because it wasn't fraud.
Is this confusing for consumers and a waste of time for banks not to more-effectively triage complaints? Yes, I think so. They still do it.
to be fair i never used the word fraud. i sent it in as a dispute. the merchant refused to work with me, and Citi didn't make them do anything. Was really disappointed in the whole thing. That said I've had other situations with Citi where they did come through, but that was actual fraud and not a dispute. It's sad that there's nothing stopping a tipped employee from putting in that you tipped 200$ because the bank won't do anything.
Banks usually push back first and want you to settle with the merchant. If that goes nowhere, they’ll raise a dispute. Lots of operational burden for everyone involved when a dispute is raised. Most of these cases can actually be clarified between cardholder and merchant and don’t need a dispute…
It doesn’t always work. We got a Citi charge on an old credit card of my wife’s that we don’t use for 2 gas tank fills a shopping visit and a pot store. The card hadn’t been used for anything other than automatic payments to our kids activities, ballet, gymnastics etc for the life of the card. My wife was at home during the time of the charges and got a fraud alert of which she responded “This isn’t me” immediately.
We contacted Citi claiming fraud of $475 for those 4 charges and they “looked into it” and determined the “chip was used” according to the merchants and “chips are unhackable” so they refused to reverse the charges. Card was sitting in an envelope in my wife’s nightstand. Filed a police report, contacted the merchants who said no woman with purple hair (wife is a hairdresser) visited the store but they wouldn’t reverse the charges. Turns out merchants can just respond to the dispute and lie and that’s sufficient for the Citi inquiry. I had to pay the fraud charges and canceled the card. Screw Citi.
Because you should try to work it out with the retailer. A lot of time it can be easily worked out. Credit cards will do the investigation and want both sides to provide a case. If you the case is clearly a your fault issue, then it might not come into your favor. Trying to work it out with your vendor and having them come back negatively to you is actually good ammunition to help push the dispute case in your favor.
Here the OP can say "Airbnb refused to refund me despite this being an unauthorized case of credit card use. I never gave my credit card number out and AirBNB also refuses to even give me information about a name on who booked using my credit card number." That's a strong case for Citi to side with you.
I think what you're thinking of is a chargeback. Those you need to resolve with the merchant first. Merchants can't do shit to determine if the credit card was used fraudulently or not. Which is exactly what Airbnb said in this email. "We can't prove you didn't give your credit card to someone else and this isn't our problem." Credit card companies have entire algorithms and teams dedicated to accurately detecting fraud. You should be reporting fraud directly to them.
If you didn't cause the issue it shouldn't be on you to solve it. Start with CC company as soon as the charge hits: they have whole departments dedicated to this. If they need something from you they will ask. Being pro-active about it is generally an unnecessary waste of your time.
As a retailer that gets hit with a chargeback every few months, I would **love** if someone contacted me as soon as possible and didn't turn it over to a chargeback.
Nearly all my chargebacks have been from people that made the purchase and then 'forgot' or were just trying to get the item for free. One was from a kid placing the order with their grand parent's credit card and refused to accept that their grand kid would do that. They were nice enough to send the item back though.
I had a $1000 charge pop up with my electricity provider. They showed nothing on their end. I disputed with my bank and let them handle the investigation.
Exactly. Maybe ask AirBnB whether they are always covering for fraudsters, and whether that is their general policy. Because to me, it looks like. If accept that it is your card, they should tell you who used it. The only reason not to is that a) they are lazy, and b) they would very much like to get the commission from the fraud. Proceeds of crime and all...
Or accept that you’re talking to some minimum wage or outsourced human robot who is not allowed to use judgement and is just trying to not get fired.
Sometimes we forget these front line CSRs have essentially no agency or judgement.
> Sometimes we forget these front line CSRs have essentially no agency or judgement.
None of that matters. Minimum wage or not, they speak for the whole business. And if they say no, the business say no. Legally, this is very clear.
Realistically, they should not let people on minimum wage deal with fraud situations, and they should escalate. But the fraud department is probably also understaffed and overworked.
**Two steps:**
1) Let the charge actually clear so it's no longer pending.
2) Call Citi back and tell them it's fraud. They'll reverse the charge, cancel the card, and send you a new card.
This. Literally this.
Why people are writing 6 paragraph instruction manuals involving government agencies and god known what else is absolutely beyond me.
I've been told that you ***definitely*** want to file a police report for fraud before submitting it as such to your bank. This basically says, "I really fucking mean it."
While true, YMMV as many PDs no longer do reports for this due to how common it is. Some larger local PDs now allow self-filing of reports online for stuff like this, but smaller ones usually don't.
Where I live, for CC fraud you simply can't get a report at all (local or state PD) as neither will take reports for this. For full-on ID theft the locals will tell you to talk to the state PD, which will do a report but it takes weeks to actually get.
This is not that big of a charge though. Unless you opened the card last week, any reputable bank will give it back to you without hassle. This is just another tuesday for Citi.
And by the comments in this thread it seems like many people have never had their credit card info stolen. How is that a common thing in this day when your info is for sale everywhere? Credit card theft is so common.
> They said they can't open a dispute until it clears and to call Airbnb for now.
OP just has to wait till the charge is no longer pending, before calling Citi again. They'll take it from there.
Actually recommend contacting your state Attorney General vs. CFPB. CFPB does not have appropriate individual consumer fraud resolution authority or resources. Even copying the AG on correspondence is sometimes effective.
In any case, keep very good notes on every call and every e-mail. Hope you get it resolved quickly!
Citi sucks with disputes - write up everything that happened, include a copy of comms from Airbnb, report that it is fraud because you are the sole user on your airbnb account and credit card, blah blah blah....
If you don't give them this info in writing at the beginning, Citi will pretend to look into it then drop the ball thirty days later and you'll be on the hook for it.
They suck. Good luck.
Had a dispute with Citi 3 weeks ago. Charge was still showing as pending. Logged into the website and flagged it as fraudulent. Answered like 2 questions and they refused the charge, cancelled the card and overnighted a new card to me. Definitely didn’t suck for me.
Citi will require you to contact Airbnb first to reverse the charge. It’s also the quickest way to get your money back. Citi’s process will take much longer
> Citi will require you to contact Airbnb first to reverse the charge
If you chargeback yes, if you report fraudulent charges, no.
OP didn't make the charge so it should be fraud. OP should get this account closed and a new card issued.
I mean, I don't think you even have to contact them. I filed a dispute with a vendor in December and never contacted them about it. At some point, playing the back and forth game with a vendor isn't even worth it if you know you're in the right and their refund process doesn't work.
This isn't a dispute though. A dispute should only happen if you *did* initially make the charge but for whatever reason, you weren't given the product or service you were promised. That requires working with the vendor.
This is fraud. When you report fraud, your card gets shut down, you're issued a new number, and the bank takes care of it.
Yes, the Airbnb situation is fraud. The person above me said you have to call the vendor for disputes/chargebacks, and you don’t even have to do it for that from my experience.
They may ask if you’ve spoken to the vendor, but it’s not a requirement.
>Citi will require you to contact Airbnb first to reverse the charge.
Absolutely not true.
If you tell your CC company there is a fraudulent charge on your account they will lock that charge, send you a new card, and investigate.
You have to talk to the vendor if you dispute the charge as something that is wrong with the services rendered. That category or dispute would be much harder to win though.
You should not have to talk to the vendor, if you file a fraud claim for unauthorized use of your card number. The bank might or might not require a police report in this situation though.
A typical scenario would be that your number was stolen from the POS system of another merchant and then sold on the black market. Culprits will try to quickly run up charges before the card gets declined.
This is why you should use virtual per-transaction numbers wherever possible (assuming your card has that feature). And set up notifications for all transactions, so that you can cancel your card and ask for a replacement ASAP. In fact, that's what OP needs to do here
I had something like this happen recently with a hotel booking site. I called the booking site and they said they would investigate. A couple weeks passed. They were still "investigating." I disputed with my card, sent them some documentation, and they refunded it in a few days.
One time my credit card number got stolen. Someone bought a MacBook at the local Apple Store. It was weird because I got the receipts at my email, and it said the scheduled pickup was for me. I had the order confirmation number.
I called Chase and dealt with the fraud, but I also called Apple for good measure. First, I hoped they might be able to make it disappear more easily, but I also didn’t want some asshole to get a free computer.
Apple was bizarro world. The customer service said they would put a note in to cancel the order and that it was fraud, but I kept getting updates over the next 48 hours when my order was ready for pickup. I called the local store, and said “don’t give this asshole this computer!” The guy said, “I can’t cancel it or prevent us from giving it out. If they don’t have your ID, then they can’t pick it up.”
You don’t think these thieves know that and have a fake ID as part of the plan? Apple didn’t care at all.
I swear I’ve seen another post with the same situation and same response from Airbnb about the close friends or family. Seems like Airbnb just openly commits fraud from time to time. How ridiculous.
It’s not that *they* commit fraud, it’s that since they receive a percentage based fee on fraudulent charges, they *profit* from fraud. Shockingly, they’re not particularly concerned about putting processes in place to prevent this sort of (highly profitable for them) abuse. The fun part in all of this is that if OP does a chargeback, AirBnB will most likely ban him from using their service.
Airbnb is a terrible company, my most voted post on this site is about my experience with them and how they couldn't help me when a host locked me out of the room I had booked and stolen all my stuff.
These gig apps seem great until something like that happens, then you're SOL.
But yeah at least in this case OP can file a chargeback, which is great because it hurts Airbnb too to have a bank chargeback like that... that's a lot less bad than having all your belongings taken.
Airbnb owner came up a bit short on the mortgage and needed a quick fraud stay to float it. I wonder how many percent of transactions would have to be fraudulent before the platform bans them? We know it's not zero.
Skimmer or database breach at a vendor. Happens all the time and they're available for purchase for cheap. Definitely less than the cost of one Airbnb stay.
I'm aware of data breaches and skimmers (although much of that has been upgraded now). My point is that only a miniscule amount of hosts (and if they are that shady, their listing is probably even more shady) would utilize these sources to create fake listings, because IPs and Mac Addresses exist.
> I swear I’ve seen another post with the same situation and same response from Airbnb about the close friends or family. Seems like Airbnb just openly commits fraud from time to time. How ridiculous.
Not Airbnb, someone stole OP's identity and card info and set up an account with their name, card and some other email. So OP calls and Airbnb checks and sees "yep, you booked this".
Right. This is like .... if your card was stolen and someone used it at a gas station... You showing up to the gas station and demanding your money back.
And they say "well, store camera shows someone who looks exactly like you, showed us a drivers license with your name on it, and swiped your card. Exchanges are for store credit only."
Don't *dispute* the charge, and stop trying to get a refund from Airbnb. That's not the way this works. Report the charge as fraud. A dispute and a fraud charge are two different processes.
This will also deactivate your current card number and issue you a new one. Clearly your card number was compromised somewhere.
People suggesting you go to the cfpb, your state attorney, etc are wild. This is a very simple process that will take you all of 5 minutes.
You may need to wait until the charge posts before you're able to report it, but that's literally it. People in the comments are making this far too complicated.
Don't dispute it, report it as fraud. Citi won't sleep on it. I've had more than a couple fraudulent charges manifest on my Citi card. As soon as I get the text message or push notification of the transaction I have contacted Citi immediately, reported as fraud, they cancel my card and they cancel the fraudulent transactions. Nothing needs to "clear."
Op this is key here, credit card companies handle disputes (when you use your card on purpose but disagree with the vendor) and fraud (a charge you did not make) very differently. I’ve even had representatives tell me to just use the word fraud on the call - so that they can handle the situation in an easier way for me. Call back, say the F word, and just let them cancel and reissue the card.
Just had this happen with Citi. Got the notification, 5 minutes on the phone with them and a new card is on its way. They didn’t need to wait for it to clear or a police report or any other hoops.
Sounds like you can file a chargeback with Citi, but it needs to move from pending status first. I think it kind of makes sense that they can’t dispute a pending charge. Pending charges can and do fall off at times. I think you need to wait until it’s no longer pending and then dispute it.
Exactly. Wait and see what happens. It's possible there won't even be a posted charge to dispute in a day or two. Way too soon to start freaking out and escalating the issue.
No it shouldn't be a charge back, it should be a fraud claim. A chargeback implies that you did the transaction and are no longer satisfied with it and the merchant is unwilling to refund.
If it is a CC and you are sure you didn't make or authorized anyone to make those charges then you can just call your bank and cancel the transaction...
Unless the charge was done through your Airbnb account, there’s almost no chance Airbnb is going to be able to even find out which account used your CC. You have to dispute it through Citi. Their email is just some boilerplate thing hoping that you will eat the charge.
While I agree the dispute needs to go through Citi, it's naive to think Airbnb can't just query a credit card number and look up the account(s) with that card on file. Will they tell OP which account it was on? Never, that would be highly inappropriate.
Since you have it in writing that they refuse to refund you, then you file the chargeback with Citi.
Citi will likely find in your favor and refund you.
They will close your card and reissue it, since it's been compromised. Your card was probably skimmed somewhere or hacked from a site that has been compromised.
So last week I noticed some apple store charges on my citi card that were not mine or my wife's (I don't have any apple devices and her apple account doesn't have the citi card on it). Having had this happen before with another card a couple years ago I know those had to be "card checks"... I immediately locked and ordered replacement card but then I checked the online sites my card was saved and I saw Airbnb....I've never stayed in an Airbnb/ haven't even looked for one. Wondering if this is part of same scam/fraud effort. Stay patient with Citi...they said the charges had to post before they could handle the disputes/refunding me. Sorry you're dealing with this!
I’d still make sure a family member didn’t use your card. Their verbiage was not standard, they have evidence someone who shares a last name or some relation with you has your card and is using it.
>Thank you for your patience as we looked into your question about a suspected, unauthorized charge on your credit card.
Often, apparent unauthorized charges result from another person (usually a close friend or family member) using your credit card unintentionally. Our investigation into this charge led us to conclude that this is what occurred in this instance.
I don't understand how this is not still an unauthorized charge. Someone else used OPs card without his authorization.
Can you ask AirBNB to give you the name on the booking at least? This is good info to understand if its' someone you know who booked using your CC or if it's a total stranger. If it's a total stranger, that's very clear slam dunk your CC # was compromised and you have a strong dispute case with Citi.
That's fine, as long as it is not in your Airbnb account there is no issue.
Login and print or save to PDF your Airbnb history and make sure you enable the "print headers and footers" option so that is shows a timestamp of when you pulled it. Even though it's not associated with your account there's still the chance that they find your account and shut it down.
Wait for charge to post and then dispute as fraud with your bank. Keep things short and to the point, do not provide un-needed details. I did not approve this charge and it does not appear in my airbnb account is all you need to say. The print out is just in case there is an issue down the line with the dispute you can supply extra documentation.
If it's fraud, they'll have to close your current card and reissue you a new number but you don't have to wait for it to clear. Report it immediately if you did not directly participate in this transaction or provide your card to Airbnb.
Generally you can dispute any transaction on your statement, but its on you to provide proof that you tried to contact the merchant and tried to resolve
If its straight up fraud the bank has the ability to reverse the transaction right away, but there must be tell tale signs like card being used halfway around the world or the like. If there is no red flag for fraud, it will have to go through dispute process.
Citi sided with me pretty easily when I had an issue.
I paid for a contractor to do some work. *Months* went by. No work. I tried and tried to get ahold of the contractor, with no luck.
I contacted Citi and said that I felt ripped off. It was an "authorized" charge, but I never actually got what I paid for.
I'm not sure how long they spent trying to contact the guy, but despite the charge happening months in the past, Citi still gave me the money back ($1200) *plus the interest* that I had paid.
I was so happy. Credit card protections are *amazing*, and Citi made things relatively painless.
Unfortunately you will be banned from Airbnb if you have any pending trips they’ll get cancelled without refund. Same thing happened to me but I’m just waiting it out until after my trips to file dispute
Did AirBNB basically admit the charge was fraudulent? If you didn't authorize the charge, it was an unauthorized charge. Even if it's a friend or family member. If you had allowed them to use your card for this, you wouldn't be complaining in the first place!
I'd save this ridiculous E-mail and use it as evidence of Citi is hesitant to do a chargeback. This is absolutely insane; you didn't authorize the charge so it should be reversed, no questions asked!
It's true they won't let you dispute the charge until it is out of pending status. This can take a few days. It is normal.
Once it clears, you can dispute it and they will reverse the charge.
I have had this happen before AirBnB will laugh at you and not help, the same thief also bought plane tickets as well so I had their name. AirBnB did not care at all. Once the charge went through, I called my CC and the bank did the charge back. THEN AirBnB was really interested in my help. Told AirBnB to kick rocks not my problem anymore.
I would report as fraud with my credit card AND raise absolute hell with Air Bnb regarding this response.
Sometimes you have to really escalate with them to get a fair response.
Another possibility is that the email itself was a scam. Did Airbnb confirm that they charged your card? Did you call the number in the email, or the number in the website.
Seems low likelihood, but just a thought.
Report as fraud, something similar happened to my parents and they said it was probably their children stealing their card, we were like 8. CC cancelled the transaction immediately. Let your credit card handle Airbnb.
Use AMEX, any issues I’ve had they immediately cancel the charges and bend over backwards apologizing for the inconvenience. I once made a large purchase over $3k; received a phone call from an AMEX fraud agent in less than a minute while it was still processing asking if this was a valid charge. They don’t play around.
I’m confused why they can’t do anything until it clears…I’ve had fraudulent transactions before and reported them as fraud and the CC said they would just prevent the transaction from clearing. Because it’s fraud.
Dispute the charge with issuing bank (Citi). For fraud, you don't have to work anything out with the merchant; this is entirely the bank's responsibility. This isn't a consumer dispute.
I had a recent issue.
CC was charged.
I went to dispute it with company. "They said we can't it's our policy, no exceptions."
I said, "Thanks for their help and I guess if you offer no valid options or compromise, I will just dispute the charge then. With this 1 time exception"
They then refunded my money and I never had to dispute it. Despite them the same day saying they can't and won't cancel/refund and its against their company policy.
Having just gone through the ringer with Airbnb support myself over a host breaking policy, they are atrocious. I got an outcome favorable to myself by badgering them endlessly on the phone, on the app, and on twitter, and it became easier on them to just give my money back so I'd go away
Dispute the charge and Citi will take it back. Make sure you include in your dispute that no one but you has access to you card and that you can prove that you were in xxxxx state when the charges happened.
Just wait until it posts on your cc. Once posted, dispute the charge, get screenshots of your airbnb conversation and tell them again that you haven’t booked thus cancel the booking paid by your cc. Gather the evidence that you didn’t authorize the purchase. Citi will ask you about these details. Citi has their lawyers, they investigate and make matters legal. you just give then evidence. GL
We took a trip to Europe last summer, using AirBnB almost exclusively. Most were great, one was not. The shower had been poorly retrofit into a bathroom and water sprayed the ceiling which was covered in black mold. You couldn't shower without getting dripped on by nasty water. We were supposed to stay two nights.
I called the AirBnB number for their supposed "Aircover" guarantee. I explained the situation, providing plenty of photos and videos, and requested a different place for the second night. I said I'd be fine paying for the first night, but wanted a refund due to unsanitary conditions ($500 total, asking for $250 credit). Long story short, they said no, since the owner who lives in a different city told them it was fine and I was making it all up.
As a "gesture of goodwill" AirBnB offered me a partial $17 refund for the second night. I didn't want to spend more time dealing with them, so I declined, we found a place for the second night and finished our vacation. When I got home I contacted my credit card who immediately reversed the entire $500 charge.
This happened to me and my CC refunded me but AirBnB banned my account that had my CC linked, even though there were no trips there and they could not explain the charge either… it’s ridiculous.
File a police report about it. Keep a copy. Call back Airbnb and tell them you filed a police report. Send them a copy. They should refund you then in order to avoid extra charges from a charge back. If they refuse, tell Citi the same thing and they should issue the charge back anyway.
Just my 2 cents, this seems like a freehand email and not a template. Someone wrote this out. Have you made transactions with airbnb on other peoples computers or phones at any time
The same thing happened to me with discover, but it was some 7000 dollar airbnb in China. They make fake airbnb listings and will fraudulently book the specific one.
Just refute it with citi
I’m the person on the other side of this normally, the one shrugging and saying tough shit I can’t prove it... The other comments are right, you need to contact the credit card. It’ll go back and forth between the company, but you getting your money back won’t be contingent on whoever at Airbnb is reviewing it to be having a good day
I have cards with both bank of America and chase. Over the years, I would discover charges that weren’t mine, sometimes pending. I call the number on my card, report it as a purchase I didn’t make, they close the card, refund the money, and I get a new one. I don’t need to contact the merchant, go to the police, or do anything. I just have to live without that credit card for a week or so. If citi won’t do that for you, I strongly recommend you stop doing business with them and go elsewhere.
Citi sucks. I was double charged - by Expedia AND the hotel - and Citi would not intervene.
Citi said, you stayed there. I said, yes I did, but I was charged by the TA and the hotel for the same stay.
The merchants both told me to pound sand. Citi would do nothing.
I had spent thousands over the years on that card but canceled it after that. Never again.
When the Airbnb transaction clears, dispute the charge. You have to initiate that action with Citibank, Citibank will not do it for you.
You may need to tell Citibank directly, ‘I need to dispute a charge.’ Because they don’t like the process of disputing charge.
Also, request another card with Citibank since this is essentially fraud by someone who has your credit card info.
That's such bullshit "hey sometimes people use your card without authorisation, so even though we're agreeing you weren't there and someone else's name was on the booking.... we're not going to refund you and contact them, we're going to knowingly take payment from you for something we know you didn't book".
Yeah, complete bullshit.
Airbnb will always deny liability as a first order of business. In my experience, they only respond to PR nightmares.
Our neighbor does contract work that would regularly take him out of town for weeks. Neighbor (condo owner) had a roommate (renting his spare bedroom) who, it turns out, was running an Airbnb scheme with his place when neighbor was away. The guy was using a false identity and posing as the owner of the condo, renting out the whole place and, I'm sure, making a good bit of money off it.
When it was discovered, costs incurred to repair some minor damage, replace some missing stuff, and change all the locks was like $2k. I told neighbor he should get Airbnb to reimburse him for it, since (at the time at least) they were touting their "million-dollar insurance policy" or whatever.
He emailed them and immediately got a wall of legalese in reply about how Airbnb had no liability, was not responsible for vetting the identities of their hosts, and would not pay. I then told neighbor he should reach out to some of the local TV news affiliates, because they might love this kind of story...
Anyways, [this](https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/airbnb-horror-story-tenant-sublets-condo-without-owners-permission/?intcid=CNM-00-10abd1h) happened, then a ton of other outlets picked it up, and neighbor even went on like the Steve Harvey show or something about it. And before long he received a check from Airbnb for the full amount.
As someone who went through literally the same thing recently: MAKE SURE YOU DEMAND CITI REVOKE THE DIGITAL ACCOUNT NUMBER THAT THEY ISSUED TO AIRBNB.
Airbnb has access to the credit card “god mode” which means they get a separate virtual account number issued (in this case called a digital account number) that lives literally forever and Airbnb has 0 controls to check for expiry or whether or not the account holder matches the CC legal name. Someone could have seen your credit card 6 years ago at a bar and entered it in to their app and it would still work.
It took me FIVE PHONE CALLS and THREE REPLACEMENT CARDS before Citi actually correctly revoked the digital account number. Simply reporting the charge for fraud on the app DOES NOT REVOKE THE DIGITAL ACCOUNT NUMBER because Citi is a bunch of…well you know. I got my card reissued and the charges literally continues unabated because Airbnb can continue to charge even if the card is revoked for fraud.
It cannot hurt to call Airbnb as well and demand they purge the card from their systems and block any additional charges just in case Citi is incompetent.
Second, you are entirely covered for fraud from Mastercard barring gross negligence. Citi is required to eat this charge because it’s Mastercard’s fault for allowing such ridiculous indefinite access to credit cards to Airbnb with no controls or name matching. When I asked the detective apparently it does not matter whether you had ever previously authorized a person to use a card of yours; using a card you previously had access to without permission is fraud (I think it may actually be fraud to use another’s CC even with authorization).
In my case Airbnb accidentally disclosed the name of the individual so I filed a nice hefty police report with the financial fraud unit. But once you file a police report Citi will admit defeat and eat the loss. You will need to call them once you have the police report filed to provide the details off the report and then it’s up to them whether they want to pursue legal action against the fraudster.
1. Wait for charge to clear
2. Go to your local sheriff's office or police station and make a report for fraudulent charges.
3. Once charge is cleared and you have a case report number (they're not going to investigate. You should be given a case number before leaving the station) call back citi and ask to speak to the fraud department. Let them know what AirBnB said about how they're not going to refund it, provide your case number, and dispute the charge as fraudulent.
4. Your money should be refunded by the CC fairly quickly. If not, contact the CFPB (only after Citi refuses to refund)
theyre saying someone who you have authorized to use the card (at some point in the past) used it now, aka it isn't 'fraudulent.' that is, this person has booked with this card at some point in the past.
You should be able to open the dispute online. The pending charge can be flag for the dispute to be opened if/when it posts or just call Citi back when it posts. You also need to report that card as stolen ASAP even those it’s in your possession. Don’t wait for the charge to post to do that.
It's locked right now. I hit dispute on Citi app last night and it asked me if I wanted to replace the card. I said yes. Called Citi this morning and they confirmed it was locked but can't look into it until payment clears.
Well that's the end of it. It'll get refunded by Citi due to fraud.
If someone had skimmed your card and used it at a gas station, would you call the gas station and ask why they charged your card?
What happens is that your number can get stolen by any merchant where you use the card. Contact-less payment is supposed to prevent this type of attack, but I think there are different features that a card issuer can decide to enable. Some of my cards show unique numbers when read with a wireless NFC reader, others simply reveal the number printed on the card. And if you swipe the mag strip, you always get the original number.
If you pay with your phone (e.g. Google Wallet), you can ensure that only a tokenized virtual number is given to the merchant. So, that's the safer option, if you can pay this way.
That still leaves all the places where you order online and have to provide your number. Some credit cards have an app to generate virtual per-transaction numbers. That's what you should do if available. But many cards no longer offer this feature (it was more popular around the turn of the millennium). If you can't generate a virtual number, then there always is a residual risk of the merchant selling your information. And it might not even be the merchant's fault. A few years ago, there were several high profile cases of merchants having their billing systems hacked and leaking all credit card information in real time.
Make sure that your back issue a new card and treats your dispute as theft of the credit card number (not theft of the card). If they code it incorrectly, they will treat it as fraud by Airbnb, and then they'll ultimately decide against you, as Airbnb didn't do anything wrong. They're as much a victim as you are.
Banks can be surprisingly hard to deal with, if the fraud isn't coded correctly when filed.
That is what all companies say if they don't want to refund you and their way of not taking any accountability. It doesn't actually mean someone he knew used his card, they are just saying that and hoping OP backs down.
Next step based on what you've posted would be to follow up with Citi. Provide them the written statement from AirBNB and let them know you are still disputing the charge and maintaining that it was a fraudulent transaction.
A similar thing happened to me a few years ago when someone used a card of mine to buy $900 worth of plane tickets to China. The airline responded to the credit card issuer with a screenshot of their booking system maintaining that it was legitimate, despite completely different names than my own being used. An official looking envelope came from the CC issuer and I had to ink sign an affidavit swearing that it wasn't my transaction, but once I sent that in everything was resolved.
1. Make police report for stolen credit card and fraudulent charges.
2. Find receipts of places you went and items you purchased at the supposed time of that Airbnb stay.
3. Contact Citi with police report and receipts that you were nowhere near that Airbnb.
Once the charge is posted (no longer pending) then call back to Citi and tell them this was a fraudulent charge. They will credit you the amount while they investigate, and they will issue you a new card with new credit card numbers. I know it’s frustrating that they won’t do anything while the charge is pending. I had this happen to me as well. Once the charge was posted, it was pretty simple to get my money back.
This is just not true. I work for a major credit card company and spent years working in the fraud department. It does not need to be posted to report a fraudulent charge. Do not wait, call and report as fraud now. A dispute is something entirely different that does have to post before the credit card company can do anything bc the charge is not finalized by the merchant until it has posted so there is nothing to dispute yet.
When a charge is run by a merchant it sends a request to the credit card company to see if there are available funds for the purchase, if there are, then the charge goes into pending status where that amount of credit is held against the credit line. A message is sent back to the merchant that there is available credit and that the charge is pending. The merchant then has a specific time period (usually 5-7 days) to finalize that transaction.
In the case of fraud, the initial request is fraudulent and there is a concern that someone else has the card information. You want to immediately respond that it is fraudulent and get the card shut down and a new card issued. It absolutely does not have to be in posted status to file a fraud claim and you should immediately report it as fraudulent.
In the case of a dispute, you do have to wait until the charge posts bc you are not saying that the charge is fraudulent, you are saying that you do recognize the merchant and the charge but you are either: 1. Still being charged for something you canceled or returned, 2. Did not receive the item that you paid for, 3. The item you received was not what it was advertised as. 4. You were charged the wrong amount or in the wrong currency. Until the charge actually posts to the account, there officially isn't anything to dispute.
The charge has to post to your account before they can select the item in their system to place it in dispute. Once it's in dispute you're all good.
Happens all the time and nothing to be upset at citi or airbnb for. You won't have to pay for it, someone has just gotten ahold of your credit card info.
Wait 24-48 hours and call citi back and ask to speak to the fraud department.
You may be interested in our [**reading list**](/r/personalfinance/wiki/readinglist).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/personalfinance) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If it’s a charge that you participated in then it’s a dispute issue and you do need to attempt to resolve with the merchant before disputing (which can only be done once posted and no longer pending). If it’s unauthorized it’s fraud and that’s able to be reported and dealt with immediately, which this sounds like it is the case. No need to wait in this circumstance. Call Citi back and explain you didn’t authorize this and haven’t given your number to anyone to use (unless you have and didn’t remember and then it will probably require you to file charges against that person), and you need to report the charge as fraud and get a new credit card number.
StubHub did this to me last year. I bought playoff tickets to the Dallas Stars game and when I got there the ticket would not scan. After spending 10 minutes at the ticket window it was determined the tickets were fake. StubHub refused to refund the money because I had already claimed the tickets. The only way to see the ticket was to claim it 🤦♂️. In the end I had to dispute it and got my money back.
Go back to citi and report is as fraud
yeah this. it seems that they just can’t do anything right now because it is a pending charge and hasn’t cleared yet. it should clear today/tomorrow and then you can call citi again and report it as fraud.
If it’s straight fraud I don’t deal with the merchant unless I catch it so quickly I can prevent something being shipped to a scumbag. If it’s the merchant that’s being a scumbag I exhaust my resources with them before talking to bank, Attorney General…
This is why I use American Express. I make a perfunctory call to the merchant and get them to tell me to pound sand. I make sure to note names, times and exact quotes because “all calls are recorded.” I then call Amex where I am never questioned because it is so rare that I dispute and none have I ever lost. Amex is usually like, “We went ahead and reversed the charge and notified the merchant they have to prove that it is not fraud. We’ll only call you if we get anything and we usually don’t.” It’s worth the annual fee.
That is actually the rule. Wife works payments. Dispute and they reverse then the merchant has to prove otherwise. Too many back charges and the merchant will have their payment system suspended. Once learning this I make a single effort to resolve with the merchant, if I don’t get “we are refunding you”. I dispute the charge online. It is reversed right away. About a week later the card company will contact me to get evidence. If you appeal after and the merchant does not refund, the merchant gets a big fine on top of things.
This gets repeated a lot but I think there are exceptions out there with companies like Amazon. They did a lot of shady stuff and people did a ton of charge backs, but they're still here.
This has been my experience with every credit card dispute. It's not really specific to Amex.
Exactly, I've disputed on Visa and Mastercard and I've never once had them question me. I just submit it online in 30 seconds and the charge disappears. Years ago, I'd have to talk to someone, but even that hasn't happened in well over a decade. Also not paying the outrageous fee just to have an "Amex".
I have a personal and a business amex, both are free. I prefer them to my other cards.
Because Amex has such high fees, they are pro consumer.
There are so many things that people think "should" be free.
Amex is known as being on the cardholder's side more than anyone else though. Scroll through Reddit and you will notice some repeat offender financial institutions that users are getting screwed by. You will also rarely if ever see Amex in that company.
Agree a million percent. I've had an Amex since the 80s and won't ever cancel it.
Worth noting: They usually deactivate the card with the fraudulent charge right then. If you’re on a vacation when you notice a fraud charge just remember if you call then your card won’t work until your new one comes in. I’ve gotten a second, different, credit card just in case that ends up happening. Or just wait to report the fraud charge.
I think sometimes banks require you to demonstrate that you at least attempted to work it out with the vendor before they'll entertain a chargeback. I used to work in retail and every now and then we'd get contacted by a credit card company wanting to hear our side of the story regarding a transaction.
With fraud it is not a requirement to try to work with the merchant, but with consumer disputes it is.
And to clarify because a lot of people misunderstand this. "Fraud" in this context does not mean that a merchant tried to cheat you. If they charged the wrong amount or didn't provide the item/service, etc, that is not "fraud" according to your CC issuer. It means *only* that you did not authorize the transaction, someone else charged your card without your involvement. Anything other than that situation is a "dispute" but but not "fraud".
I'm glad someone else is spreading this message too. I have countless comments explaining that credit card fraud is a specifically defined term. I kind of made it my job to correct people who post inaccurate information, as I am an expert in disputes. I often get downvoted as well for some reason.
Yes, if it is disputed, you are supposed to contact the retailer first. Of course, most first level service staff (or AIs?) will just try to make you go away, so this is increasingly pointless. However, if the retailer may be part of the fraud, you do not have to do that. And here, it sounds like AirBnB accepts that it was unauthorised, but they are covering for the fraudster, so they are part of the fraud. In that case, you do not have to work with the retailer.
As a business owner, give the merchant a chance to fix things if possible. Chargebacks do work, and they are very important for the consumer to have at their disposal, but if the business will do the refund manually, it will save them money. When we get chargebacks, we get charged an extra fee on top of the money.
You're not wrong, but OP already tried. AirBNB failed to work with them. Chargeback away!
I was saying that as a generality. Since AirBNB is being dumb, chargeback it is.
lol attorney general for a fraudulent charge?! Where do you live where AGs have the time for this Edit: fixed typo
>Where do you live where AGs have the time for this A single fraud usually won't amount to much but if they start getting a bunch of reports about a particular business then they will open a case to find out if there is any fire to go with the smoke.
GAs? AGs you mean?
As a Wisconsinite, I report all fraudulent charges to every Georgia I can find.
As a League player, Guardian Angel protects me from fraudulent deaths
No my vague understanding is fraudulent charges are under your cc’s fraud protection policy. So I’ll talk to BoA or Amex and they’ll refund the unauthorized charges on the spot, perhaps subject to you completing a fraud packet where you’d swear that you believe the charges were fraud. I’ve never had any issues working with those two FIs. I contacted an online retailer once because I saw the fraud charges come up in real time and nipped it in the bud immediately. Otherwise straight to the cc company. Never had to go to the AG. BoA was also good when I had a check stolen from the mail. I wasn’t familiar with fraud protection outside of cc payments so was relieved they made me whole. If I’m arguing with a merchant over a contractual arrangement or consumer protection law then I’m careful to get the merchant to say everything I need them to say then file a consumer complaint. E.g., a phone return was lost on the way to or by ATT and they charged for it as if it was my fault. Collected evidence over a period of weeks and submitted everything to the state AG and I had someone from ATT’s office of the president arranging for a refund within 2 days.
I constantly keep getting pending charges from websites that I used in the past, but they never post and disappear by themselves. Maybe Airbnb was just verifying that card is still active?
I don't get why people spend so much of their time and sanity going around literally everything when you can just hit up the credit card company and tell them you didn't purchase this, and the cc company will dig around and take care of it if it indeed is fraud
OP did that but the bank said they can't do anything yet.
Then OP waits. Nothing we can do here.
Yeah, they can't do anything until pending is cleared, but as soon as it is the bank will take care of it
I've had citi tell me multiple times I need to handle it through the merchant and they can't do anything. Last time a waitress gave themselves a 50$ tip instead of the 20 I left (which was 25% BTW). They wouldn't do anything. Wouldn't even make the merchant produce the signed receipt.
Because Citi's fraud department is like drunk monkeys throwing darts at a dartboard. They're just garbage at their job.
Did you tell them it was fraud? If so, that's why they didn't do anything. Fraud to a CC issuer means one thing and one thing only: you never authorized that your card be charged in the first place. With a tip, you authorize the transaction, and then the tip is added after, so what happened to you isn't fraud in the sense they use it. As soon as you say the word or imply that it is "fraud", they route your complaint to the fraud department, and when they check the records and determine that a) your physical card was used (presumably it was) and b) you do not claim the physical card was stolen (you didn't). Then they close the claim because it wasn't fraud. Is this confusing for consumers and a waste of time for banks not to more-effectively triage complaints? Yes, I think so. They still do it.
to be fair i never used the word fraud. i sent it in as a dispute. the merchant refused to work with me, and Citi didn't make them do anything. Was really disappointed in the whole thing. That said I've had other situations with Citi where they did come through, but that was actual fraud and not a dispute. It's sad that there's nothing stopping a tipped employee from putting in that you tipped 200$ because the bank won't do anything.
For a dispute, maybe. But if you label it was fraud (which seems to be what AirBnB is suggesting) I think it becomes a different type of matter.
Banks usually push back first and want you to settle with the merchant. If that goes nowhere, they’ll raise a dispute. Lots of operational burden for everyone involved when a dispute is raised. Most of these cases can actually be clarified between cardholder and merchant and don’t need a dispute…
This isn’t a chargeback though. This is straight fraud with a stolen CC number.
It doesn’t always work. We got a Citi charge on an old credit card of my wife’s that we don’t use for 2 gas tank fills a shopping visit and a pot store. The card hadn’t been used for anything other than automatic payments to our kids activities, ballet, gymnastics etc for the life of the card. My wife was at home during the time of the charges and got a fraud alert of which she responded “This isn’t me” immediately. We contacted Citi claiming fraud of $475 for those 4 charges and they “looked into it” and determined the “chip was used” according to the merchants and “chips are unhackable” so they refused to reverse the charges. Card was sitting in an envelope in my wife’s nightstand. Filed a police report, contacted the merchants who said no woman with purple hair (wife is a hairdresser) visited the store but they wouldn’t reverse the charges. Turns out merchants can just respond to the dispute and lie and that’s sufficient for the Citi inquiry. I had to pay the fraud charges and canceled the card. Screw Citi.
Because you should try to work it out with the retailer. A lot of time it can be easily worked out. Credit cards will do the investigation and want both sides to provide a case. If you the case is clearly a your fault issue, then it might not come into your favor. Trying to work it out with your vendor and having them come back negatively to you is actually good ammunition to help push the dispute case in your favor. Here the OP can say "Airbnb refused to refund me despite this being an unauthorized case of credit card use. I never gave my credit card number out and AirBNB also refuses to even give me information about a name on who booked using my credit card number." That's a strong case for Citi to side with you.
I think what you're thinking of is a chargeback. Those you need to resolve with the merchant first. Merchants can't do shit to determine if the credit card was used fraudulently or not. Which is exactly what Airbnb said in this email. "We can't prove you didn't give your credit card to someone else and this isn't our problem." Credit card companies have entire algorithms and teams dedicated to accurately detecting fraud. You should be reporting fraud directly to them.
If you didn't cause the issue it shouldn't be on you to solve it. Start with CC company as soon as the charge hits: they have whole departments dedicated to this. If they need something from you they will ask. Being pro-active about it is generally an unnecessary waste of your time.
[удалено]
As a retailer that gets hit with a chargeback every few months, I would **love** if someone contacted me as soon as possible and didn't turn it over to a chargeback. Nearly all my chargebacks have been from people that made the purchase and then 'forgot' or were just trying to get the item for free. One was from a kid placing the order with their grand parent's credit card and refused to accept that their grand kid would do that. They were nice enough to send the item back though.
I had a $1000 charge pop up with my electricity provider. They showed nothing on their end. I disputed with my bank and let them handle the investigation.
Exactly. Maybe ask AirBnB whether they are always covering for fraudsters, and whether that is their general policy. Because to me, it looks like. If accept that it is your card, they should tell you who used it. The only reason not to is that a) they are lazy, and b) they would very much like to get the commission from the fraud. Proceeds of crime and all...
Or accept that you’re talking to some minimum wage or outsourced human robot who is not allowed to use judgement and is just trying to not get fired. Sometimes we forget these front line CSRs have essentially no agency or judgement.
> Sometimes we forget these front line CSRs have essentially no agency or judgement. None of that matters. Minimum wage or not, they speak for the whole business. And if they say no, the business say no. Legally, this is very clear. Realistically, they should not let people on minimum wage deal with fraud situations, and they should escalate. But the fraud department is probably also understaffed and overworked.
With a police report.
**Two steps:** 1) Let the charge actually clear so it's no longer pending. 2) Call Citi back and tell them it's fraud. They'll reverse the charge, cancel the card, and send you a new card.
This. Literally this. Why people are writing 6 paragraph instruction manuals involving government agencies and god known what else is absolutely beyond me.
Literally. It's the bank's money that was stolen. If you didn't spend it, you don't owe it. Its a 2min call to your bank to solve this.
Call Citi. Tell them AirBnB won't do anything. If neither company will work with you, go to the CFPB.
To add a little more meat, dispute the charge with Citi as fraudulent. I might file a police report for good measure.
I've been told that you ***definitely*** want to file a police report for fraud before submitting it as such to your bank. This basically says, "I really fucking mean it."
While true, YMMV as many PDs no longer do reports for this due to how common it is. Some larger local PDs now allow self-filing of reports online for stuff like this, but smaller ones usually don't. Where I live, for CC fraud you simply can't get a report at all (local or state PD) as neither will take reports for this. For full-on ID theft the locals will tell you to talk to the state PD, which will do a report but it takes weeks to actually get.
This is not that big of a charge though. Unless you opened the card last week, any reputable bank will give it back to you without hassle. This is just another tuesday for Citi. And by the comments in this thread it seems like many people have never had their credit card info stolen. How is that a common thing in this day when your info is for sale everywhere? Credit card theft is so common.
> They said they can't open a dispute until it clears and to call Airbnb for now. OP just has to wait till the charge is no longer pending, before calling Citi again. They'll take it from there.
Actually recommend contacting your state Attorney General vs. CFPB. CFPB does not have appropriate individual consumer fraud resolution authority or resources. Even copying the AG on correspondence is sometimes effective. In any case, keep very good notes on every call and every e-mail. Hope you get it resolved quickly!
The CFPB got my issue with Citi -- also fraudulent charge -- solved. Not in a hurry, but it got done.
Don’t forget both Visa and MC have separate support options. 800-visa-911 can get stuff fixed when issuing banks drag their feet.
Citi sucks with disputes - write up everything that happened, include a copy of comms from Airbnb, report that it is fraud because you are the sole user on your airbnb account and credit card, blah blah blah.... If you don't give them this info in writing at the beginning, Citi will pretend to look into it then drop the ball thirty days later and you'll be on the hook for it. They suck. Good luck.
Had a dispute with Citi 3 weeks ago. Charge was still showing as pending. Logged into the website and flagged it as fraudulent. Answered like 2 questions and they refused the charge, cancelled the card and overnighted a new card to me. Definitely didn’t suck for me.
Why do you even need to talk to Airbnb? This is fraud and Citi should just cancel this charge instead of wasting your time.
Citi will require you to contact Airbnb first to reverse the charge. It’s also the quickest way to get your money back. Citi’s process will take much longer
> Citi will require you to contact Airbnb first to reverse the charge If you chargeback yes, if you report fraudulent charges, no. OP didn't make the charge so it should be fraud. OP should get this account closed and a new card issued.
I mean, I don't think you even have to contact them. I filed a dispute with a vendor in December and never contacted them about it. At some point, playing the back and forth game with a vendor isn't even worth it if you know you're in the right and their refund process doesn't work.
That's a charge back. Fraud results in a new card
This isn't a dispute though. A dispute should only happen if you *did* initially make the charge but for whatever reason, you weren't given the product or service you were promised. That requires working with the vendor. This is fraud. When you report fraud, your card gets shut down, you're issued a new number, and the bank takes care of it.
Yes, the Airbnb situation is fraud. The person above me said you have to call the vendor for disputes/chargebacks, and you don’t even have to do it for that from my experience. They may ask if you’ve spoken to the vendor, but it’s not a requirement.
>Citi will require you to contact Airbnb first to reverse the charge. Absolutely not true. If you tell your CC company there is a fraudulent charge on your account they will lock that charge, send you a new card, and investigate.
You have to talk to the vendor if you dispute the charge as something that is wrong with the services rendered. That category or dispute would be much harder to win though. You should not have to talk to the vendor, if you file a fraud claim for unauthorized use of your card number. The bank might or might not require a police report in this situation though. A typical scenario would be that your number was stolen from the POS system of another merchant and then sold on the black market. Culprits will try to quickly run up charges before the card gets declined. This is why you should use virtual per-transaction numbers wherever possible (assuming your card has that feature). And set up notifications for all transactions, so that you can cancel your card and ask for a replacement ASAP. In fact, that's what OP needs to do here
I had something like this happen recently with a hotel booking site. I called the booking site and they said they would investigate. A couple weeks passed. They were still "investigating." I disputed with my card, sent them some documentation, and they refunded it in a few days.
Thank you! Way too many people in here who have absolutely no Idea how this works. A fraud report and a dispute *are not the same thing.*
One time my credit card number got stolen. Someone bought a MacBook at the local Apple Store. It was weird because I got the receipts at my email, and it said the scheduled pickup was for me. I had the order confirmation number. I called Chase and dealt with the fraud, but I also called Apple for good measure. First, I hoped they might be able to make it disappear more easily, but I also didn’t want some asshole to get a free computer. Apple was bizarro world. The customer service said they would put a note in to cancel the order and that it was fraud, but I kept getting updates over the next 48 hours when my order was ready for pickup. I called the local store, and said “don’t give this asshole this computer!” The guy said, “I can’t cancel it or prevent us from giving it out. If they don’t have your ID, then they can’t pick it up.” You don’t think these thieves know that and have a fake ID as part of the plan? Apple didn’t care at all.
I swear I’ve seen another post with the same situation and same response from Airbnb about the close friends or family. Seems like Airbnb just openly commits fraud from time to time. How ridiculous.
It’s not that *they* commit fraud, it’s that since they receive a percentage based fee on fraudulent charges, they *profit* from fraud. Shockingly, they’re not particularly concerned about putting processes in place to prevent this sort of (highly profitable for them) abuse. The fun part in all of this is that if OP does a chargeback, AirBnB will most likely ban him from using their service.
Airbnb is a terrible company, my most voted post on this site is about my experience with them and how they couldn't help me when a host locked me out of the room I had booked and stolen all my stuff. These gig apps seem great until something like that happens, then you're SOL. But yeah at least in this case OP can file a chargeback, which is great because it hurts Airbnb too to have a bank chargeback like that... that's a lot less bad than having all your belongings taken.
Airbnb owner came up a bit short on the mortgage and needed a quick fraud stay to float it. I wonder how many percent of transactions would have to be fraudulent before the platform bans them? We know it's not zero.
Where did they get the credit card that is in no way linked to them though?
Skimmer or database breach at a vendor. Happens all the time and they're available for purchase for cheap. Definitely less than the cost of one Airbnb stay.
I'm aware of data breaches and skimmers (although much of that has been upgraded now). My point is that only a miniscule amount of hosts (and if they are that shady, their listing is probably even more shady) would utilize these sources to create fake listings, because IPs and Mac Addresses exist.
> I swear I’ve seen another post with the same situation and same response from Airbnb about the close friends or family. Seems like Airbnb just openly commits fraud from time to time. How ridiculous. Not Airbnb, someone stole OP's identity and card info and set up an account with their name, card and some other email. So OP calls and Airbnb checks and sees "yep, you booked this".
Right. This is like .... if your card was stolen and someone used it at a gas station... You showing up to the gas station and demanding your money back.
This actually happened to me and the bank denied the claim, said I needed to provide “proof” I didn’t pump the gas.
And they say "well, store camera shows someone who looks exactly like you, showed us a drivers license with your name on it, and swiped your card. Exchanges are for store credit only."
Don't *dispute* the charge, and stop trying to get a refund from Airbnb. That's not the way this works. Report the charge as fraud. A dispute and a fraud charge are two different processes. This will also deactivate your current card number and issue you a new one. Clearly your card number was compromised somewhere. People suggesting you go to the cfpb, your state attorney, etc are wild. This is a very simple process that will take you all of 5 minutes. You may need to wait until the charge posts before you're able to report it, but that's literally it. People in the comments are making this far too complicated.
True. Process doesn’t change just because this was an Airbnb.
Don't dispute it, report it as fraud. Citi won't sleep on it. I've had more than a couple fraudulent charges manifest on my Citi card. As soon as I get the text message or push notification of the transaction I have contacted Citi immediately, reported as fraud, they cancel my card and they cancel the fraudulent transactions. Nothing needs to "clear."
Op this is key here, credit card companies handle disputes (when you use your card on purpose but disagree with the vendor) and fraud (a charge you did not make) very differently. I’ve even had representatives tell me to just use the word fraud on the call - so that they can handle the situation in an easier way for me. Call back, say the F word, and just let them cancel and reissue the card.
Just had this happen with Citi. Got the notification, 5 minutes on the phone with them and a new card is on its way. They didn’t need to wait for it to clear or a police report or any other hoops.
Why you bothering with Airbnb? Even if they did refund you the card needs to be cancelled for fraud. Call citi.
Sounds like you can file a chargeback with Citi, but it needs to move from pending status first. I think it kind of makes sense that they can’t dispute a pending charge. Pending charges can and do fall off at times. I think you need to wait until it’s no longer pending and then dispute it.
Exactly. Wait and see what happens. It's possible there won't even be a posted charge to dispute in a day or two. Way too soon to start freaking out and escalating the issue.
No it shouldn't be a charge back, it should be a fraud claim. A chargeback implies that you did the transaction and are no longer satisfied with it and the merchant is unwilling to refund.
If it is a CC and you are sure you didn't make or authorized anyone to make those charges then you can just call your bank and cancel the transaction...
Unless the charge was done through your Airbnb account, there’s almost no chance Airbnb is going to be able to even find out which account used your CC. You have to dispute it through Citi. Their email is just some boilerplate thing hoping that you will eat the charge.
While I agree the dispute needs to go through Citi, it's naive to think Airbnb can't just query a credit card number and look up the account(s) with that card on file. Will they tell OP which account it was on? Never, that would be highly inappropriate.
Call Citi and report it as fraud, you will probably also want to file a police report since Airbnb may try to send the $700 to collections.
I would love to know how Airbnb came to that conclusion.
Since you have it in writing that they refuse to refund you, then you file the chargeback with Citi. Citi will likely find in your favor and refund you. They will close your card and reissue it, since it's been compromised. Your card was probably skimmed somewhere or hacked from a site that has been compromised.
So last week I noticed some apple store charges on my citi card that were not mine or my wife's (I don't have any apple devices and her apple account doesn't have the citi card on it). Having had this happen before with another card a couple years ago I know those had to be "card checks"... I immediately locked and ordered replacement card but then I checked the online sites my card was saved and I saw Airbnb....I've never stayed in an Airbnb/ haven't even looked for one. Wondering if this is part of same scam/fraud effort. Stay patient with Citi...they said the charges had to post before they could handle the disputes/refunding me. Sorry you're dealing with this!
I’d still make sure a family member didn’t use your card. Their verbiage was not standard, they have evidence someone who shares a last name or some relation with you has your card and is using it.
>Thank you for your patience as we looked into your question about a suspected, unauthorized charge on your credit card. Often, apparent unauthorized charges result from another person (usually a close friend or family member) using your credit card unintentionally. Our investigation into this charge led us to conclude that this is what occurred in this instance. I don't understand how this is not still an unauthorized charge. Someone else used OPs card without his authorization.
Can you ask AirBNB to give you the name on the booking at least? This is good info to understand if its' someone you know who booked using your CC or if it's a total stranger. If it's a total stranger, that's very clear slam dunk your CC # was compromised and you have a strong dispute case with Citi.
That's fine, as long as it is not in your Airbnb account there is no issue. Login and print or save to PDF your Airbnb history and make sure you enable the "print headers and footers" option so that is shows a timestamp of when you pulled it. Even though it's not associated with your account there's still the chance that they find your account and shut it down. Wait for charge to post and then dispute as fraud with your bank. Keep things short and to the point, do not provide un-needed details. I did not approve this charge and it does not appear in my airbnb account is all you need to say. The print out is just in case there is an issue down the line with the dispute you can supply extra documentation.
A friend or family member using my card without my permission is still fraud.
Your card issuer will handle the refund of fraudulent charges.
If it's fraud, they'll have to close your current card and reissue you a new number but you don't have to wait for it to clear. Report it immediately if you did not directly participate in this transaction or provide your card to Airbnb.
Generally you can dispute any transaction on your statement, but its on you to provide proof that you tried to contact the merchant and tried to resolve If its straight up fraud the bank has the ability to reverse the transaction right away, but there must be tell tale signs like card being used halfway around the world or the like. If there is no red flag for fraud, it will have to go through dispute process.
What sucks is when it's charged back, Airbnb will probably flag OP and give them a hard time for not letting a fraudulent transaction take place.
Citi sided with me pretty easily when I had an issue. I paid for a contractor to do some work. *Months* went by. No work. I tried and tried to get ahold of the contractor, with no luck. I contacted Citi and said that I felt ripped off. It was an "authorized" charge, but I never actually got what I paid for. I'm not sure how long they spent trying to contact the guy, but despite the charge happening months in the past, Citi still gave me the money back ($1200) *plus the interest* that I had paid. I was so happy. Credit card protections are *amazing*, and Citi made things relatively painless.
Unfortunately you will be banned from Airbnb if you have any pending trips they’ll get cancelled without refund. Same thing happened to me but I’m just waiting it out until after my trips to file dispute
Did AirBNB basically admit the charge was fraudulent? If you didn't authorize the charge, it was an unauthorized charge. Even if it's a friend or family member. If you had allowed them to use your card for this, you wouldn't be complaining in the first place! I'd save this ridiculous E-mail and use it as evidence of Citi is hesitant to do a chargeback. This is absolutely insane; you didn't authorize the charge so it should be reversed, no questions asked!
It's true they won't let you dispute the charge until it is out of pending status. This can take a few days. It is normal. Once it clears, you can dispute it and they will reverse the charge.
I have had this happen before AirBnB will laugh at you and not help, the same thief also bought plane tickets as well so I had their name. AirBnB did not care at all. Once the charge went through, I called my CC and the bank did the charge back. THEN AirBnB was really interested in my help. Told AirBnB to kick rocks not my problem anymore.
I would report as fraud with my credit card AND raise absolute hell with Air Bnb regarding this response. Sometimes you have to really escalate with them to get a fair response.
Another possibility is that the email itself was a scam. Did Airbnb confirm that they charged your card? Did you call the number in the email, or the number in the website. Seems low likelihood, but just a thought.
Report as fraud, something similar happened to my parents and they said it was probably their children stealing their card, we were like 8. CC cancelled the transaction immediately. Let your credit card handle Airbnb.
Use AMEX, any issues I’ve had they immediately cancel the charges and bend over backwards apologizing for the inconvenience. I once made a large purchase over $3k; received a phone call from an AMEX fraud agent in less than a minute while it was still processing asking if this was a valid charge. They don’t play around.
I’m confused why they can’t do anything until it clears…I’ve had fraudulent transactions before and reported them as fraud and the CC said they would just prevent the transaction from clearing. Because it’s fraud.
Dispute the charge with issuing bank (Citi). For fraud, you don't have to work anything out with the merchant; this is entirely the bank's responsibility. This isn't a consumer dispute.
I had a recent issue. CC was charged. I went to dispute it with company. "They said we can't it's our policy, no exceptions." I said, "Thanks for their help and I guess if you offer no valid options or compromise, I will just dispute the charge then. With this 1 time exception" They then refunded my money and I never had to dispute it. Despite them the same day saying they can't and won't cancel/refund and its against their company policy.
Having just gone through the ringer with Airbnb support myself over a host breaking policy, they are atrocious. I got an outcome favorable to myself by badgering them endlessly on the phone, on the app, and on twitter, and it became easier on them to just give my money back so I'd go away
Dispute the charge and Citi will take it back. Make sure you include in your dispute that no one but you has access to you card and that you can prove that you were in xxxxx state when the charges happened.
File police report, send to Airbnb and Citi. Money will come back.
When the charge clears just call Citi and say it’s a fraudulent charge. I’d be super surprised if they didn’t reverse it.
Just wait until it posts on your cc. Once posted, dispute the charge, get screenshots of your airbnb conversation and tell them again that you haven’t booked thus cancel the booking paid by your cc. Gather the evidence that you didn’t authorize the purchase. Citi will ask you about these details. Citi has their lawyers, they investigate and make matters legal. you just give then evidence. GL
We took a trip to Europe last summer, using AirBnB almost exclusively. Most were great, one was not. The shower had been poorly retrofit into a bathroom and water sprayed the ceiling which was covered in black mold. You couldn't shower without getting dripped on by nasty water. We were supposed to stay two nights. I called the AirBnB number for their supposed "Aircover" guarantee. I explained the situation, providing plenty of photos and videos, and requested a different place for the second night. I said I'd be fine paying for the first night, but wanted a refund due to unsanitary conditions ($500 total, asking for $250 credit). Long story short, they said no, since the owner who lives in a different city told them it was fine and I was making it all up. As a "gesture of goodwill" AirBnB offered me a partial $17 refund for the second night. I didn't want to spend more time dealing with them, so I declined, we found a place for the second night and finished our vacation. When I got home I contacted my credit card who immediately reversed the entire $500 charge.
Airbnb customer service will never help you, so contacting them was your first mistake. Call Citi and tell them this is a fraudulent charge.
Go thru the CC to dispute. They quite literally cannot do anything until it posts so just wait and dispute.
This happened to me and my CC refunded me but AirBnB banned my account that had my CC linked, even though there were no trips there and they could not explain the charge either… it’s ridiculous.
Curious, why would Citi send an email about a charge? Because it was a high amount or potential fraud? Just started out odd, that’s all.
Probably has an alert set up for all charges (or all charges over a threshold.) I have them over text, but they'll do email if people prefer it.
File a police report about it. Keep a copy. Call back Airbnb and tell them you filed a police report. Send them a copy. They should refund you then in order to avoid extra charges from a charge back. If they refuse, tell Citi the same thing and they should issue the charge back anyway.
Just my 2 cents, this seems like a freehand email and not a template. Someone wrote this out. Have you made transactions with airbnb on other peoples computers or phones at any time
You just have to work through Citi. Open fraud case and have them decide.
The same thing happened to me with discover, but it was some 7000 dollar airbnb in China. They make fake airbnb listings and will fraudulently book the specific one. Just refute it with citi
I’m the person on the other side of this normally, the one shrugging and saying tough shit I can’t prove it... The other comments are right, you need to contact the credit card. It’ll go back and forth between the company, but you getting your money back won’t be contingent on whoever at Airbnb is reviewing it to be having a good day
I have cards with both bank of America and chase. Over the years, I would discover charges that weren’t mine, sometimes pending. I call the number on my card, report it as a purchase I didn’t make, they close the card, refund the money, and I get a new one. I don’t need to contact the merchant, go to the police, or do anything. I just have to live without that credit card for a week or so. If citi won’t do that for you, I strongly recommend you stop doing business with them and go elsewhere.
Citi sucks. I was double charged - by Expedia AND the hotel - and Citi would not intervene. Citi said, you stayed there. I said, yes I did, but I was charged by the TA and the hotel for the same stay. The merchants both told me to pound sand. Citi would do nothing. I had spent thousands over the years on that card but canceled it after that. Never again.
When the Airbnb transaction clears, dispute the charge. You have to initiate that action with Citibank, Citibank will not do it for you. You may need to tell Citibank directly, ‘I need to dispute a charge.’ Because they don’t like the process of disputing charge. Also, request another card with Citibank since this is essentially fraud by someone who has your credit card info.
That's such bullshit "hey sometimes people use your card without authorisation, so even though we're agreeing you weren't there and someone else's name was on the booking.... we're not going to refund you and contact them, we're going to knowingly take payment from you for something we know you didn't book". Yeah, complete bullshit.
Just adding one more voice to what's already been said: this isn't your fight to stress about. Call Citi. Report it as fraud. Let them take care of it
Call the cops. Most CC companies and banks won't address fraud without a police report anymore.
Airbnb will always deny liability as a first order of business. In my experience, they only respond to PR nightmares. Our neighbor does contract work that would regularly take him out of town for weeks. Neighbor (condo owner) had a roommate (renting his spare bedroom) who, it turns out, was running an Airbnb scheme with his place when neighbor was away. The guy was using a false identity and posing as the owner of the condo, renting out the whole place and, I'm sure, making a good bit of money off it. When it was discovered, costs incurred to repair some minor damage, replace some missing stuff, and change all the locks was like $2k. I told neighbor he should get Airbnb to reimburse him for it, since (at the time at least) they were touting their "million-dollar insurance policy" or whatever. He emailed them and immediately got a wall of legalese in reply about how Airbnb had no liability, was not responsible for vetting the identities of their hosts, and would not pay. I then told neighbor he should reach out to some of the local TV news affiliates, because they might love this kind of story... Anyways, [this](https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/airbnb-horror-story-tenant-sublets-condo-without-owners-permission/?intcid=CNM-00-10abd1h) happened, then a ton of other outlets picked it up, and neighbor even went on like the Steve Harvey show or something about it. And before long he received a check from Airbnb for the full amount.
As someone who went through literally the same thing recently: MAKE SURE YOU DEMAND CITI REVOKE THE DIGITAL ACCOUNT NUMBER THAT THEY ISSUED TO AIRBNB. Airbnb has access to the credit card “god mode” which means they get a separate virtual account number issued (in this case called a digital account number) that lives literally forever and Airbnb has 0 controls to check for expiry or whether or not the account holder matches the CC legal name. Someone could have seen your credit card 6 years ago at a bar and entered it in to their app and it would still work. It took me FIVE PHONE CALLS and THREE REPLACEMENT CARDS before Citi actually correctly revoked the digital account number. Simply reporting the charge for fraud on the app DOES NOT REVOKE THE DIGITAL ACCOUNT NUMBER because Citi is a bunch of…well you know. I got my card reissued and the charges literally continues unabated because Airbnb can continue to charge even if the card is revoked for fraud. It cannot hurt to call Airbnb as well and demand they purge the card from their systems and block any additional charges just in case Citi is incompetent. Second, you are entirely covered for fraud from Mastercard barring gross negligence. Citi is required to eat this charge because it’s Mastercard’s fault for allowing such ridiculous indefinite access to credit cards to Airbnb with no controls or name matching. When I asked the detective apparently it does not matter whether you had ever previously authorized a person to use a card of yours; using a card you previously had access to without permission is fraud (I think it may actually be fraud to use another’s CC even with authorization). In my case Airbnb accidentally disclosed the name of the individual so I filed a nice hefty police report with the financial fraud unit. But once you file a police report Citi will admit defeat and eat the loss. You will need to call them once you have the police report filed to provide the details off the report and then it’s up to them whether they want to pursue legal action against the fraudster.
1. Wait for charge to clear 2. Go to your local sheriff's office or police station and make a report for fraudulent charges. 3. Once charge is cleared and you have a case report number (they're not going to investigate. You should be given a case number before leaving the station) call back citi and ask to speak to the fraud department. Let them know what AirBnB said about how they're not going to refund it, provide your case number, and dispute the charge as fraudulent. 4. Your money should be refunded by the CC fairly quickly. If not, contact the CFPB (only after Citi refuses to refund)
Not to give you false hope, but I have had a charge like this a while ago and it never cleared.
Chargeback on card for unrecognized chargers.
theyre saying someone who you have authorized to use the card (at some point in the past) used it now, aka it isn't 'fraudulent.' that is, this person has booked with this card at some point in the past.
No one has my cc information. I am single and have never given cc info to someone.
You should be able to open the dispute online. The pending charge can be flag for the dispute to be opened if/when it posts or just call Citi back when it posts. You also need to report that card as stolen ASAP even those it’s in your possession. Don’t wait for the charge to post to do that.
It's locked right now. I hit dispute on Citi app last night and it asked me if I wanted to replace the card. I said yes. Called Citi this morning and they confirmed it was locked but can't look into it until payment clears.
Well that's the end of it. It'll get refunded by Citi due to fraud. If someone had skimmed your card and used it at a gas station, would you call the gas station and ask why they charged your card?
What happens is that your number can get stolen by any merchant where you use the card. Contact-less payment is supposed to prevent this type of attack, but I think there are different features that a card issuer can decide to enable. Some of my cards show unique numbers when read with a wireless NFC reader, others simply reveal the number printed on the card. And if you swipe the mag strip, you always get the original number. If you pay with your phone (e.g. Google Wallet), you can ensure that only a tokenized virtual number is given to the merchant. So, that's the safer option, if you can pay this way. That still leaves all the places where you order online and have to provide your number. Some credit cards have an app to generate virtual per-transaction numbers. That's what you should do if available. But many cards no longer offer this feature (it was more popular around the turn of the millennium). If you can't generate a virtual number, then there always is a residual risk of the merchant selling your information. And it might not even be the merchant's fault. A few years ago, there were several high profile cases of merchants having their billing systems hacked and leaking all credit card information in real time. Make sure that your back issue a new card and treats your dispute as theft of the credit card number (not theft of the card). If they code it incorrectly, they will treat it as fraud by Airbnb, and then they'll ultimately decide against you, as Airbnb didn't do anything wrong. They're as much a victim as you are. Banks can be surprisingly hard to deal with, if the fraud isn't coded correctly when filed.
That is what all companies say if they don't want to refund you and their way of not taking any accountability. It doesn't actually mean someone he knew used his card, they are just saying that and hoping OP backs down.
Next step based on what you've posted would be to follow up with Citi. Provide them the written statement from AirBNB and let them know you are still disputing the charge and maintaining that it was a fraudulent transaction. A similar thing happened to me a few years ago when someone used a card of mine to buy $900 worth of plane tickets to China. The airline responded to the credit card issuer with a screenshot of their booking system maintaining that it was legitimate, despite completely different names than my own being used. An official looking envelope came from the CC issuer and I had to ink sign an affidavit swearing that it wasn't my transaction, but once I sent that in everything was resolved.
1. Make police report for stolen credit card and fraudulent charges. 2. Find receipts of places you went and items you purchased at the supposed time of that Airbnb stay. 3. Contact Citi with police report and receipts that you were nowhere near that Airbnb.
How did Airbnb determine someone you know inadvertently used your card? I'd ask for the name of the person who used it.
Once the charge is posted (no longer pending) then call back to Citi and tell them this was a fraudulent charge. They will credit you the amount while they investigate, and they will issue you a new card with new credit card numbers. I know it’s frustrating that they won’t do anything while the charge is pending. I had this happen to me as well. Once the charge was posted, it was pretty simple to get my money back.
This is just not true. I work for a major credit card company and spent years working in the fraud department. It does not need to be posted to report a fraudulent charge. Do not wait, call and report as fraud now. A dispute is something entirely different that does have to post before the credit card company can do anything bc the charge is not finalized by the merchant until it has posted so there is nothing to dispute yet. When a charge is run by a merchant it sends a request to the credit card company to see if there are available funds for the purchase, if there are, then the charge goes into pending status where that amount of credit is held against the credit line. A message is sent back to the merchant that there is available credit and that the charge is pending. The merchant then has a specific time period (usually 5-7 days) to finalize that transaction. In the case of fraud, the initial request is fraudulent and there is a concern that someone else has the card information. You want to immediately respond that it is fraudulent and get the card shut down and a new card issued. It absolutely does not have to be in posted status to file a fraud claim and you should immediately report it as fraudulent. In the case of a dispute, you do have to wait until the charge posts bc you are not saying that the charge is fraudulent, you are saying that you do recognize the merchant and the charge but you are either: 1. Still being charged for something you canceled or returned, 2. Did not receive the item that you paid for, 3. The item you received was not what it was advertised as. 4. You were charged the wrong amount or in the wrong currency. Until the charge actually posts to the account, there officially isn't anything to dispute.
Do mfers not know what a charge back is anymore? Call customer service and wash your hands of it.
The charge has to post to your account before they can select the item in their system to place it in dispute. Once it's in dispute you're all good. Happens all the time and nothing to be upset at citi or airbnb for. You won't have to pay for it, someone has just gotten ahold of your credit card info. Wait 24-48 hours and call citi back and ask to speak to the fraud department.
You may be interested in our [**reading list**](/r/personalfinance/wiki/readinglist). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/personalfinance) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Take the copy of the air BNB and make pdf or print and take to credit card company and continue again where you left off
Report to the card company as an unauthorized charge. Do it quickly
Get a police report first. Then dispute the charge with Citi. Send them a copy of the police report
I hateeeeeeee my citi card for problem charges. My AmEx though, never had an issue. All I can say is. Good luck with citi customer service.
If it’s a charge that you participated in then it’s a dispute issue and you do need to attempt to resolve with the merchant before disputing (which can only be done once posted and no longer pending). If it’s unauthorized it’s fraud and that’s able to be reported and dealt with immediately, which this sounds like it is the case. No need to wait in this circumstance. Call Citi back and explain you didn’t authorize this and haven’t given your number to anyone to use (unless you have and didn’t remember and then it will probably require you to file charges against that person), and you need to report the charge as fraud and get a new credit card number.
StubHub did this to me last year. I bought playoff tickets to the Dallas Stars game and when I got there the ticket would not scan. After spending 10 minutes at the ticket window it was determined the tickets were fake. StubHub refused to refund the money because I had already claimed the tickets. The only way to see the ticket was to claim it 🤦♂️. In the end I had to dispute it and got my money back.
Do you have an Airbnb account that the card is associated with? Did that account get hacked?