Airbnb is a deservedly popular service that connects homeowners wishing to rent a room or their entire house with vacationers and other travelers in 190 countries around the world.  Unfortunately, anything popular with the public is also popular with scammers and reports are increasing about scams involving people paying scammers for renting a non-existent room or a place that the scammer does not own.  Many of the victims of these scams do not find out that they have been scammed until they show up at the rental which may be far away only to learn that it is not for rent and there money is gone.
Generally, a telltale sign that the Airbnb listing is a scam occurs when the “homeowner” or “host” as they are referred to in Airbnb asks to communicate with the victim off of the Airbnb website.  They also ask for the money to be wired to the scammer’s account .  As I have told you many times before, once you have wired funds, they are gone forever.
TIPS
Only communicate with hosts through the Airbnb website and use the Airbnb payment system with a credit card.  Airbnb does not forward payment to the host sooner than 24 hours after the guest checks in. Never use wired funds, certified checks or any other method of payment other than a credit card through the Airbnb payment system to pay for accommodations.