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Comment by moonchrome | Hacker News Reader

You open a fake listing and then rent it out with fake CC ? Wouldn't this be handled on the payout/property owner side ?

Sounds more like wanting to seeing if people do chargebacks ?

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You open an expensive listing and book it yourself to "wash" the money.

That doesn't seem like Airbnb's problem though. I wouldn't think that's the only reason unless the government is making them do it. That's entirely possible, but at the same time, the information they're asking for is a gold mine for marketers.

Of course it's Airbnb's problem. They pay the fraudsters host account via bank transfer and then get a credit card chargeback, losing whatever money they paid the host.

Ah, right, sorry. I was thinking about money laundering in general, but chargebacks would definitely be a problem.

Money laundering laws make it Airbnb’s problem though.

I'm not convinced that money laundering laws mean someone with a legitimate business has to do intrusive data collection to police their customers. If they marketed Airbnb as a money laundering solution, that'd be different.

I did say it's possible the government is pressuring them do it, but that's something I suspect Airbnb could fight if they were motivated to do so.

(Chargebacks do make it their problem though, so my premise was false anyway.)

> I'm not convinced that money laundering laws mean someone with a legitimate business has to do intrusive data collection to police their customers. If they marketed Airbnb as a money laundering solution, that'd be different.

Know Your Customer laws are the reason given by AirBnB themselves: https://www.airbnb.ie/help/article/3004

That refers to simple KYC "such as your legal name, date of birth, or government ID."

OP complained about "your bank account numbers, entire transaction history, financial data, and contact info." Normal KYC does not include all this.

More importantly, Airbnb loses a shitload of money here.

> Wouldn't this be handled on the payout/property owner side ?

Property owners get paid with bank transfers, so clawing back the money from fraudsters is essentially impossible.

Couldn't they set up short duration escrow accounts of sorts, until everything's in the clear?

Chargeback periods can be super long, they'd have to keep the money in escrow for months. It's not impossible, but would severely discourage new hosts from signing up to the service.

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