My father runs a few guest suites from his house here in South Africa. 5 or so years ago I happened to be at his house when he had a slightly interesting case

My father runs a few guest suites from his house here in South Africa. 5 or so years ago I happened to be at his house when he had a slightly interesting case where a couple arrived unexpectedly claiming to have made a booking, but there was no corresponding booking on my father's profile. When I looked closer at the booking on the app on their phone, it turns out they had made the booking for a listing which was a copy of my father's listing. When we all realized what had happened, they phoned AirBnB and had them reverse the fraudulent booking, fortunately one of the rooms was available and they paid my father directly through an immediate electronic funds transfer payment. It's possible that the couple that was trying to scam my father, but based on their behaviour, it seemed highly unlikely to me. My best guess is that this fraud works against less savvy hosts who assume that there "must be an error with AirBnB" or when bookings are adequately in advance that the fraudulent listings receive the money before everyone realizes it's a fraudulent copy. Most of his bookings these days come from repeat customers or Booking.com.