Airbnb accidentally sent tons of Android users a ‘test’ notification

Airbnb lit up Android phones around the globe with a notification that reads: “Test dev.” The apparent blunder occurred early Wednesday morning, and judging by how many users are posting about it on Twitter, it seems like a lot of people received the accidental alert (via 9to5Google).

While I personally don’t have the Airbnb app installed on my phone, my colleague Cameron Faulkner does, and he got the notification at 3:41AM ET this morning. Tapping into the notification leads to the Airbnb app but doesn’t do anything else.

Screenshot: Cameron Faulkner / TechnologyZone

“A push notification was sent in error to Android users of the Airbnb app, and we are investigating how this happened,” Airbnb spokesperson Elle Wyve said in a statement to TechnologyZone. “Users who received the notification can safely disregard it, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

Burger King made a similar mistake last week when it emailed thousands of customers a blank order receipt and said it was caused by an internal processing issue. The “Test dev” notification might’ve been accidentally sent by a developer working on the app, but at least we can say whatever they’re testing over at Airbnb probably works.

Update August 17th, 2:00PM ET: Updated to add a statement from an Airbnb spokesperson.