Last month I received an enquiry from a Chinese student wanting to book one of my rooms for a long term stay. There is nothing unusual about that. I get many such requests and currently have a Chinese student renting one of my rooms for several months.
With this enquiry, there were some red flags though. Firstly, the username was weird. It translated as 'Authenticated mobile phone user' with a few numbers at the end. The guest had no reviews and no verified ID. He/she was asking me for the exact location of the house, which of course I refused to give. They did actually read my house rules and respond to the Easter egg question, but wanted to know how to open bank and credit card accounts if they were not allowed to use my address. I told the guest to contact the bank/credit card company to ask them but that I wouldn't be able to accept a booking without a real name, profile pic and info and verified ID. I never heard from him/her after that.
Today, I got a very similar enquiry. This was a Chinese guest coming to study at the same school and wanting to book the same room for a number of months and asking for information on the location (but not the exact address). Again, they had the username 'Authenticated mobile phone user' with four digits at the end. I assumed it was the same person having another try with a new account, so I told them as much and that they would need to complete their profile/verification as requested.
The guest responded that this is the first time they have contacted me as they have just set up the account. They wrote, "we use the Chinese mobile phone number to log in, the phone number corresponds to our ID number and home address and so on, it intercepted the back four, As long as we use the mobile phone number after the four are the same name, I do not know how to change the name here..."
So, is this how names are going to appear for Chinese guests going forward? I have hosted many, many Chinese guests and never saw this until last month.
