Guest asks lots of questions - is this a scam?

[Jillian136]

Hi there 

we are brand new hosts and a bit green behind the ears. I accepted this booking but now I am a bit worried. 

I had a potential guest contact me with MANY long questions.  This all seemed odd to me but as I think everyone is scamming me, I asked my husband and he did not see a problem.

Here is her inquiry:

Hey Jillian!

I wanted to contact you with a few questions regarding your cleaning process, age restrictions and noise concerns regarding this cottage.

1) My boyfriend and I have been long distance dating for a month now and I have yet to meet him. I wanted to come out there but I have a limited window since my brother’s graduation has been rescheduled. Your cleaning process is much appreciated but regarding the 3-day vacancy and the day we wanted to stay, it looked like your cottage had been booked on the 8th. Am I correct in assuming this means that staying from June 30 - July 7 is off the table to continue the 3-day vacancy? If so, him and I will come up with a decision and get back to you about when/if we do decide to use your cottage.

2) Do you have a minimum age requirement? Him and I are both 19 and will still be by the time we want to stay. I understand that many hosts require that their guests be 21 years of age or older for safety and liability purposes so if that’s the case, we have no issue with looking elsewhere, we respect that decision fully.

3) The animals that live on the property, do they cause much ruckus or disturbance? And will the dog be present upon our arrival or during any part of the stay? We have no issue with that whatsoever, it’s just good information to be aware of. And do the chickens make much noise? With them being in the vicinity I could understand that they would but nonetheless, good information to be aware of.

4) With the cottage being within close proximity to your living space, are there any quiet hour times you’d like to be observed? Much of our endeavors will be in the San Fransisco, Walnut Creek, and San Jose areas which means we will be later when arriving back in the evenings and we wouldn’t want to disturb you or your family.

5) Since parking isn’t provided, at least not in a designated area, how accessible is parking on the street? I’m not sure if I fully understand the location of your home and whether or not it’s in a residential area like a neighborhood, or on the street with a townhome design. With that being said, do we have to pay for parking in the area? Obviously there would only be the one car between us but if we have to pay for parking, that is something we’d need to either budget or discuss further.

Thank you in advance for your time, I look forward to speaking with you soon!

Take care,
(name)

So I answered her questions and also sent her the House Rules since I thought it might cover her next round of questions. After a day she messaged back saying:

Hey Jillian!

Let’s do this! I went to reserve your place and it looks like my bank declined the transaction which is something I need to work out with them but I’m a little confused as to why my card would be charged right now anyway just to reserve it. Once I get that figured out with my bank, do I pay you in full? My boyfriend and I are splitting the price of the stay so obviously he would just have to send me money but is there a payment plan in place? Sorry for all the questions, I just want to be as thorough as possible. Thank you!

I responded:

No problem at all.
The whole payment thing happens through Airbnb’s platform and I am not involved with it at all until they pay me.
So if you have questions about it you can contact Airbnb help. Make sense?

She booked later that evening. She joined in Feb. 2020 and has no reviews. 

Thanks in advance to all you seasoned hosts out there. Should I cancel this one?

Jillian

[Anonymous]

@Jillian136  There's nothing in that correspondence that jumps out at me as a likely scam. I would applaud the guest for demonstrating a thorough reading of your listing and asking the relevant questions upfront. 

My biggest concern is that, even though this young woman describes the second guest as her "boyfriend," he is not a person she has ever actually met. I know it's not all that uncommon these days for people to think of online correspondence as actual intimacy, but the reality here is that you have a teenager bringing a stranger onto your property. She does sound conscientious and mature, but I'm not sure whether she's prepared to take responsibility as the primary renter for a stranger's behavior. There's a lot that can go wrong here if this person turns out to be not quite what she believes him to be. If I were in your position, I'd have probably declined on the basis that the guests don't actually know each other.

It also seems a bit early to tell what the pandemic-related circumstances will be in the Bay Area at the end of next month. Are these guests' travel plans dependent upon the counties they intend to visit being in a more advanced phase of reopening than they currently are? (I only presume that your local laws permit you to accept tourists for overnight stays at this time)

[Jillian136]

Thanks Andrew. Yes the fact that they have not met was odd to me too and concerning. And I was also wondering if she would even be able to make it here. She is from Florida. I don't know where the boyfriend is from. Yes, the more I think of it the stranger it seems. Is he from here and that's why they are meeting here? Then why not stay with him? If he is not from here why are they coming here when travel and shelter in place is going to severely limit any activities. 

[Anonymous]

@Jillian136 I can imagine a lot of possibilities for what's going on. Perhaps he lives with family, or flatmates practicing self-isolation, or a partner who the "girlfriend" doesn't know about. Walnut Creek and San Jose aren't exactly tourist destinations, so there does seem to be some contact with people that the "boyfriend" knows planned, but this doesn't square well with the fact that she will be arriving by air without a self-quarantine period. 

In this case I'd suspect youthful naivete more than malicious intentions, but this plan doesn't make a lot of sense. 

If you ultimately decide you're not comfortable with the booking, what you should not do is push the cancellation through yourself. The penalties will murder your listing. Instead, I'd suggest getting Airbnb involved ASAP, sharing concerns based on correspondence that occurred after the booking was confirmed, and asking for the booking to be nullified with no penalty to either party. This won't be an easy task - Airbnb just laid off 25% of its staff, which doesn't seem to help with the waiting times for customer service - but I would persistently cite safety concerns with the fact that the guest is a teenager who intends to bring a man she's never met before to your home.

Fact is, Airbnb does not want the horrific press that they'd get if something bad happened to her.

[Debra300]

@Jillian136.

I fully agree with @Anonymous's assessment of the situation, and his recommendation for your next actions.  Since the boyfriend is pretty young also, he probably doesn't really know his way around the greater Bay Area.  Otherwise, I would think that he'd have told the guest to stay in a place that is more centrally located for all of the destinations she mentioned.  San Leandro, Hayward and Union City are along 880, and it's easy to get to 101 and 680 from either of those cities. Plus, they all  have BART stations.

[Mark116]

@Jillian136  I don't see a scam, but I see a lot of red flags that this guest will be very high maintenance and possibly a problem, and anyone whose bank declines their transaction is potentially going to somehow end up not paying the full bill.  I'd keep a close eye on this person and also on the transaction page to see when the $$ comes through to you.

[Jillian136]

@Mark116  Thank you! Right maybe scam was not the right word. But red flags indicating a problem. The $$ don't usually come to me until 24 hours before check in. At that point I would have a pretty hefty cancellation fee.  I guess I am just wondering if I should bite the bullet and cancel this one. 

[Mark116]

@Jillian136  Was it an instant book?  If so, then you should be able to cancel w/out a penalty, if it were me, I would say since the bank initially declined payment that you are uncomfortable w/the reservation because of potential $$ issues.  Or, if you can find a way how it fits a COVID cancellation.

If it was not an Instant Book, then if you cancel there will be a host cancellation notice and I think they charge now $50? for cancelling if it is outside of IB or COVID.  

How long is the reservation for?  I

[Sarah977]

@Jillian136  This doesn't sound scammy to me, but like a young person who obviously doesn't know how Airbnb works (her questions about why she'd get charged right away when a host accepts, if she has to pay all up front), but is consciencious about making sure she knows everything about what she's booking, which is a good sign. It could indicate that she'd be high maintenance but not necessarily. I've had guests ask a number of questions, depending on what their needs and concerns are (single females will often ask if the 20 minute walk into town and the beach is safe).

Someone would have to be a pretty sophisticated scammer to come up with that list of questions about the animals, the parking, if coming home late would disturb you. From what I've read from other hosts, someone planning to throw a party or commit theft just misrepresents their intentions by saying they are having a small gathering with family to celebrate a birthday, are coming to visit their mother, that sort of thing. What I can't imagine a scammer doing is asking you questions that show a lot of respect, like her asking about disturbing you, volunteering the info that she's never actually met this guy, being understanding about you maybe not wanting to host 19 year olds, etc. But even the most cautious and savvy people, hosts or not, aren't immune from being bamboozled. 

And it can work the other way, too. The booking I was most wary about turned out to be one of my all time best guests, which is saying a lot, because I've luckily never had a stinker guest, they'll almost all been awesome.

The only thing that would concern me about this booking is, as others have mentioned, that she actually doesn't know this guy except for online communication, or phone calls and texts. And she is quite young, so could be very naive- for all she knows, this could be some 60 year old predator who posted photos of a cute 19 year old guy.  But maybe she's as cautious as her questions about your listing indicate she is, and has checked him out thoroughly through reputable channels. There's really no way of knowing.

If you do keep this reservation, I'd be really clear about expectations. Such as cleaning up after themselves when they leave, not going out and leaving all the lights blazing and the AC or heat on high, etc. Partly because they're young, and partly because they're new to Airbnb. People of any age can leave a mess behind them and be clueless or unconcerned about your utility bills, but more common among the young, I think.

[Jillian136]

Argh! OK - talk about being naive! I should not have taken this reservation. Thank you guys! Let me see how I can get out of it now. 

[Anonymous]

@Jillian136  Best of luck to you with that, and let us know how it turns out!

Also - very sorry that you've found yourself in such an unfortunate time to begin your hosting endeavor. No doubt you put a lot of work and investment into getting your place ready for hospitality before the pandemic came and upended the whole travel industry. I'm sure the time will come when you can harvest the fruits of your labor, but under the current circumstances you're going to have to look at requests with a lot more scrutiny than would have seemed necessary just a few months ago. 

People who are planning recreational travel in urban areas this summer are, frankly, complete idiots.