New scam attempt "disease specialist" and response rate question

[Peter2668]

Just received 15+ inquiries from Macklin for my airbnb in Austria.

"Hi there! Due to the situation in the area, my firm sends me as a disease specialist to your city. I really liked your accommodation, it seems very cozy. It will be very convenient for me. I’m already waiting for this trip. But I have several questions. Please text me in W * h hat s ар, the numb’er is + ff our - eig НТ, then Fіv; е, then 7 and another 7, next there’s niin еее, 5 and О, then goes sev enty, and in the end there’s nii’ne. Looking forward to hearing from you soon!"

Reported every message, blocked him and made some very special offers.

I still get those reminder from airbnb to respond but I can't anymore since I've already blocked the user. Will it affect my response rate?

Take care and stay healthy,

Peter

[Helen350]

@Peter2668 I would recommend writing SOMETHING in the message thread... Anything will do, to tell the bot that you HAVE 'responded'. Probably a full stop (.) would do it, or any single letter, if you don't want to message 'I know you are a scammer.' If you ignore the inquiry, your response rate WILL be 'dinged'. 

[Sarah977]

@Peter2668  I'd second what Helen said- just message back- "No" or " Your scam Inquiry has been reported to Airbnb" , then block and report. It shouldn't affect your response rate not to reply at all, if you report it as a scam, but I don't trust Airbnb's algorithms to make sure that doesn't happen. 

Even if it's a legitimate Inquiry message, you don't have to either pre-approve or decline- all you have to do is message back within 24 hours so as not to get dinged on response rate or acceptance rate. But Airbnb makes it sound like you need to click on decline or pre-approve, as they'll keep sending reminders to do so. But you can safely ignore those.