Policies - Verifications

[Cheryl-And-Bob0]

Hi,

I am curious if there is a place that we will not host guests who have not provided all 3 verifications on their profile?  This past week, I had three potential guests who only had email and phone number verifications and no ID verification and did not have any reviews so I declined their requests politely explaining why and recommended they update their profile. I received a warning from Airbnb that my account could be suspended due to these declined inquiries.  Is there a place to tell guests that we require all three verifications?  Also, we are not comfortable hosting guests who do not have any reviews; is this unusual?

Thank you,

Cheryl

[Emilia42]

@Cheryl-And-Bob0 

Make sure this little box is checked:

https://www.airbnb.com/hosting/requirements

[Brian2036]

@Emilia42 

Excellent tip! I had missed that too.

Thank you. 

[Jennifer2682]

Wow, thank you!  I never knew about that! 

[Ben-and-Sam0]

@Cheryl-And-Bob0 If you are using Instant Book, make sure your IB settings require ID verification.

The checkbox @Emilia42  pointed you to is great, I was not aware of it before!

In the bigger picture, I have adopted a policy of requiring ID verification for guests with zero reviews. (I figure that if a guest has positive reviews, the verification is less necessary). When a zero-review guest makes a booking request, I tell them I require the ID verification and provide instructions on completing it (using a Quick Reply). 95% of the time, the guest will complete it quickly and I accept the booking. Once in a while, the guest never responds, and I decline the request near the end of the 24-hr reply period. I figure, if the guest isn't willing to provide an ID, I don't want them in my space.

With this method, you won't waste declines on guests who likely would have completed the verification if asked and assisted in doing so.

[Sarah977]

@Cheryl-And-Bob0  You can do as the above poster suggests. But if you are just going to decline any guest without verifications or reviews, you run the risk of getting your listing suspended.

The whole thing about booking requests as opposed to IBs is that you have the opportunity to communicate with a guest before accepting or declining. Use that to get a sense of the guest.

I've accepted guests with no verifications and no reviews, and they were fine guests. However, I home-share, so guests can't get away with throwing a party or sneaking in extras or a pet or trashing the house.

What do you think Airbnb verifications are good for, BTW? All someone needs is a valid drivers licence to upload. It's not like Airbnb does criminal record checks or anything.

[Brian2036]

@Cheryl-And-Bob0 :

 I have seen comments by a number of hosts who say that they won’t accept guests who have no previous reviews so I don’t think it’s uncommon.

If you don’t want to accept them and don’t want to decline outright you can try to get them to withdraw their request.

One way to do that would be to tell them that your policy is to charge unreviewed guests an actual security deposit large enough to deter con artists.

[Brian2036]

@Cheryl-And-Bob0 

Your excellent question prompted me to check my own Instant Booking settings (which are not all that easy to find.)

I was thinking about disabling IB but when I finally found it I saw:

Instant Book

Instant Book on - Guests who meet all your requirements can book instantly. Others will need to send a reservation request

Government-issued ID required

Host recommendation required

Pre-booking message required

This may be the solution to your problem. Or not. I suppose that people who don’t meet the three criteria can still request a booking, but you can (politely) let them know that you are not going to tolerate any nonsense and suggest that if they don’t want to pay an extra security deposit through the “request money” function then they should look for someone more naive than you.