Principal Guest refuses to let us know the names of the additional guests

[Don-And-Emily0]

Hi All,

Even though it is written in our Additional House Rules that the names of ALL guests must be turned in prior to approval, when asked to do so, some people get hostile.

I don’t understand why @Airbnb doesn’t make this a standard practice?

Not unlike hotels, we are running housing accommodations for tourists from all over the world. Some of these homes are places we bring our families and children to, and we need to know the names of the people who sleep in our kids beds and get to know intimate details about our homes. It is a matter of safety as much as accountability.

We trust them to make fires in our fireplaces, cook on our gas stoves, use our BBQ etc… We trust them to have the keys to our homes but we somehow are not expected or allowed to know all the guests’ names? 

I just has a young lady from Turkey call me unprofessional because I declined her reservation after she refused to tell me the names of the  other 5 guests in her party. I did not ask for passports or drivers license,  just names.

Please do better @Airbnb. We need you to review this practice. 

I’d love to hear from other hosts on this. Do you ask for Names or IDs or address or we in the minority here?

Thank you for reading

[Don-And-Emily0]

@Cherie54  Thanks for chiming in

We too had a request to rent for a long term rental from a friend of a friend. When we did a background  check, we found 11 arrests for this young lady and figured out her entire story was a big lie. We declined her request and now she is somebody else's problem.

[Huma0]

@Cherie54 

Just a word of warning. Don't rely entirely on Airbnb's background checks. I do want my guests to have their ID verified with Airbnb, as it's just an extra layer of protection and better than nothing. However, I am really not sure how reliable this verification process is.

I had a guest try and fail to instant book with me because she had a really terrible review which, amongst other things, suggested that different people were using the guest's profile. On top of that, her communication was terrible, so I turned her away even though she really wanted to book with me. Soon after, I got another request from a different account with no reviews. It was clearly the same guest (I won't go into the details but I'm 100% sure of that) with a fake name.

I reported it to Airbnb who told me to block her. However, both accounts said ID verified, which shouldn't happen as you're not supposed to have more than one account. Airbnb did nothing about it and, last time I checked, both accounts were still on the platform.

A user can change the name, info and photos on the profile at any time. So, an account can say ID verified, but be used by someone else. Again, in theory this isn't allowed, but it happens. I had a guy try to book with me but he had clearly never used Airbnb before. There were several very good reviews on his profile, but clearly for someone else. When I asked, he admitted the reviews were for his mother. So, he was using her profile, but had changed the name, photo, description etc. so he himself was not verified and the reviews had nothing to do with him.

[Don-And-Emily0]

@Huma0  Thanks for your reply.  We experienced the same while we had IB turned on. A lot of potential guests without reviews or who disregarded the house rules and booked anyway.

I didn't realize guests can change their details on their account. That explains why this young lady had 5 out of 10 reviews referring to her by 5 different names. I didn't even get around to asking her about it. Once she refused to give us the names of the 5 men traveling with her, I knew we didn't want her staying in our home.

This is very disappointing @Airbnb needs to do better in verifying members

[Huma0]

@Don-And-Emily0 

From what I understand, the username can be anything, like on many websites. It doesn't need to be the user's real name. For example, you will see hosts operating under a company name or the name of a listing, e.g. "Rose Cottage Austria". Likewise, a guest could use a nickname, or anything else really. There are a lot of nationalities (e.g. some Asian ones) where it is common for people to also choose an anglicised name for convenience when travelling. I also have several Eastern European friends who always have a nickname that they use more commonly than their given name. It doesn't necessarily mean something suspect. However, the guest I mentioned who created a fake profile used a name that translated into English as "teenage girl". She was 19, go figure. And obviously it's a problem when a very young, inexperienced user utilises the profile and reviews of one of their parents!

I have an acquaintance/friend of the family who booked a group stay for us. She is an experienced Airbnb guest and has stayed in loads of listings, no problem, great reviews. She has always used an entirely fake name on her profile because she feels uncomfortable using her own name on a public platform. I tried to explain to her why this was problematic for hosts, but she said it had never been a problem anywhere she stayed.

So, I assume that the name used for ID verification must be the guest's real name, i.e. the one that appears on their ID. That doesn't mean they need to use that as their username or that they can't change their username. The 'real' name, however, should show on the booking confirmation, which you can check if you get email notifications for these. Notice that occasionally, you don't see a guest's full name on the booking confirmation on the website/App, but if you check the confirmation email, it should be there.

[Laura2592]

@Don-And-Emily0 This is an easy improvement I would like to see. 

When a guest books for 3 people, they cannot submit until the profiles of all 3 have been linked to the reservation. Same when a guest inquires. If one of the people is a child, a profile isn't necessary but the first name and age of the child must be entered. 

It makes sense to a) get potential guests to create ABB profiles (more people using the platform/fewer barriers to booking) and b) for hosts to be able to see any history on each guest. I don't know why this is not a feature that is readily available @Catherine-Powell 

[Don-And-Emily0]

@Laura2592  Thanks for your note.

We've been falling slowly out of love with Airbnb and the lack of support for hosts. This just adds to it.

We shouldn't be put in a position to ask for the names of the guests. @Airbnb should position this in settings to begin with. It would be a smart and elegant way of managing expectations for guests and for hosts.

[Helen744]

@Laura2592 I  instant book .My understanding as I only accept those who present a full clear photo Id to Airbnb. As soon as the IB goes through a pic comes up . I ask for  extra photo Id and vax certs directly from the guest .I imagine some people have already been eliminated from booking at that stage. I often then find that the pic on their id differs wildly from the one Airbnb have , then they turn up and look different again . I have some face blindness as I have mentioned before and tend to find I recognise people by body shape ,head shape or physical movement or voice . So getting to know someone is a bit trickier when  I am just trying to be able to identify them in a lineup . No id is available until after booking . I think this is fair and I never ask for a childs ID ever.Parents will identify their children when we meet if and only if they wish.Airbnb always have this identity information and we are able to ask for a clear profile pic. Some people will not do a review as they do not want to have their profile pics show , but I often see blank profile pic on reviews ,not on mine.the reason a profile pic does not appear until after booking is to prevent discrimination based on appearance , which I fully support . I just wish it was clear to guests that a booking on IB is just that but the owner of the property is within their rights to ask for ID after the booking has been made without hopefully any flags. I personally would like to know what the flags actually mean. H

[Huma0]

@Laura2592 

I absolutely agree with you. However, I suspect Airbnb don't do this because they want to avoid anything that makes the booking process longer or more complicated for the guest. How difficult would it be, for example, for Airbnb to notify the guest when they send a request to book to check their messages in case the host has any questions for them? Instead, they have a 24 hour deadline for the host to accept/decline and an acceptance rating so that the host is pressurised into accepting bookings without necessarily having the information they need in order to feel confident doing so.

@Don-And-Emily0 

Yes, absolutely, I want at least the first names of any guests staying and to know the relationship with the booking guest. Most people volunteer this information themselves. If I have to ask, I usually ask for the full name. Anyone who gets cagey about it or refuses to provide this information won't be staying with me!

I don't ask for ID, but have put in my house rules that guests might be required to show ID on arrival. This is firstly to hopefully deter scammers but also, if someone arrives who doesn't appear to be the guest who booked, i.e. it looks like it was a third party booking, then I can ask to see that person's ID. The only time I had anything like this, it turned out the guy was sharing the profile with his wife and it was her photo on there, but his name. He changed the photo as soon as I told him that it was confusing, and turned out to be a great guest.

[Sharon1378]

@Sharon1378 I received a request from a guy with no reviews and all I had was his first name. I asked where he lived and he gave me a vague answer…no town or city…and I asked if he had references which he said he had but didn’t provide. He was coming with his two teenage daughters. I had a bad feeling about him since he was so evasive so I declined. He reported me to Airbnb for age discrimination! I got a stern email from Airbnb warning me about discrimination. Wow! Seriously?

[Susan1188]

Thank goodness in my country I am legally required to register all guests with the police, they must give me their passports and sign a registration form.  That makes it easier!  We have a great app to do this as well it's called checkinscan.

[Cherie54]

That's amazing, Susan!

[Huma0]

@Susan1188 

I wonder if the app works in the UK. Thanks for the tip. I will check it out.

[Catherine-Powell]

Thank you for commenting and for sharing these ideas. I've sent this message to our product team. It's great feedback.

Warmly,

Catherine

@Don-And-Emily0 @Laura2592 @Huma0 @Cherie54 @Sammy-L-0 @Susan1188 @Helen744

[Don-And-Emily0]

Thank you so much for doing so @Catherine-Powell 

If all guests on a listing are required to submit their full names, it would take the burden of asking off of us hosts, and maybe add an ounce of accountability to the guest/host dynamic. 

While they’re at it, maybe the Product Team can also take a look at Revenge Reviews Rants and the length of time they are allowed to exist on our accounts. This seems to be one of the top reasons for discontent among hard working hosts. We think we can improve on the existing policy.

Thank  you in advance

kind regards,

Don & Emily

[Huma0]

@Catherine-Powell 

Thanks for passing this on.

In an ideal world, all guests on the booking (except for under 18s) would have Airbnb accounts and need to have their accounts linked to the reservation. Of course, there is already an option to do this but, firstly, most guests do not think to do this unless prompted and, secondly, it's a bit glitchy in that I have had guests add a named person with their Airbnb account on the booking but often just get an error message saying 'no details available' when clicking on it, which I assume is a technical glitch.

Of course, I can see why this would not be convenient for some guests, i.e. those that perhaps have technophobic guests in their party, but the booking guest could in theory help those people set up their accounts.

The advantages of this would be:

1. The host has to do less investigation and is therefore more likely to accept more request bookings/cancel less IBs when chasing the guests for info doesn't work.

2. Less third party bookings

3. Less fake profiles and scammers

4. A chance for the host to identify potential problems (e.g. when a person/persons in the group have bad reviews)

and probably a whole bunch of other things that I can't think of at this moment...