In the past couple of months I’ve suddenly had a string of strange requests. First there was one that said she wanted to rent but that the property was listed twice and that she didn’t know where to reserve. The message included a link that I stupidly clicked on and once I realizes that it was a scam I scrammed to regain access of my account. Apparently, it’s a common ploy to steal a longtime Airbnb user’s account and then use it to scam others. A couple of weeks back, I received a couple of more requests with double listing notification by the supposed guest. I declined these immediately. Then yesterday I received in quick secession two requests for the exact same dates (one month, which is the maximum that I permit) and a message asking if I could offer a six month rental. The messages were vague an strange. One said he hoped I spoke English, when I responded in English his next response was in Spanish. I decided to decline both requests because it felt suspect. As I was sorting out those two requests a third person instantly booked within the time period that the other two suspect users had requested! This all in the span of about 20 minutes! Her message was also vague and the only reason I noticed her 4 day reservation was because she immediately requested a reservation alteration to include more people. I declined the alteration and began a conversation and she’s not yet replied. One of the other two asking for the long term request messaged saying that his partner had also tried to reserve but that I had declined and if I could reserve through their account. I apologized and said that someone else had reserved in their time period. The person said that now they only wanted the month and not the 6 month request they had suggested. I politely declined again. I felt ver uneasy and so I tried to also cancel the suspect 4 day reservation but te system threatened my superhost status that I worked hard to secure.
So what’s going on?
I have a couple of theories. The first case, double listing notice, is to take hold of the account and use the reputation of a hard-earnes superhost status to con others. The second string of strange requests might be to ruin a superhost status by making the host nervous and leading them to decline several requests in a very brief time period. The multiple declines can affect superhost status and if a scammer group does this enough in a small market, they can raise the profile of a fake or con listing. I tracked my behavior as I engaged with this situation and in a matter of an hour, I increases the rigidity of my cancellation policy and removed the instant book option. I tried to contact Airbnb about all this but it’s impossible to submit a complaint that’s not somehow managed by their automated system, which rejects nuanced inquiries like this one.
I’m not sure what I’ll do moving forward but this has been stressful enough that I’m thinking to switch to long term renters.
Thoughts?
