Suspicious inquiries

[Erik1242]

Hi all - 

I have a vacation rental in South Florida, where state executive order has prohibited us from accepting new reservations or check ins. We ended up with a bunch of cancellations, understandably, but now something strange is happening.

Over the past week or so, I have suddenly started getting multiple reservations requests per day. Each request is for a multi-month stay and says "considering the circumstances" (those words exactly, in nearly every request) would I consider a discounted rate.

Now, maybe this is just coincidence and many people are starting to feel comfortable traveling again. However the sheer number of these requests and the similar wording makes me suspicious. I know that some municipalities here set up dummy accounts to test hosts' adherence to local laws. I'm wondering if this is a similar effort to be sure that we are obeying the executive order. I haven't accepted any new reservations, but I'm sick of sending the same message over and over "thank you for your inquiry. unfortunately, state executive order prevents me from making new reservations...."

Anyone else experiencing this?

Thanks

Erik

[Sarah977]

@Erik1242  What I think is happening is that there is a lot of social media interchange going on re how this is a perfect time to get a great deal on an Airbnb because hosts are so desperate for $ that they'll accept any reservation and will be forced to agree to a huge discount.

[Andrea4477]

Every couple of months we get 2 different inquiries on the same day, almost back to back, always asking something similar: are pools open & will we have the pool to ourselves, for example. They are always from verified accounts, but one always is new, having only joined within the month. Bookings never come through.  We are thinking Airbnb does random checks to see if/how we respond...???  It is very frustrating to think bookings are going to happen and then never do. This happening to anyone else??