Airbnb let a felon book my room. What recourse do I have?

[Brian143]

I apologize in advance for all the detail but I feel it is necessary to give an accurate picture of the circumstances -

So my basement apartment was booked earlier today by a local gentleman for one night. He stated that he had a bad experience with another host over a misunderstanding and wanted to book for one night and then possibly more later. He had one review where the host said he used a second bedroom without permission and that he let a friend stay even though no unregistered guests were allowed. This wasn't enough to alarm me so I allowed the instant-booking to stay and figured I would ask him what happened when he checked in. Meeting him I could tell right away that he was slippery but his explanation for the prior mishap was "a misunderstanding" and he promised me he would obey my house rules so I let him stay. Well later that evening he came back from dinner, opened the house door, and saw me sitting on the couch talking on the phone. Slowly and quietly he backed out and closed the door (you have to come through the main door to access the basement he is renting). He then reopened the door about 10 minutes later and asked to speak with me. I hung up the phone and he gave me a story about 2 friends that were with him and had no place to stay so he asked if they could spend the night. What REALLY happened is he intended to sneak them in and realized he couldn't because I was in the way. So I told him "no" because 1. it's in my rules and 2. he intended to deceive me. He then acted like he had no idea what a 37 year old man should do in his unfortunate situation and so I suggested he drive them to a hotel. He then left. Not trusting this situation I decided to stay home and sit on my couch until he came home and went to bed.  Now that he's here and I finally could do some research and found out that he has 5 FELONY CONVICTIONS and 8 MISDEMEANORS!! 2nd degree felonies for THEFT, ISSUING A BAD CHECK. 3rd degree felonies for IDENTITY FRAUD, THEFT BY DECEPTION, and THEFT OF SERVICES. Misdemeanors for THEFT OF SERVICES, ISSUING A BAD CHECK, GIVING FALSE INFO TO A PEACE OFFICER, POSSESSION OF ANOTHERS IDENTIFYING DOCUMENTS, and THEFT BY DECEPTION. And this in only his local sheriff's report! How on earth does Airbnb miss something like this and allow a person with such a horrible history have access to my house and key?!  I am beyond angry at this point. This dude is 6'1 and 230 lbs. I'm not going to confront him or make him leave simply for my own safety but I will be staying up all night and making sure nothing is stolen or riffled through. Luckily all my personal info, checks, etc are locked up and not accessible.

So my questions are:

1. How come this type of person is on the site and not weeded out by Airbnb?

2. What responsibility do I have to run background checks on people who stay here?

3. What recourse do I have?  What if this guy cased my house and made a copy of my house keys?? Should AirBNB pay to rekey my house? I feel they have responsibility here since his criminal past was easily accessed and quite extensive.

As for me... I will be staying up ALL night and morning sitting on my couch until he has left. 

Thoughts?

[Maria-Lurdes0]

Hi @Brian143 @Airbnb's verification process only confirms that a guest has submitted an ID and that's it.   It's all done by bots, there is no review process or background check in any way.

This is a crappy thing that happened to you, and you dealt with it in a smart way, refusing the other guests entry and staying up all night.  

I would do the following now:

1) Change the locks wherever the questioned guest had access.   Save the receipts but don't expect that Airbnb will cover you the cost.  But for your own security, do it right away.  It's a legitimate business expense that you can submit as your taxes, but most importantly it's for your own sense of security.

2) Don't confront or have any discussion with guest about what you've found.  Simply ride out the booking until he checks out in the morning, collect the key and thank him.  Don't get into convo's about his behaviour last night trying to sneak in unless he brings it up, then just say "yup, house rules".   You are trying to not give away anything, and if he's a con, he'll look to rile you up.

3) Contact Airbnb, tell your side of the story and ask what your recourse is.  I don't think you have any (you should, but they'll argue he didn't actually do anything other than try to break house rules).

4) Leave an accurate review and give him a thumbs down on review, indicating you do no recommend.   That way, he will be unable to use Instant Book in future.   In area where oyu give feedback to Airbnb (and don't mistakenly use the "feedback to guest" box), tell Airbnb that you were not comfortable with this guest and that you found he had various records and that you do not think he should be allowed to use Airbnb.  Try to have him banned.

Is the guests name Francis, or something along those lines?  It's similar enough to a situation that I had last year -someone that I was sure was a con, booked and then tried to sneak in all sorts of people, was surprised that I live downstairs so I was onsite monitoring.  

[Andrea9]

@Brian143

That is a terrible and extremely unsafe situation, just awful.

From what I've seen on the forum Airbnb doesn't weed out such people at all (it's a computer that uploads IDs etc.), while on the other hand they are using their energy to make sure that hosts are all good little non-discriminators. 

Do you request for Instant Booking that guests have to have had good reviews only?

And full ID verification for booking?

You might not want to allow same-day bookings, giving you time to check out the guest.

I also suggest adding to your house rules that there is an ID check upon arrival (and make sure you write down the nr. when you check, just like hotels and motels).

In this case I would involve the police.

Flag the guy's profile about being a felon to get ABB's attention and it's removal. Although he'll just re-register...

And call ABB. Posting publicly on Twitter and/or Facebook is another way of getting their attention. These kind of situations have been in the media so often. 

But remember that a lot of the responsibility is on the host too since ABB only facilitates bookings between guests and hosts, and that is the stance they take, even more so with their new Terms and Conditions.

[Asya0]

Hi,thanks for the informative post. How did you perform the background check so quickly? My local police would not give any info. 

[Wendy-and-Frank0]

You can go to a judicial website online and check criminal records on anyone for free.  You just have to have a full name.  I run it as soon as my reservations are confirmed.  I run it in their states and in mine.

So far, no issues.

[Helen3]

Hello @Brian143

I am so sorry you have had this experience.

However you have to take some responsiblity for choosing to take a guest with a bad review.

When choose to have IB turned on, there will always be a risk that you take guests who either don't meet your house rules or are in some way unsuitable because you haven't chatting to them in advance to ensure a good fit.

In your situation I would call BNB let them know that the guest tried to sneak in guests who hadn't booked, that you have found out about his criminal record and don't feel safe. They should then cancel his booking and you can ask him to leav.e If you don't feel comfortable doing this. Contact your local police, explain the circumstances and see if they will help you.

BNB is a listing service. It is not their job to check each guest to find out about their past. Can you imagine how much they would charge you in fees for this type of service.

You can protect yourself by turning off IB, only taking verified guests, not taking guests with bad reviews and talking to guests about themselves and their plans before accepting a booking. If you found it that easy to find information about this guest, you could easily have checked him out before accepting this booking.

I agree that you should change the locks, there is no reason for BNB to pay for it.

[Babs0]

Hi @Brian143,

So sorry this happened or is happening to you!

Great that the previous host mentioned it in his review, that's exactly what we all need. Some hosts are reluctant to do so, afraid they will get a bad review back. If you read this next time, I'm sure you will follow your newly acquired host instinct and let that one go! Maybe even turn off Instant Book, this is one of the reasons I don't have it on our listing... You don't want to go through the trouble of getting it cancelled by Airbnb and end up with dodgy guests 😞

Hope you will have awesome guests in the future, please don't give up on the idea of hosting entirely!

And let us know what happened!

Good luck!

Babs

[Elena87]

Sorry this happened to you.

Perhaps in future also to reformulate your own policy on accepting guests.

Late booking, local guy, one night only, bad review history - in retrospect now it probably seems that some red flags or alarm bells might have been ringing for you. 

As well as raising the bar on who your are prepared to accept, you can also on your listing state you will ask for further ID proof on arrival.

With the key, you may consider in the future enhanced security such as keyless entry system or non copyable keys.

[Robert-And-Nancy0]

When you do change your lock I agree with @Elena87.  We installed a keyless entry after a guest lost their key.  It gives us a knowledge of security.  We delete the code as soon as the guest(s) leave.  It makes us feel more secure knowing someone can not get back into the house.  Our keyless also acts as an alarm if tampered.  So if some shakes the knob or tries more than 5 codes it has an earpiercing alarm that would hopefully scare someone off.  Hope your situations goes okay and the guest leaves without incident.

[Eva170]

Could you share more detail about this keyless entry system you got? I'm shopping for keyless door locks right now, but I haven't seen one with alarm. It seems like a great feature to have. Thanks!

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

Much has been said already on the topic - the biggest mistake was not trusting others hosts reviews. 

[Hilary-And-Ed0]

And definitely report this guy to Airbnb to prevent any more hosts having problems with this guy in the future!

[Niesha0]

OMG!! I think i have this dude in my house right now!! all the charges look the exact same. I was totally creeped out by him and he seemed so sketcy, So i ran a background check as well. All the chrages you listed and the physcial description is the same. I contacted Airbnb and they made up some story that my listing was going to be closed. I also am pretending that I dont know. His stay was for 30 nights on night 4 he started to do some strange things. 

this is not okay !! 

[Niesha0]

Sad thing is Aibnb said they were going to just put him in another hosts home!

[Niesha0]

hes 40!! i looked it up!