Hello @Sheila175 you are not the only one in this situation! I am glad I did a search before posting a new topic conversation. Please keep this thread updated with how your situation works out.
I am a superhost in Brooklyn, NY and just hosted guests from the Ukraine for about a week. Instant book, two guests on the reservation, husband and wife, they arrived with a third, an infant unannounced, (small children are a NO on my preferences and house rules) but I didn't complain. Take care of your baby, keep the noise down, no sweat. A day or two into their stay, packages arrived from UPS - Amazon, Walmart, Amazon again, I would prefer guests ask to receive items at my home, but I don't make a big deal, I can understand when they do, especially international guests. I place their parcels in front their room door and said nothing. They had inquired about extending their stay but I only had one additional night open for their room until new guests arrived. They declined to add the 1 night, and checked out after their 6 night booking. The night before check out he asked if I knew where he could print some documents. I will usually print items for guests, concerts, sports games, Broadway tickets, but I knew something was different, I asked him, what does he need printed and how much? He said, "insurance documents, a few pages." That sounded like a lot to me and I wasn't inclined to print a ton of documents on my home printer so I directed them to a print kiosk in the neighborhood. Here we are a week later, I get a message from the husband saying they opened a bank account using my address and inquiring did I receive the cards - he apologized for not asking beforehand stating he didn’t know they would send the cards to my home. I checked yesterday and nothing, today, two pieces of mail arrived addressed to both of them from Geico insurance. I haven't opened them, because as you mentioned, it's illegal to open someone else's mail - but I'm like, uh, at my own house? There's got to be some exceptions around this law. And if they opened a bank account, why are they getting Geico insurance papers at my place? Is this what he meant or are there additional documents to come? I don't feel like dealing with ICE or SSA or Homeland Security or whoever to get these people, I have half a mind to just tell him the documents never came and do not host him again.
Despite what Airbnb told you Sheila I cannot imagine your situation is the first time someone would try this on their platform. Airbnb employees system wide appear to be young, bright, inexperienced, well intentioned people who don't exactly have it together with regard to sharing information across their platform and communicating up the ladder to establish an overall fixed protocol. This type of thing should have a process in place for hosts to report this type of abuses and then Airbnb handle from there. It's a shame to have individual hosts contacting ICE and Homeland Security to address on an ad-hoc basis. I will follow up with my Airbnb local neighborhood rep and see what he says to do, but I'm sure like your support rep said, it will be his first time hearing of anything like this and he'll look into it. Ugh, these are pains of new companies and new platforms like this. They haven't seen anything in this world, I'm sure Hyatt and Marriot know how to deal with someone trying to book an extended stay at their properties to use as a residence for immigration, but apparently it never crossed Airbnb's mind that someone would try this in a host's home? How could they be so blind. Good luck with your situation, I'll keep you updated on mine.
