Listing

[David403]

Hello there!

I have a big doubt right now and don't know what to do.

I replied to a job ad in internet of this man who was looking for a person to list his properties on airbnb. He would offer 10% of every booking I would have gotten and at first I thought it might have been interesting.
After contacting him he sent me all the informations possible about the property plus the pictures, and he also told me that, once someone would have contacted me, I should have sent them this person's email so that he would have gotten in contact directly. I thought it was quite fishy that I could not get directly in contact with the guests and I therefore I asked him more information about himself.
He replied with a picture of his ID and saying that the reason why he want to talk to them it's because he want to see their profile before saying yes (which would be understandable).
He has not mentioned to me anything about his payments method so for the moment there is no way for them to pay directly through Airbnb.
I don't want this to be a scam and for the moment I would be the only one to be blamed if it was like that.

Have you heard about anything similar to which I could refer to?
For the moment I unlisted the property for further investigation but at the same time it would be a pity not to get the opportunity of earning some extra money if this was actually real.

I appreciate your help and I thank you in advance,
David

[Barbara45]

This sounds like a scam, have you checked if he owns the property he is renting out? I would ask for some paperwork confirming that the place he is listing is his apartment/house or who he is renting it from, i would also ask for a meeting in person at the apartment/house so you can see he has access and the photos correspond to the actual apartment, if he refuses this it is definitely a scam,alsoif you meet in person verify that his ID and he correspond, for all you know the ID could be stolen.
All communication with guests who want to book should go through the airbnb site, so that you have a record of everything.

[Linda108]

I don't understand why the "owner" doesn't list the property himself.  I believe it is possible to have a property manager take care of the renting process even if the listing is under the owner's profile.  If this is legit, then he can list and you can manage.  Sounds fishy to me.

[Helen3]

Hello David

As you know BnB doesn't allow hosts and guests to share contact information before a booking is confirmed to avoid just this sort of issue. Therefore you can't share their email address with him before they book.

The host doesn't need the email address he just needs to have a setting that all guests are fully verified through photo ID and social media.

Why would he need to get in touch with a guest directly if you are managing the property for him?

And if he is set up as a host on BnB I don't understand why guests wouldn't be able to pay him through their website.

Either the host hasn't fully read through BnB to understand how it works, or more likely this is a scam.

[Allison2]

Have you spoken with this person on the phone or in person? Sometimes my gut tells me one thing from reading e-mails that can only be confirmed by talking.

One other piece in this that you'll want to take into consideration are the tax consequences. At least in the US, if I'm listing a home for someone else, the revenue is reported as my income to the IRS and I have to pay taxes (almost 30%) on that. There's probably some way to show the funds only passed through your hands, but I'd want to have a good understanding of that part before partnering with anyone.

If this guy is legit (which is iffy), he would be better off having his own listing and granting you rights to administer the daily interactions via the co-hosting option.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1243/what-are-additional-hosts

[David126]

Scam