Not verified

[Shelley29]

Hello,

I have an enquiry from a potential guest who don't seem to be verified. Would it be best to decline them?

Thanks,

Shelley

[Alessandra0]

If in your settings you ask that only verified guests can make reservations, then you are fine. A guest can send you an inquiry but they would have to complete the verification process before their reservation can go through.

[Karen-and-Brian0]

Hi @Shelley29 I see you have Instant Book turned on, so I don't think you can decline them as long as they meet your booking criteria. Under booking, Who Can Book Instantly, do you have all boxes ticked or just the first one?

Personally, I would decline an unverified guest - it's just too easy to fake an email and phone number, and I suppose also use a stolen credit card. The more layers of protection you can give yourself, the better. Hope that helps! Karen

[Helen56]

They might be new to Airbnb, so perhaps you could just send them a friendly message asking them to complete the verification process.  Also you can change your settings to only get requests from guests who are already verified.

I have had a few guests who I had to prompt to get their offline ID verified, they did so and were great guests.

You should also turn off Instant Book so that you have more control and can chat to guests before they book.

[Andrea9]

@Shelley29

For your own safety and security - at least till you have a better feeling for hosting with Instabook and in view of the fact that guests have been known to make same or next day bookings with stolen credit cards - you might want to turn your settings to not accepting same or next day bookings. If a credit card was stolen, ABB usually finds this and suspends the guest within 24h. With same or early next day bookings the guest technically still has the chance to get your arrival info and be there before you are given notification that the booking had to be suspended.