Yeah Thorey, I just experienced that myself. We just went live on Airbnb yesterday, and we had set up the "Recommendations from Other Hosts" as well as the need for a government ID as prerequisites for booking.
But then lo and behold, we had at least four attempted bookings by people who had neither of those. I didn't understand this, as I would have thought they'd be blocked from trying to reserve--but they weren't. Some were groups of young people, too. And after all of the money we sunk into renovations, and after hearing a number of horror stories from hosts this summer about young people partying and trashing their places, I had no choice but to politely explain the situation and decline them.
Well, here's the real crappy part of that story: it seems like we have dropped down in the algorithm because of those "declines." Yesterday, we were pretty high up on the listing, hence all of the enquiries. Today, however, we're so far down that you'd really have to be looking to find our place.
So yeah, it seems like stipulating that guests must have these requirements doesn't really matter. They can still put in pending reservations, and it is left to you to reject them. Then, when you do, the system makes you suffer for it.
This makes no sense to me. But maybe someone else has another perspective and can advise me otherwise? If so, I'd really like to hear it.