don't let sex offenders open a profile

[Justin-And-Kimberly0]

We put a lot of money into remodeling our home so we could open up two rooms and become super hosts. I am a mother of two that homeschools as one of my children is on disability. With my second child ready to start school, Airbnb was going to be my way of making a good living while staying home with my kids. After months of buying beds, linens, towels, furniture, two mini refrigerators and a mini microwave and baby equipment to full accommodate our guests. Updating one bathroom and adding a shower to the only bathroom downstairs we were finally ready to open our home and were very excited about it.

But only two guests in and this is what happened to us....

Airbnb let a national registered sex offender not only open a profile but approved him within minutes as "verified" meaning safe in my opinion. As him and his heroin addict wife messaged me for a one night stay, I was excited to have my second set of guests and was ready to get the ball rolling to becoming a super host. Since they had been verified I let then into my home. After a couple of red flags went off in my head, I got my children out of the house and went to my neighbors where we did very little research and found that the man was a wanted registered sex offender.

[Nancy409]

wow - that is a problem and the reason why my friend with two 5 and younger kids does not want to host.  Thanks for the heads up.  I know that home for illegal activity is a concern

[Rebecca181]

@Justin-And-Kimberly0 I am so sorry this happened to you. I don't know how Airbnb has or will handle such issues, but I am wondering if there is an option for you to do what we did when we decided to share our large beach home (I am a safety nut and admit to being paranoid at times - This is due to experiences from my past). We built a faux barn door and installed it between us and the guests and we chain it on our side. We are still sharing our home (for tax purposes) but it would be very difficult for any guest to access our side of the house without our knowing it (chains and door are very loud when they are tampered with. Plus, I have two large dogs who would alert us immediately if something like that were to happen!) When the guests check out and it is time to clean, we just unchain the door and slide it back and we are one entire house again (our home used to be two separate homes that are now joined by a breezeway so we were able to do this. Knowing myself, I am not a person who could share common space with people I have not thoroughly vetted myself.  If my intuition is telling me something is not right, I will do a background search on scheduled guests to alleviate concerns. Airbnb has cancelled guests for me in the past when I have found out some unpleasant facts).

Not knowing how your house is set up (do your guests have their own private entrance?), this may not be something that you could do, but if there is even a chance you could arrange this, consulting with a contractor might be your first step (our friend helped us build ours and it is beautiful - Added a lot to the house. We use a scenic curtain with a lighthouse and ocean-scape to cover it on the guest side and that adds some more charm to the foyer on their side as well. One day we will refinish their side of the barn door to make it even more attractive - and even easier to manage for us; sometimes the curtain is a pain).

[Lisa14]

Ok!!! You keep posting these things, but there is no profile listing for you????

Where is your listing????

Seem like fraudulent clams to discredit  Airbnb...

Where is your proof???

Show your listing???

[Sandra126]

Verified only means what the word says, ''verified''. Doesn't mean their criminal records have been checked. It means ''we believe this person is who they say they are''. Which in your case was true, they WERE who they said they were. Unfortunately.

[David1892]

We received an inquiry that stated 4 adults would like to stay as guests.  How do I know as a host, that the people trying to book the reservation are really adults and not minors/under 18?  I was suspicious as they said they would be in the area for their prom.  Why can't we see the age (or if the guest has bee "verified over the age of 18 or 25"  when we look at their profile?

[Madhuri0]

My potential guests try to book my villa, every goes well till the payment part comes. They are unable to make payment through gateway. Due to this reason I lost many clients in the past. I complained many times but AirBNB did not pay ant attention.

Request AIRBNB technical time to find out the issue with payment while booking my villa.

I want to become superhost this year since there is lot of demnad to my executive villa.

[Lisa14]

David! Communication, ask questions. 

I will need to see a valid ID on arrival.

Names of each person that will be staying in the villa with photos..

Its your place and you are intitaled to ask as many questions to get to know your guest...

[Lisa14]

Madhuri! Find another payment method that works...

Loosing business due to payment method is not good... I’m sure there is another way than gateway 

[Ken188]

I'm fortunate to have a chef staying in the home as the co-host. A simple solution is to also purchase a subscription to a background check website to vet potential guests. I use a site to verify renters for other properties. AirBnB can't do everything for host. It takes 5 mins to run a background check before approving the stay if you're concerned. Verifying ID on arrival helps if you suspect the guest is a minor. I'm new to AirBnB and finding it to be a great platform.