Suspicious sounding inquiry, wanting my address

Liz46
Level 2
New York, NY

Suspicious sounding inquiry, wanting my address

I received an inquiry from a guest (since May 2016, so a new Airbnb user) who said he wanted to "pop over this afternoon" to check the place out. This was suspicious to me on a few levels:

 

1. if you live in the area, why do you need a rental (it's a beach community)

2. why do we need a face to face meeting?

3. he wanted my specific street address.

 

I was quite courteous and told him that he couldn't visit because I wasn't there, as it's a weekend home. I also indicated that I would not give him the street address until he actually booked.

 

Will he be able to find out the home addess information by looking at my profile? I'm pretty freaked that I gave up too much info by saying we weren't there.

 

Help!!

 

 

7 Replies 7
Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Liz46. Sounds like a problem to me. If you spend a bit of time on this community Liz, you will find most guest damage is done by locals or criminals. I know, that's a sweeping statement but, many local requests come from someone who may wish to have a post marriage party or a high school graduation party, a 'bucks night', some sort of celebration....you know what I mean!!

And the fact that the potential guests wants to 'check you and the location out' absolutely reinforces that this could be the case. You say you are in a beach community, and this may be totally unfair but, I can just visualise a heap of wet, drunk, scantily clad individuals trashing their way through your property until all hours of the night!!

And as for criminals, they never want to travel far from home to do whatever they do and in general don't have a lot of respect for others property.

There are heaps of lovely people out there to host Liz but, to me, this request has disaster written all over it. My feeling is you should decline the booking and inform Airbnb of your reasons. I would also make sure anything that may identify the exterior of your property is removed from your photos and text......Cheers....Rob

@Liz46 No legitimate *and* desirable guests asks to drop by in advance. Any who do are either working some sort of scam or are loony or will turn out to be problematical for some other reason. Don't agree to such requests, no matter how much you want to get bookings.

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Liz46 And further to my last comment, I notice you have cancelled what looks like their booking. Make sure you get onto Airbnb help desk and explain your reasons for making this cancellation. There are quite substantial penalties for  a host who cancels a booking. As you will already have noticed there will be an automated response on your profile page that you have cancelled a guest booking and there will be a financial penalty which will be taken from your future payouts! You will have the booked dates blacked out on your booking calender and will be unable to host for those dates, and you be ineligble for Superhost status for 12 months.

 

Liz I am sure you have done the right thing but get onto Airbnb straight away and explain that you were uncomfortable that this client wished to operate outside the rules of Airbnb and there is a strong probablity they will release you from any penalty.... The phone number should be at the bottom of your reservation or alternatively use the number listed in the Community Help Guides at the start of the General Hosting page.......cheers....Rob

 

 

 

just read your post and thanks as I, too, am new to airbnb and a lady wanted pictures of every room in the house plus the outside and street address.. I thought that was way too much information to be given out...from your experience.. what is the best way to handle these sorts of inquiries and do you recomment pictures of your entire home on airbnb?? I just didn't think it appropriate.

 

Signed.. a bit frightened   ... lol

 

Hi Keita

 

So glad you got your hackles up! I notified Airbnb of my suspicious inquiry, and they in turn assigned a "security" person to my case. He gave me a few tips which I'll pass on to you:

 

1. You should not give the street address out to anyone at the initial inquiry. Airbnb has the street address and keeps it private until someone has a confirmed booking. They cannot get either your last name, or address unless they book.

 

2. You do not need to photograph everything in your house. You choose what you want shown, and that's what's posted. You do not need to send additional photos to anyone.

 

3. Most importantly - the best way to handle an inquiry which seems inappropriate is to basically refer to Airbnb's policy. In other words, what I said to my suspicious guest was "I'm not going to share the street address with you unless you book, per Airbnb's policy. I'm sure you understand as it's a safety issue."

 

I happened to follow up after this exchange with a notification that I am a member of a neighborhood watch team, and that I have a property manager located within a few blocks of the residence. This gave me peace of mind, so that if it is some kind of "gang of thieves" looking to root out unoccupied homes filled with sound equipment, televisions and game consoles - they ought to look elsewhere!

 

4. Last tip is to go through the verification process. Apparently, if you verify yourself as a host via Airbnb, then you can require that your inquiring guests be verified as well. You should contact Airbnb directly for more information on how to do this.

 

Good luck Keita! I still don't know the outcome of my suspicious inquiry, but he disappeared after I told him I wasn't going to share the address. I've emailed him twice since then to check in (giving credence in case it was a real inquiry!) and he never wrote back. I think that proves that it was some sort of fake inquiry looking for more info.

 

Best

Liz

Claudio467
Level 1
Miami, FL

I’m a guest 

I always enquire about the exact location ,there can be a big difference whitin  1 square mile ,one corner can be more dangerous then another ,and for my safety I need to know exactly where I will be ,and Airbnb should put the exact address for the safety of their customer ,also they should tell you on what floor the flat is located and if there is an elevator ,would like to arrive late at night and be in a shady street ? And with your luggage go the the 5th floor ? I opted for booking .com lately for those specific reason ,and I don’t understand about the safety for the host by not giving the exact address ,it is like an hotel does not tell you where is located because afraid of scam ? 

Very idiotic 

@Claudio467   The security issue for hosts is that giving out the exact location can make their home a target for thieves and the type of people who will show up at their door wanting to try to make a private deal outside of Airbnb to avoid paying the service fees. 

You are making a mistake in comparing Airbnbs, which are private homes, to hotels. Hotels are privately owned, but are high profile public spaces. Airbnbs are not. Hotels have security staff on duty who can be called in to deal with an objectionable person- Airbnbs do not.

Of course it's reasonable for you, as a guest, to know whether the place is on the ground floor or 6 floors up without an elevator and other important things about the location. Most Airbnb listings do state all of that- if they don't the host is remiss in providing info and you could just send the host a message and ask for clarification. You should also be able to glean information from the reviews- if the entrance is down some scary dark alley, it's probably likely that past guests would have mentioned that in their reviews.

And you can also ask for the cross-streets, that will give you a very accurate picture of where it is- you don't need the exact house or apartment address. Would you give out your home address to some complete stranger who contacted you online?

Both guest and host security are equally important.