I have a weird situation… I have a guest who isn’t comfortable uploading his ID online, which is fine with me. However, it seems that Airbnb is requiring him to provide it anyway, and I can’t get a straight answer from customer service as to why that is. Supposedly this guest can book other listings without being asked, but ask soon as he goes to book mine it pops up with a message asking up to take a photo of his ID. Does anyone have experience with this? I don’t want to lose out on a booking because of some weird unwritten policy on Airbnb’s end.
Airbnb - either ask a guest for ID or they don’t. It wouldn’t be specific to your listing.
https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/1237/how-does-it-work-when-airbnb-asks-for-an-id
So if your listing doesn’t require it, it sound like a technical problem. What did Airbnb say when you spoke to them?
Yeah, I saw that but in typical Airbnb fashion it’s intentionally vague.
“We may also ask for a government ID” and
“There are also times when we’ll ask for an ID to help us confirm you’re really you.”
What I’ve been able to figure out is people can sign up for Airbnb and make bookings without providing ID, but sometimes the platform will decide that a guest needs to provide ID to book a particular listing. The front line reps have no idea how the process works, exactly. When the requirement is triggered, the guest is not able to opt out or verify their identity through other means. And the scanned IDs are retained by a third party company, which is exactly what this guest is concerned about (risk of identity theft if the server is hacked).
Have you double checked your booking requirements on your listing to see whether guest ID has been ticked by mistake?
I had a problem with ID verification pending past the booking window. I was able to accomodate the guest because I came up with a workaround. Are you ok hosting the guest off platform or only okay hosting the guest without uploaded ID?
I had previously had the guest ID requirement checked off, but it’s now unchecked and has been for 2 days (and it shows unchecked on Airbnb’s end). I wonder if it’s still requiring it because he first messaged me when it was checked off.
Normally I’m fine with hosting them off platform, but in this case I’m hesitant because it’s a fairly substantial booking ($2,300) and it’s a cross-border booking (he’s in the US, I’m in Canada). Was the workaround just going off platform?
I’ll PM you. …
To Build on @Jess1 ‘s comment:
You can select “Government ID required” for Instant book & for traditional booking. The booking requirements are independent so you may wish to check your selections in both places.
Assuming you have double checked your listing, have you actually put in a call to Airbnb? - likely something they can sort out fairly easily.
I just found the other checkbox! It is under my master hosting requirements, separate from the listing requirements. It would have been nice if one of the three Airbnb reps I spoke to had told me about it! We’ll see if this fixes it.
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The time I called them on an ID issue similar to this, they were worthless. 15 minutes on the phone…15 mins of my life I’ll never get back. LOL
$2300 and he’s flakey about verifying his ID? Totally flag for a 3rd party booking or credit card fraud. Fishy!
You misread it. He doesn’t want to “upload his ID online.” I don’t know about this guest but lots of people have concerns about stuff online as they should.
He said he’s had a few family members who were victims of identity theft, and his work is fairly high profile in terms of online presence so I can understand his concern.
Unchecking the other box did it! Amazing that none of the reps told me about it.
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LOL. Surely by this point you’ve become used to their nearly universal incompetence.
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