And we wonder about a guest's home location.....check yours

We often wonder why our guest’s home location doesn’t match their phone number or we see a disconnect in their Airbnb location vs. what they tell us. My guest this weekend was from Minneapolis on his profile, but was traveling 2.5 hours by car to my home in WV.

I was following up on a review this morning, when I discover that Airbnb has moved me from VA to Canada on the tag at the end of my reviews:

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This is the first time I’ve seen this on my account. I have no idea how or when this was changed, so you may want to check your accounts. I’ve double checked and my address hasn’t changed on my profile. I’m checking other location tags that may be on my account.

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I’ve always made the assumption that it’s simply because folks don’t update their original choice of location. On my travel account my location is still showing as Glasgow, UK.

JF

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Could be the person relocated but kept their original cell phone number.

Thanks for heads up. I will verify my location is correct

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We had something similar reported once before I think. Personally it doesn’t really matter to me. I’d say at least half the time where it says someone is from is not where they live and since I don’t get vacationers, just road trippers, it matters even less. Even with folks that appear to be local, half the time they’ve moved away and are coming to visit.

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If their location is the most that’s wrong we’re good to go. :rofl: :laughing:

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Well, Parksville’s a pretty nice place :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: I lived just an hour north of there for 25 years. But if your guests think you’re in Parksville and you don’t have an ocean view where you really live, they’ll probably be pretty upset.

I welcomed guests one time pointing out their home area of “Portugal” and they looked at me like I had two heads. They were from somewhere nearby like West Virginia and had never traveled out of the USA.

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LOL. Funny stuff. We had one guest who was “from Japan”. Upon arrival, I engaged him with a traditional Japanese greeting and got very confused looks.

He had merely been stationed there very briefly a few years ago, and somehow that was his Air profile. We sorted it out and had a good laugh. Great guest.

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At least.

This is more common than not these days. I don’t think I know more than a couple of people whose area code matches their location. You just made me think, “where is my area code from?”. And it is not from where I live now nor the last place I lived.

We just had one of those absolutely perfect guests. Checked in late, worked long hours somewhere else and took a long run after work each night for 3 days and then checked out at 7am. Didn’t touch a single amenity and the place looked like he never checked in. Paid a premium price. Then he promptly left an embarassingly flattering review. When he booked, he told me he was coming from DC. His profile said Houston. His area code was from Denver and his FB page (yes, I look sometimes) said he lived in San Diego. Oh well.

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sort of related, but maybe not. when i was looking for a place to stay in central georgia, i found hundreds of listings for airbnbs in tibisli georgia, in the former soviet union - some of the listings in russian. i called it in, and sat with the tech guy on the phone for at least an hour, showing him that they were indeed in the wrong place, and they stayed up for some time afterwards, but they seem to have been cleared out now.

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I had an IB guest check-in last night who’s profile says he lives in my state (but hours from my location.) His area code is NYC. After some humorous but confusing conversations, we finally nailed down that we was NOT from my state and that he lived in Washington DC.

He has no idea why his profile, created in 2017, says he’s from Colorado. His ID is “verified”. :woman_shrugging:

Honestly this happens to me ALL the time. I’m on IB so it doesn’t concern me - if/when I even notice.

It’s never concerned me for a guest. However, as a host, when I review a guest and it shows that I live in Canada, that’s an issue for me :). I was concerned that it may have somehow changed on my listing too…I wish Airbnb would quit mucking around w/ the systems…

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I don’t think it’s that they’re mucking about with the system, I think it’s just that they have horrible, glitchy software.