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Airbnb threatened to shut down my account for request Govt. Photo Ids prior to arrival. I am now asking for full names, ages, city, state and country of all guests staying. Looking for a reasonably priced company that does background check by monthly fee not individual. (Will get too costly, I have a lot of turn-over)
Looking for recommendations for online background checking companies?
I suggested on your other post to check your city/county regs to see if they require a host to collect ID is that an option? Also in your other thread you said you can still check ID at check-in why don’t you just do that? Why are you making this hard on yourself?
RR
A simple google search finds many services that fit your needs.
RR
I know this isn’t what you want to hear but as discussed on other threads I don’t think background checks are a good use of resources. If you need to do it for your peace of mind regardless of efficacy then I’d suggest you see if you can use one of the companies that employers use. As a teacher I had one but we had to give fingerprints. Without fingerprints I’m not so sure how good they are.
It’s more for a deterrent for guests booking that are bad actors . I catch all sorts of things with the Got. Photo ids but Airbnb is letting me as for full names, age, city, state and country for each booking guests and their guests. I never did background checks on photo ids. I’ve also added that their profile picture must be an actual face of them with nothing covering their face, has to only be them and current and no group photos. Also required is their legal last name.
I can’t risk getting unlisted. I’m still not convinced reading the aribnb TOS and privacy rules that it applies to Govt. Photo Ids.
What if you implement the changes they want in the text of your listing and then continue doing what you want. The key is a complaint, right? Supposedly you were in violation but carried on until someone complained? It seems to me that no matter what you do someone might complain eventually so just do as you need.
I agree. I know that there are lots of online service that cost about $25 (that’s mid-range) per check. But if you read the small print on those sites, they guarantee nothing at all. Usually, you have to check a box that you agree to their disclaimer but the disclaimer is in a tiny scrolling box - you have to look at the page’s source code to read it all.
Also, and it depends where you are of course, it’s not legal to perform background checks without permission. The above-mentioned sites get round that by having in their disclaimer that the purchaser assumes responsibility. It can get quite dodgy.
As far as I know, in this country (USA) it’s simply not possible to get an accurate background check on anyone without a social security number - and most people don’t give out their SS number to anyone at all.
I read once, and this was ages ago so I don’t know how accurate it is these days, that in this country people are not obliged to give their SS numbers to anyone except for IRS purposes. Evidently, if this is still the case, even a cop or your doctor has no legal right to know your SS number.
I refuse to give it out, also I do not give mothers maiden name to banks. I just say no I am not going to give you that.
RR
I would switch over to long term rentals if you want to run a background check. It is common practice in that setting. It is not in STR. You are just going to run into more problems with what you are trying to do.
An old boyfriend shared the same incredibly generic name and birthdate as another guy in his town. The other guy had about 6 DUI’s, a few drug possession and some domestic violence charges.
An Uncle of mine was pulled over for a routine traffic violation. After they ran his license they did a felony arrest (put your hands out the window, open the handle from outside, get out of the car, lay on your stomach with your hands over your head) because another guy with same name, dob, etc had outstanding warrants.
I guess what I’m saying is it will be harder than you think to correctly pair your guest to an accurate background check. You don’t even have a date of birth.
Every time I’ve bought property - which makes me sound very posh and rich but I’m not - background checks have located ‘me’, several ‘mes’ actually, with terrible credit, criminal records, you name it.
I invariably have to sign something to confirm that I did not default on a Toyota Camry, or rob a 7-Eleven, or run out on my child maintenance payments (my name could be either male or female apparently) or do jail time in Orlando in 1987 or whatever…
And I’m assuming that closing agents have better checking facilities at their disposal than Airbnb hosts…
@Lynick4442 Lynn, I have worked for Fortune 500 companies and, on occasion, I was the escalation point for background checks. Specifically, if a vendor completed a background check and it was flagged, and the company’s HR would not know how to proceed, I would step in and make a decision. I can assure you that unless you dig deep, you are not going to get what you think you are getting. Even when the results are positive, I’m skeptical – do I really care that someone was doing drugs 10 years ago, or some other minor issue unrelated issue that would not affect their activities right now? Certainly not. Also, depending on the ID, there are a lot of false positives. Also, there are privacy and data protection laws, etc. Unless you are booking a room in your home, and you are single mother with several kids in the home and have to share your bathroom, etc, there is little to no value screening guests.
Responses to a simple question that made it way too complicated. Yes you can do this but it is not the same as that for a long-term tenant.
There is services such as intelius.com and instantcheckmate.com and others.maybe $20-30 monthly.
I will be using safelystay.com. I think they charge six or seven dollars to do a background check on the booking party, but I will be using the building and contents coverage as well which will be a total of $29 per 3-day booking. And I will have the guest pay this.
An imperfect workaround but better than nothing is to do a case search in the state the guest currently lives in, and any other states they’ve spent a lot of time in, as determined by what Spokeo or FastPeopleSearch etc etc. turn up.
State Court Web sites | National Center for State Courts
and
How to Look Up Court Records On the Internet - Links to Online …