Yeah, the only problem with that is that you can be uncomfortable with a reservation only 3 times per year. You might have more serious issues to cancel a reservation than this. I’d ask the guest the full name and a link to their social media profile (linkedin, FB, whatever). You can get a good feel of what kind of person he/she is from their social media accounts.
That is incorrect.
You can only cancel automatically with that 3 times per year. If you need more you have to call and discuss with Airbnb.
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Just a nasty rumour. You can call in after 3.
Great! Good to know. Love this group. Im learning new things all the time.
I suppose that so many of us are accustomed to always having ‘user names’ online and not using our real names. I 'm not really called Jaquo 
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I require the first and last names of all guests in House Rules. I usually end up asking for the names of the other guests since I assume the booking guest name is correct. However, I recently had a guest tell me her real name since her profile name was her Roller Derby name. I hadn’t realized it wasn’t her real name since I was able to find her profile (under Roller Derby name) on face book.
I guess I will have to start asking each guest to explicitly state to me what their name is…
True. I just watched American Greed where one of the criminals had over 50-70 some names he was using and he had valid state IDs and driver’s licenses for most of them. Many of them were the names of his landlords who he was able to scam by taking out multiple HELO loans out on the houses while living in them.
At least it would be a start. Better than having nothing to go by with Airbnb not providing any info.
Really?? I’m dismayed. I use my real name, well just my surname. First name is Abel.
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I guess if the guests don’t give you their real names, they surely leave a ton of dna behind - I know mine do 
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NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo
I get a lots of their DNA and that of their pets…
It would not be possible to request a website link (facebook link or linkedin) as Airbnb would have filtered it out.
You could ask for their full name though and ask for more information. For example knowing that guest John Smith works in IT for the US Army might lead me to their linkedin as well as their YouTube posts of them singing in a bar in Korea. Or they could give you a twitter name. A lot of information can be gleaned from a conversation.
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True. But imagine it will be an uncomfortable conversation asking her about info that has nothing to do with her stay. As a regular airbnb user myself, I will be really turned off if people started asking me about where I work or my company name. Plus, practically, in most cases its not possible to trace their facebook unless they have a very unique name, or their linkedin unless they reveal their company. That said, I am speaking mostly from my own experience here as I’ve tried this a few times before - was only ever successful one time in tracing to her instagram. But I’m sure there are others who are more resourceful or could approach this topic more eloquently.
It obviously is for many people. But the OP needs more info and so they should just have a conversation. Someone who wants a lot of privacy should seek an airbnb that provides it. Ideally neither host nor guest would be uncomfortable with any part of the process
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I don’t think Airbnb really cares, they only want business no matter how it comes to them. I’ve recently been getting instant booking of guests with no photo - violation of my settings. All airbnb does is offer to cancel their reservation penalty free - they don’t even offer to contact the guest and request they upload a photo.
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I think eventually Airbnb will go to a no photos at all model.
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We just had an incident where a person attempting to book created a new account, the reservation was held for a day or so by Airbnb, and eventually made it to our Accept or Decline booking side.
I accepted the reservation, though only knowing as little as their initials (no user profile of course). And once I accepted, the user profile turned out to be of a Lego man. Not a real person.
Airbnb was understand to cancel this reservation for us based on this information. But it is a disturbing issue to me and they still tried to encourage us to accept the reservation. I informed them that the last time we accepted a reservation from a AI generated fake user photo turned out to be a MINOR that wanted to throw a large party at our house using their parent’s credit card. We weren’t willing to take the risk again.