Guest said booking confirmed/ paid but showing as enquiry only

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A potential guest messaged to say she’d booked my place, but according to what I could see it was only an enquiry and never confirmed. She insisted money had been taken from her account. When I called Air they said they’d attempted to take the money but hadn’t been successful. Putting aside whether or not they’d been successful, why are they attempting to take money from someone who does not appear to have booked, but only sent an enquiry?

At first I thought maybe a scam, now seems more like she had tried to book but because Air mistakingly thought the payment hadn’t gone through ( they tried three times they said), it didn’t show as a confirmed booking. And Somehow guest didn’t pick up on that?

It cost me the booking so a shame

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Maybe Airbnb meant that the payment method she entered couldn’t be verified, rather than that they tried to charge her?

That seems more likely than that they charged her for an inquiry. I’ve never heard of that happening.

If they have indeed taken payment from her, she’ll have to work that out with them. It’s also possible that she’s just confused or trying to scam you.

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I meant that I wonder if it could have happened this way if it was an attempt to book gone wrong due to payment issues. Then this wouldn’t be shown to me. I find People regularly do send enquiries and then book immediately/shortly after. If there was a problem with payment I wouldn’t see any of that and it just looks like an enquiry. Unfortunately I thought it was a scam.

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If you use IB, then that could certainly be the case. But if the guest sends a request, it has to be accepted by the host before Airbnb attempts to charge the guest.

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Thanks yes I should have said, because I have IB on so it just occurred to me as I was typing this message that that may have happened. Thanks for confirming this makes sense. I was flummoxed for a while. Good to know in case it happens again.

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