When I tried Googling myself (and I don’t have a common name) there were lots of links to a woman who is a sex worker. 
2 Likes
A friend’s daughter came home with a new beau who was very cagey about everything: his family, his hobbies, where he grew up, his job/career. So when he left she googled him. First thing that came up was his mug shot.
I don’t mind hosting either kind as long as I get paid and the place is left clean. I don’t see the need to pass judgement on either of those type of people.
1 Like
No one was passing judgement, not sure why you chose to see it that way. We were just pointing out that Googling someone soley by a name is not an accurate way of vetting, because many people have the same name.
2 Likes
River Rock has allowed porn shoots on his property and says they are good bookings.
3 Likes
These things very well may have happened my property… tropical fantasy! I just don’t ask why guests are there.
1 Like
My namesake is a Swedish cycling Star, last time I looked she was a Rock star.
The two times I googled a guest did not turn out well, I over reacted. I consider it a waste of time and to be profiling.
5 Likes
I have a very common name so googling me is just about impossible if you want to find the real me.
When I moved to this town, twenty something years ago, there were thirteen pages in the phone book of people with my name.
For many years there was a woman here with the same name (different middle initial though) who had the most terrible credit score ever. I think she’s been involved in shady dealing too. I so often had to sign legal papers saying that I wasn’t her.
2 Likes
I guess I am in the minority here because a guest that books without a real photo of themselves is a huge red flag and I will ask them to upload a real photo if they end up booking.
Yes, there was one instance where a guest faked a photo of a person on their account (and tried to throw a party) as well. But it’s easier to categorize this incident as us being blatantly deceived.
By accepting a reservation with a photo of someone’s dog as their user photo (because obviously we know that a dog is not booking the house) we also accept that a guest is not being 100% transparent. This seems like a liability similar to excepting a third party booking.
I don’t see it as a huge red flag, as you do, but I think I am also in the minority camp here as I do see it as indicative of a guest not understanding the concerns of a person renting out their private home to total strangers off the internet.
Mostly I see it that way because I am a homeshare host and I think someone asking to rent a homeshare should understand that requires a great deal of trust and openness on the part of the host. A guest wanting to hide their face from a host whose kitchen they are going to be sharing is just weird to me, especially when they can see my face photo and photos of the home I live in.
I don’t want to see their face photo because I care what they look like- I don’t care what color their skin is, whether they are good-looking or ugly, whether they are fat or thin, whether they wear a turban or a hijab or sport a purple mohawk, I just want them to be hip to a homeshare host feeling more comfortable seeing an open, friendly face, than a plate of spaghetti or an anonymous grey silouette.
2 Likes
So many of the comments here sound as if hosts expect every guest to be criminal in some way. My B&B is my home so I do not do instant book but I put more reliance on the written content of the enquiry. I am living on my own since I lost my husband so I need to be able to trust guests. In 36 years of doing B&B, 10 of them using Airbnb as my advertiser, I have had just 2 guests that I would not host again. Most guests are pleasant or have I just been lucky?
1 Like
Those of us who live in the USA have greater risks, I believe. For one thing carrying guns around is not common in my part of the country.
All hotels here that I’ve stay at require ID before you can check in.
2 Likes
I have had the same experience as you. I have actually never had a guest I wouldn’t host again, even the 2 who I had a bit of a “situation” with, because we worked it out amiably and it didn’t result in hard feelings or bad reviews.
But I am a home share host, like you, and a single older woman. If a homeshare host advertises their place in a way that attracts the kind of guest who will be a good fit, and communicates with guests before accepting in a way that ensures you are on the same page as far as expectations, etc., there are unlikely to be any issues. I have gotten really great guests, some of whom I keep in touch with. It also depends on why guests might be coming to your area. In my case, they are coming for a beach vacation, so they are out and about, and in a good mood- the sun is shining, the weather is great.
It’s mostly the entire house rentals with off-site hosts, especially the ones that have a high guest count, that seem to have the most issues. And that can intensify depending on the location- if it’s in a place where people come to whoop it up, and also I’ve noticed that there are areas of the US that just tend to get a lot of bad guests, I don’t know why.
And keep in mind that hosts don’t usually post just to say they had great guests. They come to the forum when they need help with bad ones. So it can give the impression that there are tons of terrible guests out there, when in fact, the majority of guests are not a problem.
That’s true now, but I never showed an ID at a hotel in the US until after 9/11 (and then Mumbai affected that worldwide too). But I showed an ID constantly in Northeastern Spain in the late 80s and early 90s and regularly in France, especially at train stations in the mid-90s (both being times after terrorist attacks in those areas).
Checking IDs at hotels has to do with terrorism and mass casualties, and relatedly, the commercial insurance industry and government regulations. And even identity theft and fraud. But they aren’t checking IDs at hotels in an effort to keep you from throwing a party, smoking in the room or staining the duvet, i.e. they aren’t checking IDs to avoid bad guests.
If you want to look at IDs at check-in, you can as long as it’s disclosed in your house rules (and you don’t advertise self-check-in). But without a document reader and connection to a larger, wider network or some manner of verifying the validity of the ID, I’ve never been able to understand what it accomplishes.
Guests aren’t even required to use their real names on their profiles. So even the are-they-who-they-say-they-are angle seems flawed to me. It’s also why I don’t think anyone is trying to trick you by using a photo of a dog (when they could just use a photo of an entirely different person).
I thought one of the reasons to check ID was to match the credit card with the photo ID. Once you swipe your credit card, that’s one deterrent from throwing parties or damaging the room. I don’t know how often guests damage hotel rooms, but my guess is it’s less frequent than Airbnb guests damaging a stand-alone listing with no host around.
As I experience more guest related and operational issues, I see hotel setup as a more sensible solution from the guest as well as hospitality provider perspective.
Credit cards don’t need to match photo ID. A credit card used for a booking or a purchase doesn’t need to correspond to the ID of the person using it. There’s no law against letting someone else use your credit card. The only thing most businesses care about is that the credit card is valid, and hasn’t reached its charge limit.
1 Like
Good to know… I will try to use someone else’s card at a hotel check-in the next time. All these years I have been using my own card… go figure!
1 Like
Most people use their own credit cards, of course. But some people don’t have a credit card. For instance my middle daughter. She has asked me to book airline tickets for her before, then she just pays me the cash. There has never been any problem with the name of the passenger not matching the cc holder’s name.
Same thing can happen on Airbnb. A guest can have an account and book under it, but it doesn’t matter whose name the cc is under, as long as the payment doesn’t bounce.
This is how some guests get charged for a booking they didn’t make. Someone somehow got ahold of their cc info and used it to book a place.
It’s also why you should never hand your cc to, for instance, a waiter in a restaurant to take to the register to charge you. All anyone needs is the cc number and the 3 digit security code on the back to make purchases on that card.
We have attempted to pay for hotels for relatives who travel to other cities. When we’ve tried that, every hotel has said it can’t be done. They can’t take payment over the phone. The name on the card must match the ID of the person checking in.
1 Like
Well, I´ve never tried it with a hotel- your experience may indeed be the norm for hotels.