Not sure where to categorize this, but I’m trying to figure out if anyone here asks for or does an additional layer of guest / prospective guest verification beyond what AirBnb provides? I saw an old post from 2016 where @faheem mentioned that he does additional verification. Would love to hear what he (and others) are doing in this arena.
@faheem’s government requires a form be filled out and submitted to the government. My government does not, so I don’t collect any additional information. I might come to regret this choice, but, there is no “excuse” I could use to collect passport or other ID information and I would not particularly wish to be responsible for the handling of this data.
If the United States is stateside, yes, I am.
Hawaii is considering a new bill that would force us to report guest ID info into a central database.
I do an online search…facebook, twitter, linkedin and google. Provides good info.
Hi @scott,
I already replied to you about that in that thread, so I won’t do so here.
@anon67190644 is correct that my govt requires a form be filled out and submitted. I didn’t mention that little detail because it isn’t generally relevant.
It’s fine to ask to look at people’s IDs, and I strongly recommend you do so. You could put it in a house rules. You could also copy their IDs, though some consider copying IDs to be crossing a line, though I personally don’t. And it’s really common in India, so I mostly haven’t had a problem with that. You might have more problems with this in the US, for example.
A few more things about that form. Filling in that form and submitting it online is a massive pain. I continue doing it because I have a vague feeling that it is keeping me safer, because the govt requires it, and because, if I stop doing it, I’d have an even harder time explaining why I stopped doing it than the people who didn’t do it in the first place. At least they could say they didn’t know about it.
I get regular comments/complaints from guests about it. Occasionally they mention in in reviews. One common theme of these complaints is - “nobody else asked us to do it”. Which I can believe - people don’t worry much about rules in India.