And his profile is of The Prisoner from the TV show of that name. IB, too. Sheesh. Asked for profile photo and a real name. What do you bet I will be calling Airbnb about this one? No way he is staying here without updating his profile. His message simply read “late afternoon.”
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I had a recent guest whose name was J and whose photo was some sort of flower. (She was a lovely guest luckily). The shortest guest intro message I ever had was ‘weekend getaway’.
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I’m about as chill as anyone when it comes to guest ID and pics but this is Airbnb not Tinder. I’d like my guests to at least be mature enough to show a little respect for the process.
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Yeah… that would be a Decline! No one likes a smart@$$
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In a situation like this, how would one go about rejecting the IB without being penalised?
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As far as I know you phone them and say you’re uncomfortable with the guest - cite the false name and lack of photo.
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I’ve had a couple of guests that had an image rather than a face, and they were great guests. In fact both of them were poor communicators too, not replying for ages. And from the same country!
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You get a free cancel now and again, and not knowing who is showing up is a good reason to use it.
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I give them a chance to fix it. The no name thing was what really bothers me. I will say, however, that the worst guest I ever had used a photo that was someone on a stage from the back. So once burned…I usually mention it.
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I’ve had this innumerable times, no problems. Once I had a guest with a non portrait picture and the name Man inquire. And of course I immediately thought WTH! No. I’m not taking a smart@$$ (as Ken says) because of course I thought it was some dude trying to book. But since in reality I accept 99.9% of guests I accepted.
It was a female with the name of Man. D’oh!
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After my first message regarding the name, I learned it was a third party booking, to boot. He was trying to book on behalf of his wife and her aunt. Sorry, Number Six.
Well-I was completely off track concerning what I thought about the name. I wondered if he was a Star Trek Voyager fan who really liked 7 of 9. Yep-I’m a geek.
I would not have anyone with photo, real name and verification.
That was the name of the character in the TV show “The Prisoner”: Number Six. Funny.
I recently had a stormtrooper stay, very nice chap, explained that as he was a teacher, he couldn’t be too obvious on social media, hence the stormtrooper look
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I’ve had all sorts of landscapes, flowers, animals but my favourite guest of all was the Taj Mahal.
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No, to the third party booking and the cheeky attitude.
I think I would have given it back in kind … “Unless you are REALLY Jim Caviezel, and you are doing a third party booking for Ian McClellan, this booking is getting cancelled.”
And then I would have hoped for a good response like “You got me, don’t blow my cover” I did love that show 
Makes me wonder if his reason for non-payment (if that happened later) would be that he woke in the desert and didn’t remember anything …
What a good way to start off a reservation request!
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Same here. Airbnb does not allow third party bookings. If “J” books for a Theresa and Theresa shows up and damages your place, Airbnb will not cover you for those damages as you allowed a third-party booking. That is why you should always have a profile photo of their face and definitely, definitely have security cameras-even if you live on the property.
On a side-note we had this request that we declined: New to Airbnb that month, lived locally, had one profile photo of himself holding a semi-automatic rifle.
Oh yeah, welcome to my home!
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