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I’ve had to call the police only one time over the years we’ve hosted and it was for someone with over 20 five star reviews. Granted, he behaved himself, his girlfriend who got wasted and beat the crap out of him, not so much. Luckily I’ve gotten really good at getting blood out of various fabrics…
Some of our best stays have been first time users. The only time I get nervous is if they are a new local profile and trying to book pretty last minute. I have a pre typed out message that I send to them stating that I live below so I will know if they try to have a party and will cancel their reservation without a refund. That tends to change their mind about booking with us.
We all have to start somewhere. Someone years ago gave me a chance as a new guest.
I won’t take those. One was homeless, another going through a messy divorce, and another was drunk. I have friends who Uber so I set that up for the person.
I’ve had dozens of guests with no prior reviews and they’ve all been great. Today I got a strange request. Instead of an IB, I got a request. I’ve had inquiries before where they wanted some information on the location and travel times, etc. But this was goofy: “Hi where is this located at ?”.
The general location is already provided in the listing.
I noticed the lack of grammar and the space between the last word and the punctuation.
No reviews, and joined this month.
Nope. I stated that I’m not comfortable booking:
“I am declining this request. I feel uncomfortable with answering a question like this from a profile which has zero reviews and requesting one night. Especially with the grammar errors. This is phishing, I believe, and am rejecting the request.”
I immediately got a reply stating “I totally understand, this is my first time booking for an Airbnb”.
First of this situation for me.
That said, all of the dozens of guests with no reviews have been great. I like to respond with “Hey, thanks for booking! I see you don’t have any reviews yet, so let’s make sure we communicate well and make that first review a 5 star review…” and then set some basic expectations.
I’m quite the spelling and grammar nazi myself, but I think that mentioning that as a reason to decline a guest is pretty strange and unprofessional. Not all guests are fluent in English, nor well-educated, but that’s no indication they will be a bad guest.
I agree that bad grammar is not a reason to decline. It was a contributing factor, however. The primary red flag was the strange request. The location is on the listing. The other considerations pushed me in the same direction.
I understand your discomfort with this request and that there was a combination of factors. In my mind, I bristle at bad grammar, I just don’t see it as an appropriate thing to say to a guest.
70-80% of people are using phones and perfect punctuation and grammar may be too much to expect. We would not dismiss them out of hand but instead just communicate and see what happens. The ONLY requirement is to respond with something within 24 hours, preferably much faster for your response rate.
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I turned off IB for new guests after a disastrous guest. Going forward I would take a request. My plan was to maybe turn that restriction off once we have the “New” off of our account and hopefully no longer attract the “ I want a full refund because I saw issues I can’t prove” people. I’m a bit gun shy so take that with a grain of salt !
i’ve had a spate of guests with zero reviews but somehow been on the platform for 5 years… 2 recents guests were super weird, one seemed to do a lingerie photoshoot, and the others only stayed for 5 hours… (we had fun making up scenarios for this), but they were actually great guests otherwise, very clean, didn’t use the kitchenette, so we had a very easy turnover.
tonight I’ve had a guest, another 0 reviews but member since 2015 tell me “sadly had a previous booking cancelled due to extended repairs to the property, so really hoping this booking works out!” but if she’s talking about my listing this is a big fat lie.
I swear about 50% of my guests this month are a bit weird, and the other 50% are doing quarantine (in Australia, that’s a thing here!)
You’d show as having a ton of guest reviews (since I’d see the total at first glance I wouldn’t know unless I drilled down that they were from hosting). It’d make sense then that your account was older but you had no or few host reviews. I’d be cool with that.
Or am I confusing this with how VRBO displays…or am I just making up because it’s late and I’m too tired/lazy to go double check ?
No, hosts can see all your reviews, both as a host and a guest.
Having had several guests now who showed membership dating back several years, with no reviews at all, knowing why that was, because I asked (all for different reasons, but all made sense), and that they all turned out to be great guests, it’s not something I consider to be a red flag.
just to update you on this guest:
her booking was for 26th and she cancelled on the afternoon of the 24th. I knew there was something dodgy about her! Sometimes we hosts (or women… or mums… haha, have a 6th sense about these things), so we lost that potential income.
Another one of my 0 review bookings also flaked out 2 days before arriving. we had 3 cancellations in one day last week. (I have 3 listings on our farm). These people also failed to respond to my questions about how they were getting over the border (state borders still were somewhat rigid in Australia at that point, they are bit more relaxed now although you still need to apply for a border pass to get into some states)
up because it’s late and I’m too tired/lazy to go double check 
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