How awful. Despicable people.
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Not on Vrbo - you only have to provide an email address to submit an inquiry, no ID or credit card.
I read on another forum that the scammers are using your address for mules to pick up cash they have scammed or drug deliveries. They can see what days are open and schedule deliveries for those days and send someone over to meet the delivery person.
Wow. That is scary. Thanks for putting it out there.
If you use it Ring/Amazon will make YOUR home network part of their āSidewalkā network, and will SHARE YOUR PRIVATE NETWORK. Not only that but they changed it without notifying customers that they have to opt OUT, not in.
Yes. Thank you for the notice. Iāve handled it.
Tech articles started appearing in 2015-2016 about Ubiquitous connectivity. Looks like itās coming.
I had the same message a few days ago via VRBO as well, twins and a pregnant wife. I responded that I would not be going off platform or giving them an address until after they booked. I knew it was a scam, not sure what they would have been after but they never responded.
@pbHai Lucy, Iām hoping the guestsā didnāt have ulterior motives to ask your address but were simply trying to determine how close your place would be to attractions. Potential guests often ask me how far my place is to X or Y and I provide the actual miles. Another thing you can offer is your zip code, and let the guest figure out how far your zip code is to their desired attractions.
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We make our actual address available on our listing because we want potential guests to know how close we are to the beach. Admittedly we are in a low crime area.
Problem is that the day that the Google car came past for the street view photo was the same day that one of our sons had his ute out the front with the bonnet up and battery charging.
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I wouldnāt sweat it too much. If you have a busy listing, youāll have people coming and going often enough to throw off any would-be thief casing the home. If you live on/in the property, thatās helpful too.
As others have mentioned, itās not too difficult to ascertain where a property is located based on photos. If your first name is unique enough (like mine), any idiot to look up your property on the local assessorās website, anyway. Weāre public enough about our listing as it is. Weāre sort of known as āthe Airbnb guysā in town bc for many people itās totally strange an Airbnb listing is in our city. Itās fun explaining to locals that normal people really do come to our city despite its lack of curb appeal.
Most localities are requiring STR listing owners to register, which creates a public record of your listing anyway. Owner-occupied use-by-right laws may afford more vague listing information, such as just the street, but more entrepreneurial listings that are second homes and used as income properties have to be listed with most local authorities, in the same way a B&B home or business, inn, or hotel would have to register.
Weāre providing a public service, so thereās a degree of exposure whenever we work for ourselves. Just make sure you have the right insurance and play nice with your local authorities. Whenever we travel, and pause our listing and ask our neighbors to check our mail. We also have smart and timed lighting to give the apparence someone is always home.
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That would suck for places like mine that get lots of last minute bookingsā¦
It amazes me how many people book at letās say 1500 and indicate a check in time if 1400-1600, or similar.