ID Verification gone wrong?

Hi Awesome Hosters -

Had a booking request from someone in France for next July -

She had no ID verification which I require - and I believe airbnb now does require it also-

Told her we’d love to have her/please verify ID -

She said it would be a few days before she could do it, and please hold those dates for her -

(ha ha ha as-if!)

Told her the dates will remain open to anyone who wants them, but we hope to meet her blah blah blah

Five days have passed.

Noticed this morning that on the reservations part of my account she is marked ‘canceled’. On the message part she is still ‘pre-approved’.

Wrote her to ask what’s-up how-can-I-help-you blah blah blah

She wrote back that she tried to have her ID verified by that it ‘went wrong so it was broken off’ and that she’s going on holiday for a week so can look into it when she gets back, but…“we’ve already booked our flight so please hold those dates open for me”.

Obviously, I’m not going to do that - and I told her nicely that - although obviously I’m not getting a lot of booking requests for next July…

Now here’s my question - if airbnb has marked the reservation as ‘cancelled’ - why would that be? Did they cancel it because of the ID verification gone wrong? Is it because it’s been 5 days since the pre-approval?

Anyone have any ideas?

I could write to airbnb about this but thought you all might have a quicker answer - and if not - you can learn from what I find out! ; )

Thanks!

Well, I can reply to myself - I went on and contacted airbnb and was again surprised to have someone on the line after a very short wait -

For those that were not entirely sure how it all worked -

After someone books a place they ave 24 hours in which to have their ID verified -

and yes, air is now requiring this step for ALL reservations -

If they don’t do so, air marks it as cancelled, but the guest can still book once she gets her profile right.

We’ll see what happens next! Always something new!

dc,

any idea if guest is blocking the calendar while they are waiting to get verified? Is there a way that we only accept bookings from verified guests? Maybe I should do that.

Your guest is going on vacation and thinks you are going to hold the dates for her till she gets back…lol.

Yeah, cabin, isn’t that great? She took time to book her flight but not to finalize the reservation - but wants me to hold it open for her - people are so funny!

The calendar is not blocked because Air has marked it ‘cancelled’. There’s nothing even ‘pending’ on my calendar.

Which is what I told her - the dates stay available to anyone who wants to book them -

So this was a booking request (24 hr. accept/decline)? Air really shouldn’t even be allowing unverified guests to enter a booking request. What’s the point of booking request if it just ends up automatically canceling? The calendar would still be closed for 24 hrs. right?

2 Likes

I agree, Cabin! The last booking I accepted was delayed because they couldn’t access her form of payment - which is crazy! They gave her 24 hours to get it right.

Luckily it did work out, but I was surprised!

So what I’ve noticed is that every booking that I either declined or pre-approved and then the guest didn’t confirm was later listed in my detailed correspondence as cancelled.
This also extended to when I was a guest where I sent an enquiry, was pre-approved to stay but later chose somewhere else or while I was making my mind up got booked by someone else. Pre-approvals do not block the calendar.
The only time my calendar as a host was blocked was when a new user paid but was slow to do the verification process.
Hope that helps.

2 Likes

Yes the calendar is blocked while they are being verified. My last 2 guests were new and my calendar was blocked for a whole day while they were being verified .

Yes, that’s a bit nerve wracking. I understand why ‘air’ doesn’t require the ID check before the guest makes inquiries but I DO think they should not be able to request to book, and us approve the booking, without the ID check being in place.

1 Like

I agree. I get so many last minute bookings so 24hrs. is a big deal to me. Thankfully I am on other listing sites too.

I know this is a last year thread, but this has happened to me yday.
A guest made an enquiry about dates available (She could of simply put dates in calender etc etc, but decided to waste my time, but that’s another story)! Anyway back to the matter in hand. I pre-approved this for her. When looking at her profile she was already verified 4x times and had reviews. However, when looking at my reservations it stated beside her booking ‘waiting for verification’ then later on that day, ‘checkpoint’. I dont understand why she needed to verify again when she had already done so 4 times before. Anyway, she messaged me last night saying airbnb cancelled on her and now the dates are open on my calender again, and i’ve possibly lost out on a booking. This has happened a few times lately. Anyone any idea’s what’s going on? Off course I cant get in contact with airbnb on their site!

try 415-800-5959

let us know - this is odd. Perhaps her form of payment wasn’t any good.

Thanks dcmooney. Bookings went through now. She had to start the booking process again. I’m still none the wiser though why she had to verify a 5th ID :neutral_face:

When I go into the “reservation” page of my listing I see loads of "cancelled’ reservations from people I have never even seen an inquiry from.
I think airbnb filters them and if they don’t get the verification sorted in a certain amount of time they do not even get into my radar.
At first it was unnerving to see all these cancelled bookings, but now I am just used to it.