We recently had 3 IBs which clearly were spam. In each case they blocked the dates for a few hours before, I presume, being deleted by Air.
We haven’t had this before. Anyone else had this?
In a STR host Facebook group, there’s been a lot of discussion of getting scammers on VRBO wanting “my employer will send a check” but not so much on Airbnb.
However hosts on Airbnb are reporting getting an increased number of inquiries from people asking to book off platform & avoid the Airbnb fees.
I got the feeling the recipients of these inquiries were fairly new hosts & in areas hit especially hard with cancellations and/or few bookings.
Just curious-what made the inquiries you received obviously scams? It’s always good to know what yo look for.
I had a couple of reservations cancelled by Airbnb last year, shortly after being booked. I assumed that they probably had an invalid credit card. In your case it looks really fishy because the dates are for the same week.
Amy profile pic pose looks like one of those invitations to gentlemen. Samuel is an unusual name for a woman and as for Tony, well, he’s the ham in the sandwich.
Also, this booking pattern is unique in our experience.
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Request withdrawn doesn’t mean they were necessary scammers, and Airbnb doesn’t do those Request Withdrawns,as far as I know. That is generated by the guests. Although maybe it’s different if it’s an IB.
They changed their minds or whatever. I got one of those a few weeks ago, but it was a request- the first guest message said they were coming on holiday, swift2ly followed 5 minutes later by a message saying his girlfriend “just noticed that it was only for one guest” (since that is at the very top of the listing, I assume they read nothing) then he right away withdrew the request.
Yes we have had that in the past. On this occasion it was the combination of instances that led me to believe that there was spamming involved somewhere or one of the grandkids decided to play with the phone. One of my grandkids recently ordered quite a lot from Santa on Daddy’s phone.
When my youngest daughter was about 4, and we were living in Canada, I got a call from the phone company one day asking if it was intentional that what sounded like a very young child had been trying to place a call to Australia. 
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Oh dear. I’m thinking there was a strong conversation about Santa’s budget & coal in the stocking for using Gpa’s phone
Calls to Australia should be FOC from everywhere.
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Talking about spam bookings—On a STR Facebook group I just saw a new one, or at least new to me.
Instant book. Guest message-I want to make sure I booked the correct listing. The pictures for this listing appear twice on Airbnb. Here is link to other listing.
Now host thinks someone is running a bogus listing of their property. Clicks link. It takes you to a look-a-like Airbnb login page.
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