I have a blink security camera which unfortunately has a lag time and is only on top of the door. I noticed today when I was cleaning the bathroom and went to the kitchen, the Chinese guy who booked the airbnb room initially wasn’t the same guy I ran into today. Looked different and also didn’t seem to understand me when I greeted him in English. I sensed he was going to pull the I don’t speak English card on me. The guest made sure via airbnb texts before check in that I couldn’t speak Mandarin or chinese in general. Not sure what to do since this guy was also smart enough to evade the security cameras so I have no proof a swap had happened. It looks like there was only one person at the time in the room? Any advice on how to avoid this in the future?
Ask to see IDs when guests check in. Ask to see this guys ID. C’mon, you have a stranger in your home and no idea who he is? Get him out unless he shows you ID. Use Google translate if you need help communicating. Get a better camera.
The pictures people use on Airbnb don’t always look like the guest as is now. We all like to post a younger skinnier pic.
Hopefully after you check his ID (which Airbnb allows hosts to do) you will find he is the same person who booked. If not, he needs to go,
Third party booking?
No the guy who I met in person initially that booked the rez had swapped with someone else sometime during the stay. I saw he had left yesterday, but my security camera didn’t catch the new person coming back in or the face when leaving (they both have the same haircut). When I saw the new person, he left about 15-30 min after he saw me. So he left 90 min before check out.
Other than the totally bs person switch, was he well-behaved, etc? If so, we’d just wait for day 14 and BLAST the guest with full 1 stars, etc. They certainly KNEW what they were doing.
- Buy a better camera without lag (i.e. wired)
- Use the ‘voice translator’ app. It will convert English to Mandarin/ Cantonese (and vise versa) with ease
Yen do you speak any foreign languages?