I’ve had a previous guest use my home address to register in the UK for a car with the DVLA, driving licence ect to get enough ID to get a bank account. He’s here on a visa from China and clearly used my address as I’ve had a letter from the Dart crossing with a fine for non payment. I’ve had to phone the police, DVLA, dart crossing to make sure that we don’t end up with Bailliffs or the police on our door step. Or affect our credit rating. Any ideas how we can prevent this from happening again ?
That is scary Kerry. This is definitely great evidence for those that say they accept guests using their address to send packages etc to, to rethink that.
I’d say the only way we can prevent it happening is to try to vet guests very thoroughly. China and India in particular are known for lots of issues, so it’s worth making sure you are very comfortable with the guests beforehand by communicating with them in messages before accepting their stay. Ask why they are coming, and try to get details. For instance, if they say they are sightseeing, make sure they know certain things about your area they should if that was the case. I can’t think of anything else. Hopefully others have more ideas
Funny you should mention this, i had an inquiry from a guest who wanted my address in order to send packages prior to her arrival. since there would be no one home to receive i just told her we could not accommodate this for her. i didn’t provide address and won’t be accepting her booking request.
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Not sure what this has to do with AirBnB. Any weirdo on the street could pretend to have your address. I would just respond to the letter saying ‘wasn’t me. Someone must have used my address.’
As far as people asking to receive packages, that’s just weird. And, when people are weird before the booking happens, I decline.
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Never never agree to accept packages for guests, especially international ones! What a great way to send drugs over, and the only one who gets caught is YOU!
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i agree with kona, you just never know what they are up to!
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Exactly! Such an easy way to have drugs sent over. I used to work in an office where the girls would get together to order valium, vicodin, xanex, etc. from India. I believe for extremely cheap - no prescription required. They would take turns having it delivered to each other’s addresses. About every third time the package would get held up in customs and the guy from India would reship at no charge. But NOBODY wanted to be the one to use their own address.
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Wow Cabin Host! That’s crazy!
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Hi Jackulas, thanks for your reply. I would agree with you if it was that simple. But the guest overlapped with a very young Chinese student who’s come to live with me for a year, sadly he conned her to take the post arriving to him. So i wasn’t aware it was happening for some weeks. Your right that anybody can use your address in which case it’s simple to deal with. Because he then got hold of the letters it was harder to deal with. His wife also had parcels sent to my address when she was here that she didn’t ask me about.
Any way, lesson learned to keep aware and vigilant !
When I just started hosting I had a guy from Brazil asked me if he can order from online and send it to my house. No one else ever asked me for it later When packages started arriving I realized I made a mistake. For 2’weeks FedEx was banging on my door several times a day everyday. I am not joking ,there were total around 30 boxes, most of them are pretty large, and I had to carry them into garage.
Then the guy unpacked everything, and squised half of boxes into the non recycling box, the rest were just dropped on the ground in front f the house.
In a morning they left , and when I went to my car to go to work I saw all this incredible mess on my driveway, and the regular garbage cart full of boxes.
So, we had to take all the empty boxes from one garbage container and put it into recycling. In one garbage pick up it didnt fit, so for a week all these boxes were just sitting on my driveway.
The “reward” was a box with 12 good shampoos that they left behind.
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There are also cases where people will use stolen credit cards to order online and have merchandise delivered to an unsuspecting persons address. the packages are picked and later sold on the black market. The homeowners then go under investigation for fraud.
not worth the hassle.
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Wow I didn’t even think of that
Yana, what on earth were they ordering? That’s bizarre! These weren’t the cooking kooks were they? 
Kona, no, they were not cooks. I don’t know what was in there. When they left a box with shampoos arrived. Many from Latin countries come to Miami just to shop. These guys came just for 3 days. Besides the boxes they shopped from early morning to the closing time. He negotiated with me about last 5$ claiming that US$ is high in Brazil .
Cooks actually also left incredible mess with boxes too. They also shopped for the last 3 days intencly.
I just saw someone put in house rules that if excessive garbage left a deposit will be charged for that.
I am not doing this anymore. Again I am surprised why would anyone do such a thing in a someone’s house, without even asking they just do whatever they want… If it was couple of boxes it’s ok, but to just make such a mess for a host to clean .
Hotel charges for any parcels arriving and quite a bit. They are using Airbnb to get away with not paying anything and on top of that want a dirt cheap accomodation.
It’s true Yana. People Re using airbnb to get away with things. We do need to protect ourselves however we can. That is a disgrace to leave piles of boxes for you to deal with. It’s true. How can people come and stay in your home as a guest and treat you like … I don’t even know what to call it. So,e people are so disrespectful. It’s like no one else counts except for themselves. So long as they get what they want, they don’t care how they effect others. I truly hope you wrote about their behavior in your review!
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Yana, in my house rules, I ask guests to remove all of their own trash upon check out. It works very well. (I also have a short and friendly list of check out expectations on my fridge that asks guests to “Leave the studio as you found it.”)
You can’t charge their deposit for excessive garbage I don’t believe …unless it was one of those AirBnB horror stories we read on the news, where a place is totally trashed.
Try adding to your house rules: Please leave home as you found it and remove all garbage upon check out.
Kona I don’t take deposit t all, I live in a same house. It’s not that they left their room or bathroom dirty, they left it how they found it, it was just garbage over loaded, and city only picks it up when it’s in garbage containers. Workers don’t come out of a truck to manually pick up garbage.
I spent yesterday lcng time changing my listing around, adding and deleting rules. I already have seven. I can see other people have longer lists.
As a guest when I saw all these long rules I usually moved on to the next listing.
I did not want to deal with someone on my travelings who watches your every move.
Good idea to put anther note in their rooms or fridge.
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Yana… Because of what you said here, I’m going to take another look at my online listed rules… to see if I sound too nit picky!!! If I post them here, can you guys give me an honest opinion of how they sound?
Yana, I’ve edited them down after reading your comments… Tell me what you think of the House Rules. This is the one I have online. I have other rules that will be in the guest info doc. Would you be dissuaded by these?
House Rules
We’re very mellow … so if you are too, we’ll get along well. This is a family home and a very quiet area. Quiet time 10PM. This is our neighborhood association curfew hour and it must be respected. No loud parties at any hour.
• We do ask that you conserve water; we’re on a self-sustaining water system.
• No smoking. (If you simply must, you can always walk up to the street, just so it is not on the property.) This includes e-cigs/vapes. In special cases, I may take courteous outdoor smokers but we MUST have discussed it first.
• Please remove your own trash as we have no trash service out here: Trash and mixed recycles can be taken to nearby trash station at mm 99-100. I do have containers for you to deposit your drinking recycles: plastic bottles, glass soda and beer bottles and cans, (should you wish, this is a suggestion only, as it helps the planet.)
• Only your approved and registered guests allowed on property.
• Please don’t move furniture around as I have had some guests cause damage recently by doing this.
• Please turn porch lights off at night before retiring for the evening.
• Liquids ONLY down the sink drain please. No solids of any kind.
• Please take care with the new U.S. Divers snorkeling equipment sets (in the black bags). They are $47.99 plus tax to replace. If you lose even one piece I will have to charge you for the full set. Both sets are inventoried after every guest check out.
There may be cats around who would love to be let inside, but they may be destructive so please enjoy them from outside.
•No burning candles, Incense or mosquito coils inside or outside.
• Use of snorkel and beach gear strictly at your own risk.
Last but not least, please enjoy your visit and don’t hesitate to ask questions!
I will email a PDF file of complete information to you once you are booked.
e komo mai ! (Welcome!)
Yana… I’m toying with including this one too, as it has been a problem lately…
• I know sometimes it’s unavoidable, but late showering wakes us upstairs. Please no middle-of-the night showers, thanks for your consideration!
Do they sound too picky?
Oh back on topic about the address and shipping things. You can always tell them to send it to General Delivery at the nearest PO.
It could read in your rules like this:
Sorry, my home address may not be used to ship parcels, but you may have them sent to General Delivery at (PO Box name and Zip) Thank you for your cooperation.