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Post by mbishara on Feb 17, 2016 19:46:36 GMT
If it a mistake to give out address details outside of AirBnb before someone books?
A potential guest days that they rent in our area every year for two months (January till March) and want our home's address to do a drive by first because they're in Pompano Beach now.
I suggested that it may be better next week when I'm in town to provide them with a walk through but would prefer not to give the address this week as we have guests at the house at the moment.
Has anybody experienced something like this before? Is it a bad idea to give actual address like this outside of the system?
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Post by carolyn on Feb 17, 2016 20:11:01 GMT
Hi Mbishara, definitely it's a bad idea to give your address outside the system, or before an actual reservation is made. Remember, these people are strangers! Your listing probably includes a lot of photos, and people can see the layout. You could have someone coming by to STEAL a nice object they see in one of your photos! HOWEVER, I think you can make exceptions. Just don't reveal your address if you're not on the property (wait till next week.) If the guests have good reviews and Verified ID, and if they don't seem pushy or unpleasant in their questions about seeing the place, it might be okay to let them come by. It could be a good situation, having guests for two months every year, if they turn out to be nice and considerate of your property. So, you could set up a worthwhile arrangement. JUST MAKE SURE that guests who stay longer than 29 days don't immediately have tenant rights. I don't know where you are, but check your local laws.
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Post by mbishara on Feb 17, 2016 20:29:52 GMT
Yes I heard about the dresser squatter problem. I would probably do two different contracts, each under 29 days....
It's strange because this is the second request in under a week for a multi month request with a visit request and I found this to be a little bit weird...
Especially since my home shows clearly on the AirBnB map and has over thirty pictures highlighting everything about the home...
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Post by metavirus on Feb 17, 2016 23:11:49 GMT
Just FYI: In many jurisdictions, it doesn't matter if you turn a 2 month stay into technically 2 separate stays of 1 month each. The law will typically look through the artificial arrangement and see what the parties truly intended. Thus, if the local law where you are gives tenant's rights to someone who stays more than a month, you'd almost certainly be in the same situation with a guest staying 1 time for 2 months as you'd be if you broke the stay into 2 stays of 1 month each.
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 18, 2016 0:53:33 GMT
Hi mbishara
I do allow prospective guests to come by and take a look at my house or perhaps even the room they want to stay in (generally I prefer not to show it if it is occupied, but sometimes I will relent and do that) as long as they are planning a long-ish stay of say 3 or 4 weeks or more. I will not allow folks to visit if their reservation is quite short, as I feel they have enough info on the listing, photos etc for a short stay. Really they have all the info they need for a long stay too, but some people are cautious, particularly if they have been scammed in the past, so I try to be accomodating this way.
As far as long term reservations, I am glad to see so much awareness of the potential problems with squatting in longer term reservations. I do believe though that it's quite rare that an Airbnb guest refuses to leave. There have been just a tiny number of such situations among the millions of reservations that go thru Airbnb. Good screening of guests will help avoid this problem.
If someone regularly comes to an area for 2 months each year, it's not so likely they will suddenly decide to squat. Such people with set patterns tend to "have a life", which on the other hand, is not true of squatters, who tend to be losers who "don't have a life" and so they try to steal yours.
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Post by mbishara on Feb 18, 2016 9:07:15 GMT
In fact this is the second time in one week that I get this type of request from a TripAdvisor guest.
It's more difficult to vet the guest's on TripAdvisor. There's no host feedback or I.D. verification system.
So far I've responded to both requests saying that I will be glad to show them around but would prefer to meet somewhere else first (near the house) and then we can go to the house together. But I don't just want to give out my address without first meeting the guest.
And then I hear nothing. Second time in a week and each time it's for a two month request...
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 18, 2016 15:27:49 GMT
It seems to me that guests who are really interested to see the place could meet you somewhere else first, somewhere nearby. That isn't much trouble. If someone isn't willing to do that I wouldn't bother with them.
This may not be very likely, but I suppose it's possible that a scammer armed with your address could more easily create a fake listing using your photos and your address, to try to lure in guests to pay for a fake listing.
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Post by mbishara on Feb 18, 2016 15:31:08 GMT
Could be. Last year I had people show up at my house because they paid someone for a vacation. Of course they couldn't reach him after that.
I felt bad for them and my house was already rented at the time.
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 18, 2016 15:35:57 GMT
Wow, well then you have already experienced a scam associated with your home. Some criminal was using your house to try to steal money from people! It does happen, and happens more often than we would like to think....
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Post by mbishara on Feb 18, 2016 15:36:45 GMT
And the police did nothing to help. They have me the b number of dinner obscure internet police authority that never returned my calls.
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 18, 2016 15:41:28 GMT
That's because it's unfortunately out of the jurisdiction of local police, if some criminal does that. The criminal could be in remote Siberia or Afghanistan for all you know -- not someone in your city, or even your state or nation. I wish online crimes were easier for police to track, but sadly the internet is absolute heaven for criminals, it seems it is so easy to commit crimes there. Occasionally law enforcement does nail down the more egregious of criminals, but even then, if the criminal is in a far distant nation, there's not much that can be done.
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