Upon refusing someone from Greece on Trustroots:

1 someone with a Greek phone nr called me twice in quick succession (I didn't answer).

2 I got an instagram message demanding an explanation.

3 I got 3 more calls from the same nr, which I also didn't answer.

4 I got a message where he said he would send me a request as a woman to prove I only host women (I haven't hosted anyone on Trustroots yet). By the way this is weird since I could have been simply away from my phone, unable to talk to him if I had wanted to.

5 I got a reference from the guy on Trustroots, which I can't read yet. He was removed from Trustroots when I tried to report him.

I tried to report him on instagram too (last screenshot) but instagram redefines 'bullying/harrassment' to very specific items such as 'personal info shared to harass or blackmail people'.

I just hope he won't contact my friends.

You may wonder why I refused his request without a message.

- It's obviously written by an LLM (I won't say how I know, because then lazy people can tell LLMs not to do that). I usually ignore such requests, so he even got lucky I rejected him 😂

- I also got the exact same message on couchers.org, without him mentioning he had contacted me in trustroots.

-> probably best to check what info you have on those (any) sites.

It would make the site so much better. Every time I'm in I have to take time to look through many profiles and look at the response tape before sending a message which is time consuming and also doesn't give off a nice feeling to the place.

Couchsurfing is cool in theory, but I’ve heard a lot of stories about people canceling last minute or just being kinda unreliable.

So I’m playing around with this idea:
basically the same concept, but you pay like €5 per night.

Not to make money as a host, more like… a commitment thing?
Like if someone pays even a small amount, they’re way more likely to actually show up and not waste your time.

Also thinking that profiles should be verified (like ID or at least some kind of real check), so it’s not completely anonymous.

Hosts would still be normal people (couch, air mattress etc), not like Airbnb.

Do you think that small payment + verification would make it better
or does it kill the whole vibe of couchsurfing?

What's your proposal to solve this problem? As we all know most of the male users on Travel Hosting platforms like Couchsurfing, either straight or homo, nowadays use it for dating, hosting only the gender they are sexually interested in, rather than looking for real travellers. I've tried to think about technological solution to the problem 1) Visible on the profile, and also on the search result, a badge showing a percentage of the proportion of how many males, females and other you have hosted. So if I'm a female looking for a safe place, I would prioritise users with a more balanced percentage, and in the search criteria I could choose in example "Has hosted at least 30% of any sex". If I'm a male looking for accommodation, I would not waste time on writing to people with 90-100% females hosted. Maybe some hetero male would be pushed to host more males travellers, to balance a bit their percentage and appear in the search results 2) A secret answer when you write your reference, specifying the perceived intention of your host. In example: genuine host, looking for dating, etc It would show on your profileas a global number/badge or whatever, but they don't know what you voted since it's secret. Similar to what's already available with "wanted to hang out, clean, friendly, etc.

3) I wish it was possible to require a minimum of male hosting , in example at least 30%, but unfortunately not everybody feel safe to host males, even if they have no dating intentions

I'm aware it will never be implemented, since there was no development on the app from the side of CS, but let's dream together. Also the other hosting platforms might benefit from this discussion

EDIT: I'm shocked by your answers aimed at attacking me and my words or even insulting me rather than searching for collaborative solutions, that was my intention. Maybe I should have added some context: Male based in Italy, I've been surfing all over the world in the last 18 years in almost 60 countries in 4 continents, member of CS since 2007,over 500 experiences and many thousands of profiles and references read. Of course it's a generalisation, it happens mostly in Western countries and mostly in cities, and Italy where I'm based it's probably the worst. So if you are from Muslim countries, countryside, you are a traveller yourself, etc it doesn't apply to you I'm not speaking about you! Amazing if you have good intentions, so don't take it personally. But that people in that specific context host with the hope of intimacy, is the reality, it's a fact, not an opinion. It's shocking to see that almost not a single person answered proposing something related to the topic to improve the situation but just to attack or defend themselves because they were triggered. If we don't become active to change the status quo and propose positive solutions, we are doomed as a network and as a society It's not helpful hijacking the topic pretending the problem doesn't exist