How can I get information about my potential hosts or guests? What is my protection against criminals coming to visit me?

Every member who contacts you through BeWelcome has to give you their full name and their BeWelcome username. Of course we cannot guarantee your safety. However by reading the profile of the member carefully and also comments that other members write, you can make an informed decision whether to trust this member or not. If there has been any really serious complaint about a member, we will either put a warning on that profile or remove this member from BeWelcome. We will not tolerate abuse to this site or to our members. If you are a female traveller, you might want to take a look at this information for female travellers. For additional security, we have volunteers in charge of identity verification. They organise meetings and check members' passports (or other official identity documents) and compare these documents with the data new members put in their profiles. So, if on a profile it says 'Checked Identity', you can be sure that the member is who she/he claims to be.