Airbnb Extortion policy

[Marc8398]

We have a question and hope someone will be able to solve this and help us.

We had a " guest " who never checked into our property. The property is an

apartment in a 24hr. Porters/ Doorman building in a luxurious 1930's Art Deco

block in arguably the most exclusive part of London ( Prime Chelsea ).

The guest collected the keys from the Porters desk in the Lobby, apparently

went into the property and gave the keys back 5 minutes later, informing us

that she imagined something different and unless we issue a full refund, she

will leave a negative review ( note that she stayed 5 minutes in the property ).

We reported the issue 3 weeks ago ie 15th of August to Airbnb and they 

agreed with us that the " guest " should pay her stay as she did not even

cancel the days ie our calendar remained blocked.

Now this threat is obviously against the Airbnb extortion policy ie leaving

a bad review unless a full refund is given. Nevertheless the so called 

"review" was posted and as a result Airbnb suspended the listing for 30

days, now we have been trying to get a reply through the original case

thread the last couple of days with no luck. The issue here is that our 

listing is suspended for 30 days now due to the fact that a " guest ",

who never stayed in our property left a " review " , which violates

Airbnb's extortion policy. This surely can not be correct, what can 

we do about this?? Thank you for your time and help in this matter.

[Sarah977]

@Marc8398  How did she make this extortion threat? On the Airbnb messaging system? If so, use that as the basis for having the review removed.

If she made the threat verbally, by phone, whatsapp, or text, you're probably out of luck.

[Brian2036]

@Marc8398 

You are experiencing the joy of ineffective Customer Service.

It probably doesn’t make you feel any better, but you are not the only one.

 You have to keep complaining. Then complain some more.

Sometimes the Airbnb chat line is more useful than telephone calls.

 I wonder: Did they refund her? Why? “It’s not what I imagined” is certainly not an extenuating circumstance.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

Jesus!  Every single day we hear about some listing's suspension based on some crazy review or complaint from some fraudulent guest. It looks like Airbnb wants to get rid of small hosts and just keep the agencies and hotels. I don't have any other explanation for such treatment.

[Sarah977]

@Branka-and-Silvia0  You might just be on to something there. 

"Oh good, we just got another guest complaint so we can suspend another listing. If we get another 10 complaints today, we'll have acheived the daily target of eliminating 2% of small-time hosts per day, 100% by this time next year."

[Brian2036]

@Marc8398 @Sarah977 @Branka-and-Silvia0 

If that’s what they are trying to do I wish they would just say so. Airbnb can get stuffed as far as I’m concerned.

 I just listed with TripAdvisor. It went very smoothly and took about 3 hours to get all the details in there.

My listing isn’t showing up on the website yet but I think it takes at least 24 hours to verify.

Their website is a whole lot easier to use. They have a separate app for hosts that doesn’t keep trying to redirect you to the guest website.

 I don’t think they harass or suspend hosts for negative reviews. They do have ratings and you can see guest’s comments, but if some whack job tries to sabotage you it doesn’t get you banned.

 The fees are lower too. 

So far it’s looking pretty good, but it’s too soon to tell.

 The one negative I see so far is they don’t have a forum like this, which has been invaluable to me.

[Elaine701]

@Brian2036 

Interesting re TripAdvisor... But do hosts have to accept all bookings with no dialogue (100% instant book, like booking.com) or does the guest need to "inquire" or "request" the booking? And can you decline? 

It's kind of important to have that facility. 

[Brian2036]

@Elaine701 

I haven’t had any enquiries yet but this is what they are saying:

What is Instant book and how does it work?

Please note: We’ve taken the decision to temporarily disable Instant Booking. This means that you'll have to manually accept or decline booking requests within 24 hours (through your owner centre or owner app). If you feel confident that you can accept bookings automatically without verifying them first, you can turn Instant Booking back on through your owner centre under My account.

With Instant Book, travelers who meet your requirements and agree to your house rules, can book your rental without submitting a booking request. As long as the travelers’ dates are available, the booking will be instantly confirmed.  

How does it work?

You don’t have to lift a finger! Instant bookings are confirmed automatically, which means you no longer have to accept manually or worry about expiring booking requests.

You’ll receive your payout as usual, 24 hours after the travelers’ arrival at your property.

Instant Book is only available to accounts that meet certain criteria. Currently, these are:
 

• An Acceptance Rate of 75% or higher

• At least 3 bookings in the last two years rolling

• Listed on the free-to-list plan

• A Cancellation Rate of 20% or lower

[Elaine701]

@Brian2036 

Thank you ❤

[Debra300]

@Elaine701,

I list on a few other platforms, and almost all (Vrbo is the exception) require hosts to automatically accept a booking, but hosts do have an opportunity to maintain some control.  For example, I process the credit card payments for Booking, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, and am able to collect a true security deposit.  In my greeting message I remind guests of our payment policy, and that I am going to process the payment.  If the payment isn't approved, I automatically flag the reservation for invalid credit card.  I also tell the guest that their reservation isn't guaranteed until payment has been received and the space is still available on other websites.  I cancel the reservation if a valid form of payment isn't provided within the allotted 24 hours.

[Elaine701]

@Debra300 

Thanks very much for that. 

However, we've learned the hard way, and therefore I need to know who's booking, and have the opportunity to vet them with more than just credit card validity. 

I have enabled instant book on airbnb, with all filters turned on, and so far it's been successful at weeding out undesirable guests, but I'm under no illusions that it's any kind of guarantee.

We have far more "no profile, no history" enquiries than those with a respectable history, and after some dialogue, I'd say about 30% of those exhibit questionable intentions or credibility, and I ultimately scare them away. 

We're also on VRBO, but we receive pathetically few bookings on that platform. Airbnb books it all up before they have any chance. 

TripAdvisor sounds interesting though. I know they're big, but like booking.com, are rather shotgun marketed to a very broad range of travellers, with precious little specialisation in STRs or villas, so there's even more exposure to guests who wouldn't necessarily be a good fit, which of course, requires more vetting.

Thanks, again 👍

[Michelle53]

@Brian2036  Thanks for posting about Tripadvisor. I would never have considered trying an alternative until this recent rash of 30-day suspensions. I depend on my Airbnb income. If I had some crazy person say something nasty and untrue which got me suspended, it would be a total disaster.  I feel like one has to have a backup strategy.   30 days is totally draconian. 

[Brian2036]

@Michelle53 

That was my thought precisely.

 I haven’t had any problems with Airbnb but I know it’s just a matter of time before I have to deal with CS and that will probably not be pleasant, from what I have heard.

We already had one guest who spitefully and intentionally rated us 4 in order to lower our rating.

She knew exactly what she was doing and the effect it would have on us, given that we had only one previous review.

We were fortunate that she didn’t rate us 1 and tell a lot of of lies in the review but she probably thought that we could get her review deleted if she did that.

She clearly failed to read the listing and was horrified to find that “a cabin in the woods” has a lot of trees around it and wild animals nearby.

Duh.

They stayed all of 15 minutes and fled, never to return. Never bothered to notify us that they had checked out so we could go up and clean.

Anyway, my point is that someone like that could wreak havoc on our listing and there’s nothing we could do about it. 

[Michelle53]

@Brian2036    Early in my hosting days I had a complaint from a guest about a spider in the space. They also took closeup photos of a darker tiled area in one corner and submitted that as "dirty". 

I got a 2-star review, they stayed only the first night of 7 nights, left the space in a mess, and Airbnb paid me for one discounted night (I have a 7-day stay discount) and refunded them 6 nights on my moderate policy.   I got a nasty admonition from the case manager. 

Today, a complaint like that wouldn't be a nasty admonition, it could potentially be a 30-day suspension. For a situation I could have taken care of in 30 seconds, had the guest reached out to me first, as they are supposed to. 

My guess is they weren't happy with the space for some other reason than a miniscule spider - my gut tells me my "value" listing wasn't upscale enough for the value price. 

[Angel252]

I am experiencing insanity like this, also, as of late, by associates.