Airbnb allows felons to book and punishes me for canceling the reservation

[Lisa1015]

@Catherine-Powell 

I watched Catherine's video messages and could not help but respond, as Catherine is misinformed regarding the time frame for responses from customer service. Yes, a call will be answered if it is related to a reservation beginning within 72 hours. However, the "answer" to that call is simply a CSR who records the reason for the call and indicates that she will route the question to the proper team and they will respond. I have done this twice and neither time did anyone call or message me a response. Of course, the 72 hours came and went. And when I put in a request for customer service through support messaging, I always wait over 1 week for a meaningless response from a bot. As that doesn't help me, I then go back into the cue and wait more than another week for a response from a person.

Catherine, Perhaps you can have someone assist me. I received 3 bookings from 2 different girls who had active, recent outstanding warrants for identity theft among other things. They were local residents who booked the house for an extended period of time for 6 people. I canceled all of the bookings and reported the members. In the case of 1 of the bookings, I was punished by airbnb blocking my calendar for the time period of the stay. I also had my calendar blocked for another canceled reservation during that same time period, although there were extenuating circumstances in that case as well. These blocks have ruined my revenue for September. And it appears that NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE TO PROTECT FUTURE HOSTS FROM THESE MEMBERS. 

I first put in a request to have this looked at on August 26. Today, September 13, I received a response that 1. indicated the responder had no knowledge or interest in the circumstances of the cancelation and 2. scolded me for putting sensitive information in the message and 3. asked for "proof" . It was unclear what proof was being requested since the messages between myself and the two girls were clear as to the problem I had with the bookings and the "proof" as to my claims about the girls were the very links that I was scolded for including.

I am a superhost who has been hosting for about 5 years. I have many properties and a very low cancelation rate on all of the properties. I rarely call on customer service as I am very self-sufficient. Sadly, all 3 times I have requested assistance over the years for significant issues, I have been treated similarly to the way I have been treated in this situation. And that was well before COVID. 

I hope that your promises of wanting to make things better for hosts will cause you to choose to assist me with this. 

Thank you,

Lisa

[Sarah977]

@Lisa1015  Just horrible and unacceptable.

I would really urge hosts to turn off Instant Book at this point, so you have a opportunity to communicate with guests and check them out before accepting a booking. That way you won't have to deal with cancellations of unacceptable bookings or other nonsense, since CS is virtually non-existent now. 

Good luck. 

[Lisa1015]

I have been avoiding doing this because, as you know, I will be penalized for that too! But at this point, you are correct and I will do that. 

[Sarah977]

@Lisa1015  Well, you don't get penalized for turning off IB, except that you'll probably appear lower in search rankings. 

[Lisa1015]

Yes, that is the penalty I was referring to. It is non monetary, but a penalty none the less.

[Debra48]

I turned off Instant Book at the beginning of Covid and still get many inquiries. 

[Jon2761]

We just started hosting this past July, and used Instant Book at first because Airbnb made it seem so dire if you didn't. We received three bookings almost immediately, which was exciting, but it soon became obvious that we lost control of who could book. We turned off IB after the first week, and our inquiries and bookings have been steady.

[Sarah977]

@Lisa1015  You may be surprised re turning off IB off being a penalty. Sure, the bookings may not come in as fast and furiously (which is the only reason Airbnb pushes it so heavily) , but once you get used to dealing with booking requests and being able to communicate with guests before deciding whether to accept their booking, you may find you like it better, get better guests, and feel safer, as you have more control over who gets accepted.

BTW, in case you aren't aware because you're used to IB, when you get Inquiries, as opposed to Booking Requests, don't waste any declines (with subsequent Airbnb chastizing for declining too often)  on those. On an Inquiry, all you have to do is message the guest back within 24 hours- you don't have to either pre-approve or decline. 

[Jon2761]

@Sarah977  Thanks for the info on not needing to officially decline requests. I've only declined one or two, which were easy because the guest had a pet and we don't accept them. But other requests have just languished after I messaged back, and I wasn't sure if it was creating a problem that I wasn't "closing the deal" one way or the other. This is very helpful.

[Sarah977]

@Jon2761  You're welcome, but I didn't say you didn't need to accept or decline requests.

You need to understand the difference between Booking Requests and Inquiries. Pay attention to which it is when one comes in.

Request- Option buttons are Accept or Decline. You need to either accept or decline within 24 hours (if you want to decline, first see if you can get the guest to withdraw the request so you don't have to, by making it sound like it's in their best interest to do so.

"Hi XX, Thank you for your request, but as is stated in my listing, we do not accept pets and the maximum number of guests we accept (fire regulations and insurance reasons) is 4. So I won't be able to accept your request and the sooner you withdraw it, the quicker you'll be able to find and book a listing which meets your needs. All the best, Jon

When you accept a request, the guest's credit card will be instantly charged and it will become a confirmed reservation (unless the guest is new to the platform and hasn't completed their verifications, or there's some issue with their payment method, in which case, it may be 24 hours until it's either confirmed or rejected by Airbnb. In the meantime, your calendar will remain blocked)

But you do need to click on one of your 2 options within 24 hours if the request isn't withdrawn. Failure to do so will ding your response rate.

Inquiries- Option buttons are Pre-approve or Decline. These are the ones that only need to be answered within 24 hours if you don't want to pre-approve. If you simply let it languish, doing nothing, you will also be dinged on your response rate. 

Inquiries are a way for guests to ask questions without committing to a booking. So you may never hear back from the inquirer, as they may have sent out inquiries to 10 different places. It would be nice if they came back to thank you for your time in answering them, but many or most don't (basic manners seem to be in short supply these days). 

If you feel fine about the guest and pre-approve the inquiry, their credit card isn't charged right away like it is with a request. The guest has to do whatever is needed on their end to actually make a booking at that point. Which they may or may not do. If they do nothing, the Inquiry will expire in 24 hours and they would have to resend an Inquiry or Request to actually make the booking.

When you just message back on an Inquiry, without clicking on pre-approve or decline within 24 hours, you'll get prodding messages from Airbnb urging you to do so, but you can safely ignore their pressure tactics. Those Airbnb messages will disappear after 24 hours if you clear your cache.

[Jon2761]

@Sarah977  Again, thank you for your detailed explanation. I realize I used the wrong terminology earlier, I meant "inquiry" and not "request" - but it is helpful to know what's okay to do or not do in fielding the inquiries and requests.

[Fred13]

IB is more applicable for 'bulletproof', low-risk places when the need to vet is not as necessary, by virtue of the listing's logistics and/or price. Having IB and then required to constantly pick & choose will inevitably run into the 'Airbnb Zone', sooner or later.

   I finally went to IB last year and it's working out perfectly. Since my guests have to get in a boat (which I captain), I really can't encounter surprises; besides those paying usually just under $1k a night, if they turned out to be ogres are an entirely a different kind of jerk that are easy to handle (and a lot easier to tolerate especially at that price). 

[Sarah977]

@Fred13  Thanks for my laugh of the morning with my coffee.  "Entirely different kind of jerk" is a great phrase.

[Lisa1015]

Thanks for all of the input. I want to let you know the final result of all of my pleading to have about 14 days worth of calendar days, blocked by airbnb, opened up again. I did succeed in getting the blocked days opened up...after the dates had come and gone! Thanks to airbnb, I actually lost money in September for the first time since my first 3 months of hosting in 2012. I was not surprised at the poor way airbnb handled this, as this has been the case with past issues as well.

I never received any communication from anyone on behalf of @Catherine-Powell. What bothers me the most is the inaccurate claims she makes on her video messages that reinforce the false notion that hosts will get assistance for reservations 72 hours away.

While the host will get through to an agent at this point, that agent is not empowered to do anything but take down information which they promise to refer on. I have never received any follow-up on these promises, even in the case of relatively simple issues such as glitches in the software not allowing me to request a pet fee and the like.

[Catherine-Powell]

Hi @Lisa1015, I am sorry to hear this. We are looking into it and someone will get back to you, Best Catherine