Here's a new one on us:
Yesterday we received a voicemail and an email from Airbnb. Has Airbnb ever actually called you? Our first thought was that it was some kind of scam. The message was to the effect that Airbnb would not "support the reservation" of a guest who had signed up on Airbnb, made the reservation, and checked in earlier the same day (we were aware of this when we accepted the last minute reservation). We were being told to contact the guest, and if they had indeed checked in already, to have them leave "as soon as possible."
Checking the reservation (at 11:00 p.m., mind you) everything seemed to be in order, i.e. payment had been made, not refunded, reservation still in place on the calendar. We jumped through the Airbnb helpbot hoops and actually got to talk to a live person very quickly and she was very nice to talk to and seemed to be doing her best to help us figure things out. She was able to confirm that the phone call and the email were from Airbnb but was not able to give any explanation. The payment had successfully gone through and was received by Airbnb. I told her that I was not keen to go over to roust paying guests out of bed at midnight to throw them out on the street, particularly with no explanation and that we would still expect to be paid for hosting them, as the service had already been provided. She understood, but was not authorized to make any promises and said she would send our concerns on up the ladder and a representative with authority to do something would call us later. Of course she was unable to promise when they would be calling, whether it would be a few minutes, hours, or in the morning.
It wasn't until 4:00 p.m. the next day I received a call from some very concerned guests, that they had gotten a call from Airbnb to leave the property right away -- and NO explanation!
More calls to Airbnb, still no explanation except the [very polite] technician did advise me that she suspected the only reason that Airbnb would do such a thing is for some kind of safety issue.
Wait, what? SAFETY ISSUE ??? What am I supposed to do with THAT?
So here I sit, two hours after another promise to have someone with authorization call me. Wondering if Airbnb has any intention of making sure we are paid for the stay and why Airbnb has gone through such lengths to make sure both the guests and the host have something to worry about.
Has anyone else ever had such an experience? Did you ever get any kind of explanation? How did it work out in the end?
Any insight would be appreciated.
