Another odd saga that doesn't make sense.

[Elaine701]

Ok, I'll try to be brief. But there's a lot of stuff here. 

Guest books a week in middle of high season, 6 months prior to arrival. Made it through the gauntlet, seems perfectly legit. Appears to be a nice family. Booked. Done. 

A few days ago, as we were looking at the booking, to prep for their arrival, and noticed that all previous messages from the guest on the message system had been hidden, with the notice "message hidden because guest no longer has access to the account". Tried to access the guest's profile, and it had been deleted. 

So, we contact Airbnb to explain what this means. After a couple of days, we're told that the guest has been banned from the platform, and the booking will be cancelled. Surprise!

So, minutes later, the booking is cancelled. A few minutes later, I receive a text from the guest asking why we cancelled. I tell her we are as surprised as she is. Airbnb cancelled and closed your account. She then calls Airbnb, and texts me again saying that Airbnb told her that it's an issue with our account, and asks me to fix it.

Meanwhile, within 5 minutes of the cancellation, we receive a booking request for exactly the same dates, from someone who just signed up - of the same nationality (written in same language). It looks extremely suspicious now, but after a few questions, it does not seem to be the same guest at all.

So, we call Airbnb, and as usual, get drenched in compliments before we can explain, and the "ambassador" tells us the guest had violated some rule, and had been banned, and that's why it's been cancelled. I accepted the other booking (after they successfully survived the usual gauntlet). 

Then a few hours later, the cancelled guest sends me a message on the Airbnb message, system, using the same account that had been previously deleted, asking to rebook it. Surprise! account miraculously reinstated. Erm, what? 

So we call Airbnb, and they tell us the guest has been banned and can't possibly access their account, and may have created a new account (but it isn't new, it's the very same account with the old profile, message and booking history intact!).

But by this time, these dates have already been booked again. So I can't accept a new booking from the cancelled guest anyway. And I wrote back to her to explain that we haven't a clue why Airbnb did this, and sorry, but the dates have been booked again.

Then she writes back, angrily accusing us of cancelling her booking to get a more expensive booking... 

So this is all too weird now. I no longer trust the supposedly banned guest, I've given up on talking to Airbnb about it any further, but I did write airbnb to tell them that whatever happened here looks extremely suspicious, inexplicable, discredible, and begs the question of what was the point of the exercise?

Airbnb wrote back and reiterated that the guest had been banned, and cannot access their account. Have a nice day. 

So, I wrote back to the banned, cancelled guest again.. On the Airbnb message system, to the original account that's no longer supposed to exist... And told her that I'm as dumbfounded as she is. Have no clue what just happened, and feel badly that it did.  Very sorry, but you need to discuss it with Airbnb. 

Weird, huh?

[David8879]

We live in the weird time.

Just yesterday I got an  DIRECT email form someone asking if apt is available (indicating precise dates  when it was actually available and what the price will be)

I figured out someone has found my listing on on OTA sites, but in 

National Tourism Register (turismodeportugal.pt)

which did not make any sense as the only thing they can see there is email, not the dates. So, that someone, went to booking sites, found my apt, found open dates and then sent me email asking how much...which is indicated on airbnb...

Of course I laughed and blocked that email and probably going to report to legal authorities in Portugal.

So many scams - so little time...what I am saying - if it was not you who canceled (for whatever reason) - book other people and forget about it...unless I missunderstood something...

[Laura2592]

@Elaine701we had something similar happen when a guest's payment didn't go through. The booking was cancelled within the acceptable time frame and we thought nothing of it. Someone booked those dates quickly after the cancellation. A few days later the original guest wanted to know why we cancelled her-- we didn't. I called ABB and was told her account was suspended due to "suspicious activity." I just told the guest she would have to take it up with ABB. She said the same thing yours did-- that ABB said my account was the issue. Long story short, I eventually was made to understand that the guest had a history of payments not going through and this was the last that "the algorithm" allowed before her account was suspended. So maybe its something like that? Maybe your guest was banned by the bot for some reason?

In any case, sounds like you dodged a bullet 🙂

[Emilia42]

@Elaine701 

 A few other hosts have mentioned something like this:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/quot-This-message-have-been-hidden-quot-what-do-I-do/m-p/16...

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/This-message-has-been-hidden-because-the-person-no-longer-h...
https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Guest-no-longer-has-access-to-Airbnb/m-p/1641793

[Elaine701]

@Laura2592 @Emilia42 

Ok, thanks. It sounds like it may be a well rehearsed script. 

Nonetheless, the really weird thing is that the cancelled guest's account is back. It appears to be fully restored. And that begs the question of whether it was all a big mistake. Airbnb swears it isn't, and the guest has no access to their account ...despite all evidence to the contrary. 

Ok, so yes, perhaps maybe Airbnb saved me from a bad guest (in an apparently chaotic way). But until this point, she seemed pretty normal, nice, no red flags.

And Airbnb somehow managed to reinstate her account, yet strangely, Airbnb doesn't even seem to know that.

So, was it the guest? Or Airbnb? 

😳

[Huma0]

@Elaine701 

I suspect it was Airbnb. As @Emilia42 mentioned, there have been several threads popping up here lately describing the same issue. There was one where the booking was not cancelled, but the host could no longer contact the guest.  CS told her that the guest's account had been banned, but not to worry, she would still get her payout. Anyway the guest did come to stay and all was well. Her account was reinstated but I don't think the guest had even noticed before that that it had been deleted, if I remember correctly. All very weird.

This seems to me some sort of new Airbnb glitch and, as usual, CS reps are handing out conflicting information. They won't reveal why the guest has been banned. Maybe there is no reason, otherwise why are the accounts suddenly reinstated? Or, it is a mistake but they don't want to admit it or don't understand it.

Let me give you an example. A few years ago, a guest booked for a six month stay. Closer to the time, she asked if she could come two days earlier and I said sure. I went to the booking, changed the check in date to two days earlier and sent the alteration request. I did not think to check the price. The guest then messaged me asking why she had been charged nearly £1,500 extra for two nights!! It should have been around £100, probably less.

I went round the houses with CS trying to get this fixed. I spoke to several reps, who just kept telling me it must be my mistake and that I had overcharged the guest and needed to fix it. It didn't matter how many times I explained to them that I had not entered a price, only changed the check in date, and that it was the Airbnb system that had calculated the new price. Neither the guest nor I could get any help from CS.

Anyway, I finally got through to a more experienced, trained rep who said straight away, "Oh yes, that's a glitch. When you make an alteration to a long term booking, the long term discount disappears." Apparently, this had been happening for a long time but the previous reps I spoke to had no idea and couldn't be bothered to look into it.

So, I cancelled the alteration and the guest paid for those two nights in a separate booking, but it did make me wonder how many former guests might have been overcharged, not said anything and then maybe marked me down for value, thinking I was ripping them off. With a shorter booking, I would not have noticed because the Airbnb guest fees are variable. With a six month booking, it was obviously a very large amount.

After that, I kept an eye on this and, lo and behold, every time the dates or number of people were altered on a long term booking, the discount disappeared. Airbnb did eventually fix it but not for a very long time.

CS is a bit of a shambles really, unless you are lucky enough to get hold of a more experienced rep who was not laid off due to COVID.

[Robin4]

@Elaine701 

I have no idea what is going on inside the Airbnb organisation at the moment. Ordinarily I would say, 'That's weird' but, from what I am experiencing at the moment and what we are reading from other hosts these random things seem to come out of left field and I can totally understand why CS don't have an answer.....they are as in the dark as we are.

Have a look at these two recent ones of mine.......

At that point I had 512 reviews but on the listing page  it stated 'No reviews yet'!

And even more strange Elaine, back at the start of May, out of nowhere I got this email.....

I did not have any claim dispute with the Resolution Centre, I did not have a booking, past/present or future that matched that amount.....it just suddenly materialised in my bank account for absolutely no reason and with no explanation. It was subsequently taken from my future payouts but Elaine, that's not the point, what is going on?

There are too many of these inconsequential mistakes! They are inconsequential to Airbnb but, they put us hosts to a lot of mucking around trying to work just what in the hell is going on!

Elaine, Airbnb should compensate you for this monumental stuff-up on their part. You were totally committed to fulfilling your side of the reservation agreement and by the sound of it, so was the guest......It was Airbnb that got in the way and yet both you and the guest suffered.

That is disgraceful.....but I bet nobody in the organisation got a wrap over the knuckles for that. It's just part of the ebb and flow of making money at hosts and guests expense!

Not good enough Elaine!

Cheers........Rob

[Elaine701]

@Robin4 

Very strange stuff. I can't think of any reason why any of this would be done deliberately, so I can only suspect it's just a series of mistakes of one kind or another. 

Only speculation, but perhaps it's the result of extensive use of automation and artificial intelligence that's at the root of it. Obviously, humans can't possibly monitor every little aspect of every transaction. I suspect a series of programatic bots monitor activities and are programmed to identify red flags, and raise flags to humans when unusual things occur. 

In those instances, a human somewhere is alerted to something "out of the ordinary". Then they're supposed to look into it and make a judgement call about how to handle it.

These humans may be incentivised for the number of cases they can close in a certain time frame. So, considering the large volume of flags raised and the limited amount of time available to investigate further, some might be inclined to press a button that simply removes the problem. Solved. Next... 

In this case, I wasn't really injured, but the guest may have been. I really don't know because you never know about guests, and Airbnb certainly doesn't provide much information, and what they do provide is often confusing and conflicting, and often misleading. 

The appearance of this guest seemed perfectly legitimate. But I don't know. A flag was raised for some reason. Possibly in error. I just don't know. But the guest could be the real victim here. And it's tragic if that's the case. But I feel helpless to do anything. 

The unsettling thing for me is that this could just as easily happen to me, and I wouldn't have the slightest clue why, nor would Airbnb be capable of explaining it. 

Airbnb is certainly a monster at attracting bookings. It's unbelievable how productive it is in that respect. But for all the reasons above and what is shown here on a nearly daily basis, Airbnb is also perhaps the riskiest platform for hosts, and apparently guests too. And nobody can seem to penetrate the wall with this. We get acknowledgement, but It seems to be consistently ignored. And actually, getting worse, or at least shape-shifting. 

I fear the day that I am the victim. For no identifiable reason. And nobody can tell me why. It's just the way it is. Sorry. 

[David8879]

With all the glitches from Artificial so called Intelligence AirBNB is a booking monster. In 6 months I have a listing on VRBO - I have not got a single booking request. (No, Instant book is not on and never will be - another reason I stay with ABB as most sites force you to use IB)

Speaking of programatic mistakes ABB IT people do ...gosh... you need to understand the professional level of people who work there.. I made my living (and very decent one) fixing screw up those people do in spades every second of their dull existence (I was working as IT consultant in a lot of very well known companies - in 1 month I was making more money fixing stuff than they made in 1 year sitting in 3rd world counties ...)

And CS just can't be blamed - they are just in the different universe of corporate monster and, all the smart ones figured out during covid that they can make more money doing nothing...ripples will be seen for years from misshandling of this story 

[Property2]

@David8879  I completely agree with you, but regardless of what the circumstances are, there are certain levels of idiocy and incompetence that any company, even Airbnb with its total lack of quality control and training, should not tolerate. At least, at VRBO I can fire an email to the executives, get a response within 2 hours, and have the issue resolved within a day or two. Try that at Airbnb...((

[Fred13]

Not a day goes by we do not get 2-5 'Inquiries' that start with just one letter and nothing more; it gets so bad we block those dates and then the same mysterious scam starts with the next open range of days. Meantime Airbnb sends 'Please answer the inquiry' prompt, yet we keep flagging them. This has been going on for weeks. 

[Helen744]

I think if this happened on Vrbo then there would have been a possibility of them receiving a refund twice. I think they were trying a scam. H

[Marg11]

Glad I'm not the only host noticing BOTs lack humanity: 

Our next guest died before arrival and a family friend, also a host, asked us to cancel for the guest's daughter.

To Airbnb: The guest due to arrive in 2 days died in an accident, his daughter requests cancellation and a refund.

Airbnb Support:

It sounds like you’re experiencing a safety issue (including harassment or discrimination). Is that right?

No, it’s something else

Airbnb Support

Your guest’s reservation isn’t eligible for a full refund under your cancellation policy, but if you both have agreed on an additional refund, you can send them a link and ask them to start a request.

We have a full fund policy and sending a request to a dead person would only work if the family had access to their Airbnb account.

After sending more messages with "The guest is dead" I was informed that a cancellation so close to arrival would cost me $100.00.

Finally, a person answered my message and asked me to wait while the matter was referred to a specialist in this area. By then I had asked the informant to also contact Airbnb and finally, several hours later, the booking was canceled, the daughter refunded and my penalty removed.

[Elaine701]

I've seen movies that illustrate this type of obtuse behaviour from bots. 

Welcome to the 21st century. 

[Marg11]

Yes, can imagine the script clearly.

Even though the issue was resolved,  I have had an automated message intimating that hosts canceling bookings will have the dates blocked, money will be deducted from the next payment and Super Host status canceled. 

Is this in a 'bot' memory never to be erased?