Does AirBnb Have your back?

[Jillian115]

I have always wondered what happens if you have a problematic guest; one who is breaking the rules-- will Airbnb support you? The answer is no. Host at your own risk because Airbnb support is only trained to give the option that will make money for Airbnb at the cost of the host. I have heard the horror stories, people with a guest who destroy things, who have guests who refuse to leave, hosts who get shut down because of false claims by guest, etc. I have always wondered if, for some reason, you have to file a liability claim, how difficult would that be. My experience has always been, when I call CS, they do everything they can to promote revenue and nothing to offer support to me. 

Tonight was my first real test, though, and I have to say Airbnb has failed. I have a guest who is hosting friends without asking for permission, and my listing is for two. They are breaking my posted rules. When I called Airbnb to report this, my options are to charge them more for cleaning, charge them for the extra guests, or ask them to leave. But guess what they still get to leave me a review. So if I do either, I run the risk of a bad review, and as many of us know, it takes 300 reviews to overcome a 4-star rating and 3,000 reviews to overcome a 3-star rating. So even though they are breaking the rules and I am paying the price and probably upsetting my neighbors, I need to keep my mouth shut or run the risk of a poor review. Which By the way I may already be getting because when they asked me to bring Advil for a headache, I brought it to them and asked how many people do you have here??

I spoke with Al in CS, who repeatedly yelled, we don't change the rules for anyone. But I wonder if that's true since there is a listing up the road from me, the "Jamestown Bungalow" that increased last year to a 4.99. So I have to wonder who made that happen? Because Al from CS, who I spoke with tonight, was furious, kept yelling, we don't change the rules for anyone. So I get it Charge more, charege more, and dont complain. Thats the Airbnb Way and by the way "Thank You  Super Host".  Haha.

[Jillian115]

Also, After my call to Airbnb, Support sent me this helpful notification:

Airbnb Support7:50 PM

Reviews are very important to our Airbnb community and we encourage all hosts and guests to leave a review within the 14-day review period.

Once both reviews are written, they'll be made public to the community. If only one person completes a review within the time frame, it becomes public after the 14-day period ends.

To answer any other questions about reviews, check out this Help Center article:

www.airbnb.com/help/question/13

[David7660]

Absolutely not.  Airbnb is not on your side whatsoever.  Since their massive layoffs, I've waited three weeks for a response from support (and every time they side with the guest).

We had a 0 review, new user throw a party.  After the "global party ban" was announced and during the COVID restrictions..  In our messages back and forth with the guest, they even admitted to throwing a party.  

I reported them to support and asked them to be banned from the app. . . . guess what they did?  Several weeks later when they finally responded, they did nothing.  They sided with the guest and that they wouldn't ban them, who knows, they might make them $20 in the next year or two, so they clearly have more pull than I do, right?  We hosting three full time houses, super host for 2 years running, 700 or so bookings . . . guest for 1 night, 0 reviews gets higher priority.

Wonder what would happen to their stock price if they knew how crappy they treat their hosts?

[Mary419]

 I am not sure how many of you check Airbnb's twitter presence but they are actually condoning and inciting parties and bad behavior all over social media. Please go through this thread carefully to see what a joke they are making of it: 

https://twitter.com/Airbnb/status/1382793340177969155?s=20

This is Airbnb's OWN twitter page that started this thread. They are having "fun posts" like this and making fun replies to guests blatantly talking about breaking house rules. This twitter thread has it all, from showing someone throwing flaming torches onto balconies, showing snow white having an "illegal party!", people jumping into a mosh pit... Airbnb is clearly promoting wild parties with these funny social media posts while preaching out of the other side of their mouths that it is their top priority to stop parties.  Showing joke images of what your next trip will be like is not funny for those of us who are seeing it is not a joke. It is our new reality. It is VERY important that we stand up for ourselves and expose this. Maybe if we do, something will change. The only thing that might help at this point is making the security deposit real so guests have something to lose. 

[Jillian115]

@Mary419 That's very upsetting to see. Bad judgement. 

[Dale711]

Hi @Mary419,

You’re right! You got the point.

Perhaps, they’re the C team “The Cool team”managing conflict and humorous in the Airbnb Twitters.

Laughter is a powerful tool for bringing people closer together, managing conflict, and reducing tension. Airbnb C team tried humor and played to resolve disagreements and strengthen the relationships. It may be possible Airbnb new stargeties of the C plan “The Cool Plan”

[Jillian115]

@David7660 Yeah, I often wonder about their stocks too. But in the end it's all about making money. I don't think A zero review guest that is breaking the rules should have any power over you. There is something wrong with this system. If you can prove they're at fault they should lose the options to book or review. I don't want someone who threw a party at your house to book my listing. That should be a give-in. I have had similar horrible CS experiences where it took several weeks to resolve an issue that was caused by a glitch in the system due to one of their many updates. Anyway, it makes me sad. Before all the layoffs I felt like I was supported by Airbnb now I feel like they really don't care and not only that they are very aggressive and rude these days. 

[Dale711]

Hi @Jillian115,

Sorry to hear about your experience, and I understand you’re frustrated.

Have you tried in the resolution center to request the extra payment from the guest?

What is the Airbnb Resolutions  Center?

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/767/what-is-the-resolution-center

If you’re unable to reach an agreement with the guest, you can ask Airbnb to make the final decision 72 hours after the request was opened.

Refer to the review?

It's out of your hand! 

Unless the review is violating the housing standard.w

Request additional payment through Airbnb ‘Resolution center.’

Host or guests can use the resolution center to request any extra payment related to the stay.

[Jillian115]

@Dale711 my point is Airbnb give the power to the guests even when the guest is the problem. Yes I get it, I can charge more. Airbnb will make more but that's going to upset the guest who has the power to hurt my listing by giving me a bad review. 

I did mention that the listing up the road was able to get their reviws changed. Because their rating increased about a year ago.

[Sarah977]

@Jillian115  

I don't know why you believe that other hosts got their ratings changed. I don't think that's possible. They might have been successful in getting Airbnb to remove a revenge review, though. That does occasionally happen.

There's even cases where a good guest mistakenly rated the place 1*, thinking that was the highest rating, or hitting it by accident. When the host messaged the guest to ask why they gave that rating, the guest is shocked, having meant to give the best ratings. The guest can't have that rating changed, but they can ask to have the review removed.

And as the ratings are based on the previous 365 days, if a host has a 4.6 rating, they could bring that back up to 4.9 if they get a bunch of 5* ratings come in.

Hosts who only have one listing and not a high rate of turnover (guests stay more than a few days or bookings are quite seasonal) will need a lot more time to recover from a bad rating than hosts with multiple listings and short bookings, as long as the latter can get a lot if 5* ratings to offset the bad one.

[Katrina79]

@Jillian115Airbnb gives the review power to both the guest and the host. You will have the same opportunity to review the guest as they have to review the host. Use your power as a host and leave a deserving review. Make the decisions about carrying out hosting without the fear of retaliatory reviews. You don’t need to have a five star rating to get bookings. 

[Pat271]

If you want to keep your sanity, it’s best to think of Airbnb as a booking service. Nothing more, nothing less. When things go wrong, pretend that the guest booked with you directly, and then decide what you should do. Just make sure you have plenty of short-term rental insurance.

[Robin4]

@Jillian115 

Jillian, take control of your business, Don't expect Airbnb to be your fairy godmother and pick up the pieces every time something goes wrong. Structure your business so that you do not have to involve Airbnb or the guest when things don't work out. 

A bad review will stay on your profile for ever more and will cost you far more in lost bookings than the event that created that bad review!

Build a damage fund into your listing amount, it doesn't have to be much, just a few dollars a night. Accidents happen, most guests do not set out to damage your property, and to get stuck into them over something that was accidental is going to backfire on you.

In some instances the guest offers to make good any damage they have created, in others they don't, but I don't bounce them or Airbnb, I just pull the dollars required out of the damage fund and get on with the business of hosting.  My damage fund currently sits at around $1,600  and if the damage falls above that amount I will claim on my STR insurance.....I will not involve Airbnb!

And to your point about the review ratings, a 4 star here or there is not going to hurt you. I seem to get one about every 30 reviews and most of those are simply the guest following Airbnb's advice and giving the host something less than 5 stars because the stay wasn't completely perfect but did meet or exceed expectations. And once you have a few hundred reviews under your belt the odd less than 5 is not going to effect your rating.....mine has been hovering on 4.92 for about 2 years now!

Cheers.........Rob

[Sarah977]

@Jillian115  You basically have a choice- run your hosting business based on the fear of a bad review, letting guests get away with objectionable behavior and taking advantage of you, or speaking up and enforcing your house rules if guests are disrespectful and taking the reviews out of the equation. 

I would choose the latter.

[Daniela1586]

The sad truth is that AirBnB only cares about the guests.  They do not care about the hosts.  I am going through an issue right now where the guests have violated house rules several times.  Long story short, the guests complained and asked to leave ASAP without penalty.  I agreed and asked AirBnB that they leave the following day and I wanted to charge a cleaning fee and fee for unregistered guest.  The guests have refused and then said they cannot move out for another 5 days.  AirBnB told me there is nothing they can do.  If the guest cannot move out for another 5 days then they cannot move out.  In addition, the guests refuse to pay for cleaning fee.  Sad that AirBnB does not support their hosts more and they seem to have gone downhill since they went public.   I was asked to submit cleaning fee and guest fee via the resolution center so we'll see what happens.