Horrible Airbnb Support

[Patrick568]

 So I just had the worst experience with Airbnb support I have had in the 4 years my wife and I have been hosts. 

We are in the Coachella valley and had a Coachella festival booking that canceled at the last minute. We got another booking @7:30pm on the friday night. It was a reservation for 4 days for two guys claiming they were going to be hosting a business meeting at the house the next day. The two individuals showed up at 3 am that Saturday morning.

They were at the house for about two and a half hours and they messaged my wife saying they wanted to cancel the booking because the house didn't appear the same. He complained that on top of a shelf there was glassware in the picture, and there was a photo of an area rug by the back door. All items that had been damaged and removed, or as in the case of the glassware were moved to another spot in the living room to get them of a high space because there were children at the house.

 ** [Private conversation removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines]

Our rental:

https://airbnb.com/h/thegoodvibeshouse

My wife heard the message ping on her phone and answered him right away. Explained why the items were not in the same spot and informed him we weren't cancelling his four day booking because of such a minor issue. He instantly threatened us over the review saying that if we just cancelled him he would leave a good review. We refused and knew this was going to be a problem.

At we went back to sleep and at about 6:30 am we got a message from airbnb. The guest claimed that there was dirty kitchenware, and the house was dirty. All complete lies. We informed airbnb this was untrue, our house is immaculate and that the house was cleaned prior to their arrival. Airbnb said the guest provided photos and I asked to see them. Airbnb refused. At about 8:30 the two guys got in their car and left, I figured they were going to breakfast or something since they just walked out, got in their car with nothing(ie luggage) and left.  We have a nest camera in the driveway and so i went back and watched their arrival. They showed up at 3 am, parked and walked into the house with no luggage, nothing. Then one came out at about 4 put on a sweatshirt and went back in. One came back out, smoked a cigarette and went back in. When they departed at 8:30 with nothing I was very suspicious. I have NEVER seen a guest arrive and bring nothing into the house. 

So about an hour later at 9:30 we finally received a message from airbnb that the guests had provided "documentation" of the claim of a dirty house and were allowed to cancel their reservation. I was furious and questioned why they would do this, I was basically blown off, informed that they had provided "proper documentation" for their claim. 

I immediately went to the house. It is a mid century pool home, and is always sparkling clean. You can see the reviews in our listing. My wife and I personally clean and manage the property. When I arrived I walked through each room. No beds had been disturbed, one bathroom had the paper seal on the toilet removed. Other than that both bathrooms were clean. They had taken a packet of oatmeal( we provide some basic food items) from he cabinet and cooked it and there were random spoons, plates and tongs out that had oatmeal on them. Overall the house was basically untouched. I was VERY confused. So i went about cleaning the house back up.

That is when I discovered what this was all about. I found a small baggie of meth by our fire pit, and there was a used condom in the strainer of our pool. So these guys showed up, did some drugs, had sex in my pool. Made a mess to justify their claim with Airbnb and departed.

I made it VERY clear to Airbnb that this was a scam. I explained everything as I explained here. With photos and video documenting their arrival, departure and all movements out front,  that they showed up for a 4 day booking with NO LUGGAGE, not even a bathroom kit. Then they depart 5 hours later in the same clothes they came in. SCAM. 

They didn't care. It was clear this was a scam, and Airbnb just screwed us over, taking the side of these grifters over a super host with years of bookings and sterling reviews.

They even stated we would could potentially have our listing removed because we didn't follow host standards policy. When I asked what policy was that I got no response. I am disgusted at the treatment and complete ignorance from airbnb regarding this whole event. This morning they sent me a message closing the case and not allowing any response. Airbnb is insane if they think treating experienced hosts like this will get them anywhere. My wife and I will be doing everything possible to transition away from Airbnb bookings after this debacle.

[Marissa160]

@Patrick568  I am so sorry this happened to you. Do not allow them to close the case. Open it again with another rep. Keep trying. They try to tell you that their decision is final, but I don’t buy that. It might be a lot of your time to fight with them, but this scenario is just so over the top and disgusting, I would fight it on principle. Good luck! 

[Kelly149]

Good luck. that’s shady & I hope you get some movement 

[Hal3292]

This is hideous and disheartening. Airbnb needs to have some sort of ombudsman that hosts can appeal to in cases where the injustice is so big and so apparent. I wonder if there's a more public forum where hosts can air these grievances. It's nice to have the Host Circle. But wouldn't Airbnb stop mistreating hosts if stories like these were more widely known?

[Louise0]

That's just awful.  It's so BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS that these guests were scammers.  What on earth is wrong with Airbnb that they can't see it?  It's impossible to miss.

[Patrick568]

I spoke to a supervisor on the phone and got no change. They just kept citing that the "guest" provided documentation. But also wouldn't tell me what it was, although it was clear it was the oatmeal they made and left on my utensils and pans left in the sink.

[Louise0]

Did you ask CX to check the metadata in the images submitted?  Assuming the scam artists weren't savvy enough to overwrite it with bogus data, then the timestamp will show that the images were taken well after the time they checked in, i.e. enough time to prepare and consume oatmeal.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Patrick568 two possible courses of action

1) Approach Airbnb on Twitter as this can get different results

2) Take Airbnb to small claims court. I doubt they will even bother respond and so the case will be found in your favour.

[Anonymous]

@Patrick568  Two guys booking a pool house in Coachella at the last minute on Friday night, to host a planned "business meeting" on a Saturday morning? Hmm. I'm sure you knew the minute you read this that it was nonsense, and the events that followed were about what one would expect.

Your experience with customer service was truly appalling, and also totally par for the course. What they don't tell you, but what seems to be the guiding principle in these scenarios, is that hosts are expected to be on guard against these deeply suspicious, high-risk bookings and actively prevent parties, criminal activity, etc.  So if a guest abuses your home, the blame gets dished out to you.

And yet, Airbnb scolds hosts for declining or cancelling suspicious bookings. It pushes Instant Book and self-check-in, removing the two key points at which problems can be preempted. It emboldens scammers by offering frictionless bookings to unverified profiles, taking no real deposits, and having ridiculous refund loopholes that make it easy to con a free stay. 

I don't know what your experience would be like on a different platform, but if you choose to continue with Airbnb, I can only suggest that you raise the bar of entry substantially and only accept bookings with a very low chance of a customer-service situation - knowing that the odds are stacked against you once there's a dispute.

Side note:  the one surprising detail was the condom. I wouldn't have profiled meth-addled scammers having a late-night session in a stranger's pool as people who are cautious enough to practice safer sex.

[Suzanne302]

@Anonymous  Great point to repeat! Airbnb pressures us to accept ALL bookings and penalizes us if we don't. Yet, if a host accepts a booking they did not want and something goes wrong, the host is STILL penalized.

The other common theme in @Patrick568 's story is that Airbnb will refuse to provide the host with any evidence. Why the secrecy? A host deserves to know evidence of allegations against them. This comes up time and time again in stories about CS.

[Patrick568]

To your initial comment. During the Coachella music festival there is a TON of industry events going on throughout the valley. We have booked our house for these types of meetings on two other occasions. The person booking had positive reviews and had claimed they had an issue with a cancelled reservation. We are VERY diligent about who we book and have had a total of 3 issues in nearly 4 years. We don't just book anyone who contacts us.

[Anonymous]

@Patrick568  Last minute "issue with a cancellation" often turns out to mean that the previous host kicked them out. I learned that the hard way - and the worst thing was, an Airbnb rep was the person who persuaded me to accept the "cancellation victims" without even mentioning they'd been removed for bad behavior.

[Helen744]

@Andrew 0 and this girls and boys is where the latest changes at Airbnb have led us .So the bad guests in their super scam world  after deciding  to move on and go somewhere else. Cook up  More than oatmeal and get a gullible rep who tries to save them from the oatmeal and then allows these drugged up 'guests' to lurch into some other poor unsuspecting hosts homes by the rep begging for a host who may not be aware to take them and hello ,it all starts again.H

[Helen744]

Also I do ponder who out of all the possibilities is likely to be taking intoxicants ,Is it the guests ? Is it the reps ? or is it the hosts? Each can draw their own conclusions but unless a host has been flagged in this way and unless a rep can tell if the complainant is living in the real world and is living in one themselves then be careful of drawing conclusions about a third party because that is outside your pay grade

 but still they keep doing it. and try and remember . Hosts put up with a lot that they would not ever put up with so when Hosts  call Airbnb there is a good reason .H

[Lenore22]

The worst part is that we get put on the defensive, they shut down our listing, and then when they open it back up, we're meant to just walk away & drop it because in the meantime, we're trying to just run our short term rental business. 🫤