Host Guarantee A Sham - Fraudulent Profile Books Our Home, We Pay The Consequences.

[Explore-MTL0]

A fraudulent Airbnb profile booked our home and now we're paying the consequence. This has been an issue in our area: somehow individuals gain access to / hack into someone else's profile and are able to book hosts homes with it.

A mother and her two children were supposed to stay in our home. After receiving noise complaints and warnings that the smell of smoke was coming from our loft, we went to check things out.When we arrived,  a group of young local men were in our apartment. It reeked of cigarettes, our home was trashed, items had been stolen and broken and they had thrown a party the night before. We documented our exchange.

When we went to input our Airbnb Host Guarantee claim, the profile had been deleted. We had to issue it through another means. The Host Guarantee program has been an awful experience. The representative on our case ignores questions, he copies and pastes his answers regularly, and refuses to acknowledge certain claims.  We have a smoking fee (due to a non-smoking building) and an extra cleaning fee for the party that was held - Airbnb is refusing this and we aren't able to request it from the profile as it was a fraud/had been deleted. Additionally, Airbnb is refuting that smoking indoors causes THS (third hand smokes - toxic particles that linger on fabrics, etc) and is physical damage to the property. They have outright refused some broken items and will not answer our questions as to why. Our bulk bathroom products were stolen and they have refused to provide compensation for this - as they said 'we offer our guests this for their use'. Now, our representative has cut us off communication with him and said he will no longer be addressing the matter further.

The host guarantee program has been a nightmare for us. Any help or guidance on the matter?

[Anonymous]

@Explore-MTL0  Do you have solid evidence that the guests hacked an existing profile, or is it possible that they were misrepresenting themselves with a fake profile (or that of a consenting third party)?

It is true that Airbnb does not enforce penalty fees such as a "smoking fee," as a host does not have standing to impose disciplinary measures. Additionally, Airbnb does not actually charge the Security Deposit hosts specify - that's a mere placebo. I don't know what "other means" you refer to in reference to your claim, but the Host Guarantee covers a pretty narrow sliver of what can actually go wrong with a booking. Smoking, for example, is about the most common complaint that exists - you might be about the 20,000th host to attempt a "damage" claim on this basis, so I don't think their insurance adjuster will suddenly be impressed now by your THS argument (though I personally agree with you on the merits).

Stolen bulk items would also be well outside the reasonable range of coverage if they were in the property and accessible to the guests.  At the very least, though, they should have compensated you for physical breakages if they were of significant value, and evidenced with photos and receipts. 

If you're a remote host who is unable to personally check guests in and verify their identity on arrival, and if you're additionally not opting to use external surveilance on the property, there's just no getting around the fact that listing on Airbnb is an extremely high-risk choice for you and for your unwitting neighbors. Unfortunately, the Host Guarantee is not in a magic parachute that makes it safe to rent to random people off the internet; it's imperative that hosts have their own security measures in place to prevent these situations from happening too. Going forward, you might consider changing to a platform or property manager that collects an actual deposit on your behalf. 

Regrettably, I think you've reached a dead end with Airbnb on this one, I only hope you will have better luck with your home's STR insurance.