New format of Guest Wants Full Refund message coincides with crazy wave of guest wanting refunds

[Mary419]

I am a medium-volume professional host. I have just seen a weird jump in guests wanting refunds for absurd things since the new year 2022. Yes more than last year. Today I see Airbnb has a whole new format for the guest requesting a refund... I assume this is their way of cutting costs for agents speaking to guests

Here are a few highlights 

1. About ten days ago I had a guest see a SINGLE palmetto bug and send a photo of this one bug to Airbnb... Airbnb agent did not even call or message me before turning my payout to zero. They then allowed the guest to write a review bragging about how they got a full refund and then Airbnb "put them up in a hotel" to boot. 

I complained bitterly about this and got my payout reinstated (this could be due to it being a tiny payout and my high volume status). The agent who reinstated it kept pretending to misunderstand my question about the risk of this happening in the future. I asked about 12x over a week's time. All I really know is they will not remove the guest review... despite the fact it uses the word "infestation" which is not accurate for seeing one endemic bug... and they want to leave it published even though he advertises the refund and the free hotel stay Airbnb gave him. 

2. The next guest was about 5 days ago. He was wanting a full refund because he found some of the unit owner's mothers art to be somehow offensive because she had a couple of little "devils" showing in some childlike paintings she painted of her grandkids in their halloween costumes. This unit has been a "bed and breakfast" apartment for 30 years with the same art. No guest has ever complained. This relative is also an artist who has been featured in museums! In this case the guest hit a brick wall with Airbnb.. who told him the owner's religion was not part of the refund policy (LOL) so then this guest tried to throw a curveball and complain the back door was not securely locked. The door angle ALMOST worked but I really stood up for myself and  the agent saw it was just a last ditch attempt for money. I will likely only have a bad review and not have to fight for money to be returned. 

3.  Currently I have a guest who chose to book a tiny cottage that was for railroad workers to live in during 1850. It is a historic relic. It is preserved and adorable and cheaply priced so constantly booked. It has a 4.93 average with over 100 reviews. This guest told me his special breathing problems are making it impossible to stay there because he thinks it has mold or mildew. Which it does not.  His photo evidence is pathetic including discoloration of 150 year old floors which has been the same for the 7 years I have owned it. 

This is where I saw the new format. Everything is new... the title of the message, the label on the app inbox and the wording on the resolution center. I guess Airbnb knows this volume is increasing but I wonder why they don't just copy the successful competition and step out of the middle??!! Why do they want to be the dorm mother forever and handle every single absurd complaint directly like this? 

[Catherine281]

@Mary419 Thank you so much for taking the time to give me this information, it was super helpful of you, I appreciate it. What multi-calendar company have you found the best? I am looking at Hostify, have people had a good experience with this?

[Mary419]

@Catherine281 

while I do have my own website I find it to be manageable to log in directly to the dashboard of each platform and only use ical to connect them and avoid double bookings. 

my website is through Cloud Beds but I don’t use the connectivity they offer to condense the booking info from the third parties. Other than ical they’re literally not connected to one another.

 I’m weird 🙂 I’ve been told by my Vrbo rep that most managers use a software to condense it all

if they have about 10 listings and I have way more than that 

So I am unusual but it works. I enjoy using the organic/original dashboard to fully utilize all the tools each website tries to offer for direct users. 

I invented my own condensed calendar viewer for the cleaners to see the bookings all in one place without logging into my dashboard. But that was only needed due to the volume I handle, I can’t text the cleaners updates or schedules it’s too time consuming 

Vrbo has so much volume now I could survive off only them if I needed to simplify 

[Eduardo337]

@Catherine281 @Mary419 But for me, personally, the most affecting part is that I have a 2-hour window to reply if the guest wants a refund. But now the guests made a statement on their About page on airbnb, changing their picture with one from my house, showing the street address, number, and my personal info, and 24h they still didn't answer. Don't even know if a legal action is the best course.

If the guest lies, no problem at all for him... The host needs to send proof that he's not at fault. It's an inverted logic. 

Appliances broken on purpose, bugs brought from outside, even food rotting put by the guests are now allowed to just get a refund... And make the owner pays for the free hotel.

I already spent extra US$480 on this specific event just because the guest said that I have bed bugs (that luckily I didn't have) and to have proof to Airbnb that it was all good... and Airbnb doesn't take their lying review off. The logic is: whatever lie the guest puts in the review, you can reply... But not take it out... 

[Louise1073]

All I’m getting from this, is to never rent your AirBnB for any long term stay, be prepared to do full refund for any slightly unhappy guest, and even if you do everything perfectly, you still have a chance of getting screwed over 😅

I am a new host and honestly all of these horror stories make it clear we need to have plans for hosting on another platform long term. My listing is a private room so sadly VRBO won’t work but will definitely check out other websites mentioned here.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Louise1073 Please be aware that people generally only post about the tiny percentage of bad stays not the hundreds of thousands of good stays.

[Eduardo337]

@Mike-And-Jane0 the problem are the effect on the reviews. A single bad review has a devastating effect, and may jeopardize a listing way more than a tiny percentage.

My bad stay rate is about 1%. This 1% of bad reviews can destroy all the other 99% of good reviews.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Louise1073  try Facebook groups in your area.

In Croatia a ton of bookings for tourist apartments, student rooms, digital nomads accommodations and long-term flats go through a few FB groups.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Eduardo337 I think you misunderstand my post. The point I was trying to make to @Louise1073 is that the percentage of hosts that have trouble like you had is incredibly small based on the number of hosts out there. This doesn't in any way minimise the damage to those hosts who do experience difficulties. 

[Mary419]

@Eduardo337 

Airbnb has underestimated how damaging each individual “bad experience” is for a host.

I am also seeing the percentage of bad experiences is not so small anymore based on tons of other host groups 

I tried to tell reps at Airbnb the very first time I got one of these shockers, how much one horrific experience with customer service matters….and I’ve tried to tell them very earnestly and honestly for years since. This is very hard work and getting shown you’re helpless to protect yourself from losses and abuse is devastating even if it’s a small percentage of bookings. It’s hard enough to deal with the guests on our own and it takes every ounce of our energy…  but exponentially more upsetting to receive scolding’s and threats from the “neutral third party” who is really in charge of the money 

[Eduardo337]

That's not true @Mike-And-Jane0 . Its not the number of hosts with trouble. It's the percentage of troublesome guests. Everyone will end up getting one if they rent enough. @Mary419 here (sorry, I looked up) has over 9000 reviews and 67 properties! I have 130 reviews and two properties. In the end, YOU WILL HAVE THE CRAZY GUEST. What @Mary419 is trying to tell us is that Airbnb is making the electronic mean to easy the process and even direct the guest to try to get a refund.

My bad guest to good guest ratio is 1%. What's yours?

[Mary419]

@Eduardo337 the new formats and rules trigger a change in the average guests who may be harmless if they are not given a venue to become otherwise... those people are actually being shown the way to become the bad guests by these forms and prompts designed at Airbnb.

That is the phenomenon that is bumping up all the host grievances. 

The big question is why. Yes we all know they believe buying the guests loyalty for Airbnb as a company using individual hosts money to purchase that loyalty is smart. So that is a thing. But is it the only thing? 

On some other threads many hosts have pondered that small to medium size hosts are no longer wanted by Airbnb. Because they are more geared toward the Sonder and other mega mega "hosts" who will not fight back about refunds and are more closely partnered with Airbnb (like Luckey and whatever other wholly owned subsidiary management firms have been spun out). I want to figure it out because it seems like they could have made their fortunes hand over fist without doing this. But I apparently don't fully comprehend the scale of the mega host dollars vs. small time people. 

[Eduardo337]

Exactly @Mary419 . It almost like they WANT guests to ask for a refund!

Maybe this was done on a stupid discussion on their IT department just to "fix" the "too much calls" issue, and they don't know that this would be bad... Even on huge companies, stupidity is still a thing.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Eduardo337 bad guest ratio is 0%. We have 3 properties and have been hosting for about 30 months

[Eduardo337]

I really hope that you keep that up! @Mike-And-Jane0 , I've also had 0% until 2021. May the force be with you. But if you ever need, Syngenta Demand CS can help too...