Strange Message

[Ann72]

Last night there appeared in my inbox a name and a picture, nothing more.  This morning the woman wrote a message, claiming she had messaged me last night, adding that she wanted to stay this weekend, but not saying which place she wanted to stay in or the exact dates.  I told her I hadn't had a previous message and asked her to enter dates.  She wrote again, at greater length, but still could not bring herself to enter dates or tell me which house she wanted.  Long story short, we went around this at least once more, and she finally said she would do that.  Never heard from her again, but this weekend isn't available at either place anyway.

Questions:  How can someone send me a non-specific message, i.e., not tied to a specific listing and not tied to any dates?  And why did her picture come through when it's not a booking but simply an inquiry?  

This was the first communication.  It's weird, right?

[Emilia42]

@Ann72 Yes, that's true. We shouldn't be able to see the photo and where did the message go? You're right there is something glitchy about it because there are still many pieces of information missing. We'll probably never know.

[Stephanie]

I got it @Ann72 though I seem to have made your pic look like the Japanese flag.

Everyone - I'm sharing this thread and the issue reported to the product bugs team. I'll come back when I have more information for you.

Thanks for sharing these issues here!

Thanks,

Stephanie

[Ann72]

Thank you @Stephanie - it does rather 😂  Thank you for stepping in and sharing with the appropriate team.  

Doing simple numbers here...four of us had this issue, @Emilia42  @Lawrene0  @Michelle53 and me.  We are a small sample but there must be many other hosts who encountered this issue last week.  As far as I know, my guest booked but none of the other guests completed the booking.  That's 25% completed bookings, or 75% lost bookings.  If these were all booking requests, is that a normal return or a bad return?  If a bad return, how much money does Airbnb lose over a glitch like this?  Just food for thought.

[Sarah977]

@Emilia42  I think it's a glitch, or at least a new feature they haven't worked the bugs out of yet because of the guest's photo appearing and the rest of what Ann said.

[Michelle53]

@Ann72  Good feedback  !    I sent a return message, just in case the time-clock was, in fact,  in motion behind the scenes.  I never heard anything further.  Either the person went elsewhere, or gave up. 

Since there was no information attached to either the message or the guest, it's hard to know whether I would have wanted the booking. 

[Ann72]

@Michelle53 @Lawrene0 @Emilia42 @Sarah977  After talking the guest back from the ledge, she booked.  She managed to jump all the hurdles and put the request through.  We wrote back and forth, then I accepted and sent a modest discount for her trouble.  Then we got on the phone and talked it out. Turns out she had tried to use Airbnb in the fall and found it so difficult they'd used a local renting agency.  Decided to give Airbnb one more chance and after a confusing and upsetting glitch, almost gave it up forever.  

You're welcome, Airbnb.  You have a happy new customer.   (Emojis are broken again or I would use the one with the halo here.)

[Sarah977]

@Ann72  Well done. Hosts should get a voucher equal to the value of the guest's service fee when they take the time and have the patience to talk a new guest down off the ledge due to Airbnb's user-unfriendly maze.

[Ann72]

Although I find the host-facing site incredibly user-friendly, @Sarah977, it does seem that guests have to clear a lot of hurdles to complete a booking.  That's probably a good thing, overall, but it is one of the many reasons I thank every one of them for booking.  I know it wasn't easy!