Hi Emiel,
Thank you for your response and inquiry as to what the actual issue was. We are glad to share. In terms of functionality of the platform, we know it in a way that would not require us to call the support centre, as we have been using this platform, and hosting clients for years now. It is true that it is not often that assistance is required, and it is ever more so dissapointing that AirBnB chooses to completely ignore its long time, in good standing hosts, when the need actually arises. There were at least two separate and recent incidents involing guests. One incident involved a guest that left a review that did not correspond to the service that he received, and unfortunatelly airbnb was not able to remove that review, even though they refused to refund the client, finding his request unreasonable. The review had the lowest possible rating for us, given that immediately preceding ratings/reviews were all either 5 or 4 star, and immediately following ratings were all also either 5 or 4 star. His 1 star rating, and the only one we have received in at least a year (I believe a similar situations happenened once before, in our 4 years of hosting) effected our overall rating, and given how important ratings are, it seems airbnb could try to apply judgement ones in a while, when a review is clearly isolated, and does not reflect the opinion of absolute majorty of guests. AirBnB refused to remove the rating. Unfortunately AirBnB is not willing to listen to its hosts and allow to drop one or two reviews for every 100 reviews for example, but so be it, we have now come to expect that all requests are handled by airbnb staff with polite language and absolutely no resolution. We went on with our business, and couple of weeks later, had another situation. This time a lady client that booked one of our properties for a period of 5 days notified airbnb 3 days into the reservation that they will not be checking in due to a 'boyfriend's' health issue. This clien contacted us prior to the date of check in, and on the date of check in, and communicated to us that her boyfriend was receiving some kind of medical treatment. They client had the option of cancelling the booking at that time, however they did not proceed to cancel the booking and did not request a refund at that time, which we, in light of circumstances would have honoured. Instead the client request a refund on the 3rd day of the reservation. AirBnB gave the client a refund in full amount, and took it from OUR payout. This is completely unacceptable. We have a record of conversation with client, whereabouts they are aware of their issue prior to the date of check in and on the date of check in, however choose to let the reservation stay in place, and only after three days they cancel, leaving us without the use of our property, and possibility to rent the property to another guest for the entire duration of their original reservation. We understand that there are times when unforseen circumstances can force a client to cancel a reservation, and a refund is the right thing to do (and that there is a reference to this in the policy, copy of which airbnb did not provide to us after multiple requests), however we strongly feel that this client acted selfishly, keeping the reservation just in case, and then either being not able or not willing to travel for a short 2 days remaining, or finding it more cost efficient to rebook a different apartment for the shorter, and hence cheaper, period of time, got a refund, which took 5 days worth of revenue from our business. This is not fair, and if airbnb wants to give them a refund, it should do so not out of our pocked, but out of their own corporate account. So Emiel, hopefully with sufficient detail I have described the difficulties we have been facing, not with functionality of software, but with specific business situations involving people. Now in terms of the horrible customer service, or absence of meaningful customer service at that, I will explain our steps in trying to HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH AN AIRBNB MANAGER OVER THE PHONE. At least 5 different files open, at least 5 hours spend on the phone, at least 5 people spoken to on the phone about these two issues, with one request, to receive a call back from a manager. Three times I was promised that a manager would call me on my CELLPHONE (number confirmed). Instead we received typed responses in a matter of, 'thank you very much but the case is closed'. No discussion, no ability to escalate or review. Airbnb said so, and we have lost 5 days of the use of our property. When requested a specific link to actual policies pertaining to these situations, as well as, the link to file a complaint we were once again ingored. Airbnb has ignored us at every attempt to even have a conversation with anybody at airbnb who has the capacity to make a decision, and the feeling we got, is that their managers are just hiding beind their screens, unwilling to speak directly to the hosts. Sadly of course.
Please do not hesitate to ask if there is anything else you would like to know about why it turned into such a bad experience with us.
Best,
Tetiana and Taras
ps. we have been to the 'help centre' and found no resolution there for the issues we faced. It really is for rather basic inquiries.