ABB CS is not just bad but Dangerous

[Kelly149]

Last night at 1015-ish, a guest made a request to book for that same evening. (We are request only, so I don't have 'last-minute booking' barriers, bc I have to approve all stays anyway)

I was already asleep in bed, but the House Rules were sent over in the chat (the guest had a terrible review in his profile, did not answer the pre-booking questions, and at the time of his request was already outside of our stated arrival times).

At 1215 he messaged in the chat "hey, I need the address, I can't find the place". 

So, then he calls ABB CS. This is where the dangerous part comes into play.

ABB CS talks to this "guest", gives him my address and my phone number and tells him that they'll reach out to me to help. This guest DOES NOT HAVE A VALID RESERVATION. In no way shape or form should he have access to any of my information. 

So, with the new information he's been given this guest locates the barn (not hard to find a big red barn in the city even at 2 in the morning.) Funny though, since he doesn't actually have a reservation, he also does not have a door code. But he is undeterred and pushes thru a locked gate and enters the barn thru one of the doors on the back porch. 

At 7am when we get up we see this thread from the guest and the CS message I received "Hey, Kelly, please help this guest access your place" and I say "how weird that CS didn't tell this guy he doesn't have a reservation when they had the chance" and then we go to check the security cameras to find out about the tresspassing and entry.

So, this "guest" got woken up by the Sherrif's office telling him that he was trespassing and needed to vacate. Well guess what, he's really confused bc ABB CS told him our address and phone number and encouraged him to carry on as if he had a reservation when he didn't.

Bad look ABB. This is not how CS should work. This could have ended quite badly. Knowing if a guest does or does not have a reservation should be CS 101.

I dare anyone in corporate to look into the chats and try to explain to me what happened and what kind of training regimen they'll undertake to better educate CS.

@catherinepowell @Lizzie @Quincy @stefanie @Brian @nate

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

Jesus @Kelly149  I am speechless 😮  You should request Airbnb to pay you for extra work and stress.

I am hosting for 6 years and I still don't understand why booking "request" even exists? It should be "inquiry" and "IB" only. It would make the process much easier for both, guests and hosts. Requests are too confusing. They really think they booked and they are done. I had such a situation yesterday - request, decline (bc no communication), request again, withdrawn ( wrong number of guests), request again, accepted.

[Anonymous]

@Branka-and-Silvia0  rather than eliminating Requests, I'd prefer that hosts have the option to disable Inquiries. They're usually a waste of time and quite often scam attempts. 

[Sammy-L-0]

I got one of those tonight.  Is the house available May 17-19? is it your home or a vacant house? I will leave very clean. I want to know more, text me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Uh, NO. DECLINED.

[Kelly149]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 Abb has purposely made Request too simple; enter your ccard and think you’re done. 

it should have a series of steps:

- is the profile complete & verified?

- show the guest the house rules, confirm each w a check box. 

- is your guest count accurate?

- confirm the guests communication methods.  & tell them to respond to host questions. 
- only count the time where waiting for host responses (not while waiting for guest responses) and don’t start the clock outside of the listing’s normal waking hours (I had a request come in at 130am last night, it was “7hours waiting” when I woke up.)

I’ve stopped interacting with requests until after they’ve seen & responded to House Rules. And I’m declining faster people who don’t communicate 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Kelly149  I agree with your suggestions and would add another one - the possibility to send a special offer to someone's request.

Bc as it is now, I have to approve first, and then, through the resolution center, I can request extra money for some special service. If they accept it then fine, but if not then what?

[Kelly149]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 Yes, I agree with this and also I don’t think Request should block the calendar. 

[Kelly149]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 This is a good actionable idea. Accept. Decline. OR Alternate Offer. 

this would be especially helpful for the ‘requested for 1, but is actually 4’ groups. Or the ‘I’ll be arriving early/late’ people

[Kitty-and-Creek0]

@Branka-and-Silvia0  @Anonymous 

I am fine with both Requests and Inquiries. It works well as is, on my end.  I like having options, as too few boxes can be confining. I do not use IB, it turned out to not be appropriate for us, in our special situation/location. Inquiries have been useful, they serve to help clarify for people who may not have read and understood the listing as well as they could have,  before requesting. That conversation has been important for them as well as for us. @Anonymous I've not been contacted by scammers so far, thank goodness. @Kelly149 It would be convenient, as you suggested, to have a clock that considers our various time zones. We hosts need to sleep, too. It is challenging to make any system work for everyone, I've learned to make it work as well as possible for me. There will always be surprises, and they are the fun part, the challenges that can turn out to be advantages. 

[Mark116]

@Kitty-and-Creek0  I don't mind requests, but I do believe that Airbnb has somehow changed the screens that guests see since the number of people who send a request and then go MIA has increased massively over the last year. This suggests to me that these guests don't realize they only made a request but think they have booked.

We will no longer approve someone unless they respond to our message(s) and confirm they have read the house rules/listing details.  This means that in some cases, we have to decline, because the guest never responds within the 24 hour timeframe, and that hurts US, because Airbnb's redesign of the user interface for guests must now be confusing and misleading.

[Kelly149]

@Kitty-and-Creek0 I’ve seen zero advantages from how abb refuses to show guests the House Rules and misleads guests into thinking they’ve booked instead of clarifying that they’ve merely asked to book. There is no upside. It needs a revamp. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Kelly149  zero advantages, but many disadvantages. With guests who read I exchange maybe 2 messages but with those who didn't find all info and didn't read it I spend days and a lot of messages and sometimes it ends up with declines or withdrawals. So it's torture and time-wasting for both sides. Hiding info is a very stupid idea

[Kelly149]

@Branka-and-Silvia0   Yes, for those of us who aren’t bullied into ignoring our stated rules, the hiding of the rules just leads to angst. But abb keeps doing it, so there must still be a decent % of host who don’t decline & cancel those non-reading guests

[Piotr48]

Wow that's terrible @Kelly149 Thankfully he didn't do any damage or steal stuff!!

[Kelly149]

@Piotr48  To be sure this was not a guest who was tidy and careful. He made more problems to be cleaned up in 5 hours than most guests do in 5 days. 

- he dropped a glass soy sauce bottle in the parking area. Attempted to clean the driveway with a kitchen sponge & vacuum. 

- fell asleep on couch with a bowl of French onion dip. He, the couch & the tv remote were covered in it when the sheriff woke him up. 

- we found cigarette butt, a notary stamp & some random keys after he left. 

- he’d loaded the fridge with eggs, bacon & sausage. Thank goodness he never got to cook them. 

[Inna22]

@Kelly149 I read most of the replies but not all. I hope you are working with ABB to get paid for the night plus cleaning fee. No reason for the guest not to pay for the night that was spent there. That should be a minimum compensation.

Welcome to the crazy story club, I think you are the 2022 winner!