I was scammed by professional "guests"

[Stephen1120]

Air Bnb has responded with the same generic robot response to about 50 of my messages. I have received multiple commitments to calling me and have not been called. They even scheduled a phone call and never called. Now they are refusing to help. I have been hosting for 2 years and never had a single issue with a guest until I ran into these pathological lying maniacs. I am simply going to post the email I sent to Airbnb so I don't have to type it out again. In short, they intentionally dirtied my place, PEED on the toilet and bathroom floor, put a nose snot in a glass, fed there dog out of my people bowls and left the dog food in the bowl to rot, put balls of dust on all of the surfaces, etc. in the most staged and psychotic way in order to get a free weekend trip and full refund. 

Here is the email: 

The guest arrived at my townhouse at approximately 5:00pm. Upon arrival, it appears they inspected the place and notified me that the cleaner we hired missed a few locations in the house. (Based on the dialogue, it was clear to me that they had done this before in order to attain discounts and refunds, but that is just my personal opinion. I'm sure you could determine that is correct upon review of their travel/account history.) I immediately began searching for a cleaner who could come to the house to clean the areas that were missed. The one cleaner who was available on a holiday weekend told me she could be there the next day (Saturday 11/28) at 10:00am. This did not suffice. The guest called me and began harassing me. The guest told me they worked for the district attorney's office in Rochester and knew the "health department inspector" directly. The guest told me they would have my air bnb shut down permanently and that I would be fined thousands of dollars if I did not send a cleaner immediately. 

Following that harassment, I called the cleaner and BEGGED them to go to the townhouse to clean that night. At approx. 6:00pm 11/27 the cleaner showed up. This was LESS THAN AN HOUR after the original complaint. Upon arrival, the cleaner told me the guest was belligerent and drunk. The cleaner tried calming the guest down and said he would be done in an hour. The guest continued yelling and shouting hysterically at the cleaner and once again repeated the claims that my townhouse would be shut down by the health department. The guest told the cleaner that he was a district attorney in Rochester. The guest was NOT HAPPY that the cleaner had arrived because the guest wanted to stay at the townhouse the entire weekend FOR FREE. After about 20 minutes of harassing my cleaner, the guest SENT THE CLEANER AWAY and DID NOT ALLOW the cleaner to clean even though he had showed up in under an hour and told the guest he could be done in under an hour. 

After the cleaner left, the guest called me directly. At this point the guest was even more belligerent, maniacal, and insane. The guest once again threatened to shut my place down. He said he would call the cops and the health department and that they would show up the next morning if I did not immediately send them a full refund. I asked the guest why he did not let the cleaner perform his duties and he said quote "suck my **bleep**ing **bleep** faggot. If you don't send me a refund I will **bleep** your life up and destroy you. I am a **bleep**ing district attorney" among many other things. Out of fear, I immediately sent a full refund and had a conversation with an air bnb rep letting them know what happened. I also told the guest that they would have a few hours to leave my townhouse because I was concerned that they would damage or destroy the place and/or personal items in the townhouse. I have not yet inspected the townhouse, so I do not know if they caused any damage or stole any property. 

Following the conversation with the Airbnb representative, I simply googled the guests name and found out that he is not a district attorney. The internet showed that he works for an exterminator company in Rochester. At that point, I realized I had been completely fooled and that everything the guest had been saying was a lie. He was threatening me and my airbnb and scaring me and my family with these false accusations and fabricated fantastical lies. The man was clearly drunk or insane. 

I do not believe I should be liable for the full refund especially when I lost the opportunity to book to guests that are not psychotic and deranged. I also had to pay TWO CLEANERS a total of $225 which means I lost out on over $700 from the weekend. I am also terrified that this psychopath will return at some point to cause damage based on his threats. I am requesting that Airbnb cover the costs for the reservation and remove that guest from the application so that no other hosts have to deal with them. 

EMAIL FROM THE NEXT MORNING: 

Although this is hard to believe even for me, I just inspected the home and I am 100% positive they dirtied and stained the place intentionally. When I arrived for my morning inspection on 11/27, I noticed that the carpets had been cleaned, all plates, dishes, glasses, etc had been washed and put away, the beds were made with brand new sheets (been using brand new linens for each guest since covid), and the bathrooms had been bleached (still smelled the bleach product). Now, upon arrival, I found a glass in the sink with a strange black disgusting object in it, I found dirt all over the carpets, urine all over the toilet seat, etc. 

Although I have not seen any of the pictures the guests sent to Airbnb, I would bet my life these are the pictures they sent. After I refunded them and asked them to leave they spent the next two hours performing these stunts and taking pictures. 

Some of my electronics were found in the trash. The planter in front of my house was destroyed. This confirms my worry that they would cause damage to my property. 

I have no idea what to think or feel. It's incredulous, odd and terrifying to say the least. 

___

Still no legitimate response from Airbnb which is why I am here seeking help. I need this income as my small family of 4 (5 year old and 2 year old with special needs) has been devastated by covid. 

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

@Stephen1120   I'm sorry to hear you've had to have such an unpleasant interaction with a terrible person. If there's a silver lining here, it's that you probably cut your losses by removing the guest from the property rather than allowing him to complete the stay, as this might have resulted in heavier damage and a nasty dispute over his refund scam.

The conventional wisdom of  old-school hospitality is that if a guest has a problem or claims things are not up to your standards, you take the appropriate measures to make it right and keep their business. No doubt this is what you were thinking when you sent the cleaner in on short notice. But as a low-volume Airbnb host, you stand more to lose than to gain with this approach, as demonstrated here. If the guest makes it clear upon arrival that they are unsatisfied with the property - even if it doesn't escalate to threats and slurs - the only course of action I can recommend is to immediately insist that they cancel their booking, and inform them that they will be given a full refund upon inspection and return of the keys. Ideally, you or a co-host will be physically onsite at the time of the departure so there's no room for dispute about the state of the property.

In your case, the cleaner was pressed into the role of co-host on the spot, which is not ideal; acting as your representative is not a standard part of that job. Nonetheless, they were their under your instructions and acting on your behalf, so as far as the other parties are concerned, the liability for their wages is entirely yours. 

The physical damages, if they're substantial enough, might be possible to get some compensation for. See here: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/264/what-do-i-do-if-my-guest-breaks-something-in-my-place

A few takeaways here:

- Never attempt to appease someone who is harassing and threatening you. Get them out of there!

- If you're unable to physically attend to the property when issues arise, you can benefit from having a local co-host to have on call to deal with inspections, repairs, and customer-service issues. (One who can also complete the cleaning is certainly a more cost-effective choice).

- Adjust your calendar settings to make sure every booking is worth the costs you put into it, with some allowances for incidental damage. A longer Minimum Stay and a higher Cleaning Fee are two examples of how to do that. You currently allow 1-night stays, which are a recipe for disaster.

- Finally, if you leave off Instant Book and vet your guests with a bit of pre-booking correspondence, you can usually weed out the bad guys and lessen the risk of incidents like this in the future.

[Stephen1120]

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I do not have the instant book option available. One night stays are the norm in my town. I felt it necessary to appease the person who was threatening me since they were in my home and claiming to have connections with law enforcement and the district attorney. 

I would not have provided the refund without the threats which all turned out to be pathological lies. The man had no law enforcement connections and was not a district attorney. I think airbnb owes it to their hosts to protect us from situations like this. I fully believed had I not provided the full refund immediately that he would follow through with his threats and destroy my property. How could I not send the refund? Why does airbnb take no responsibility for this highly irregular circumstance? 

It is not a typical unhappy guest. I KNEW there was nothing wrong with my property and that it was clean. I was trying to appease people to avoid blackmail and damage. 

Thank you 

[Anonymous]

@Stephen1120   I don't really see where in this Airbnb is liable for the (appalling) behavior of your guest, considering that it's principally a third-party broker in an agreement between the two of you. In theory you might have fared better here if it had been easier to reach a competent customer service agent who could have intervened on your behalf, but looking at what Airbnb has whittled its workforce down to, your only port of call would've been an outsourced agent who would be completely out of their depth in a situation like this. Airbnb can't realistically protect you from bad behavior - you're the boss of your home and unfortunately sometimes you've gotta act like it.

For better or worse, you're an independent operator and Airbnb is a tool you use for your listing (no matter how much they try to micromanage you, this is exactly how they portray their relationship to hosts in the Terms of Service). It happens a lot that cruddy guests make outlandish legal threats to get their way - although usually it's just a Karen or a Chad throwing their weight around rather than a drunk exterminator pretending to be the DA. I've had this happen in so many jobs that I'm used to calling their bluff: "why don't I save you the trouble and get the police down here to talk about it now?"  

Anyway, here's the thing: you were absolutely correct to terminate the contract and remove the guest from your property, but this does mean that you forfeit the payout - regardless of whether you were bullied into it. "Blackmail" would be the appropriate term if the guest made an actual gain, but considering that he's still on the hook for the Airbnb service fees and didn't get any free nights, it's hard to make the case that he profited from this racket.

I'm sure you recognize in hindsight that it was a mistake to send a cleaner in as your proxy to a home that you knew to be occupied by a volatile and abusive person.  I don't say this to criticize - the panic of the moment would have clouded anyone's judgment - but unless Airbnb had explicitly instructed you to do so, that particular choice is one that you and only you are responsible for.

I hope you're able to recoup your losses with better bookings, as well as the cost of repairing everything the guest damaged. 

[Stephen1120]

If airbnb is not liable for protecting hosts, why are they responsible for protecting the guests? Why are they responsible for fraud?  Might as well be the wild west out there. We use airbnb as a 3rd party protection so that we don't have to deal with these things on our own. If they want to feign commitment to customer satisfaction this should also apply to the customers (hosts) they are making the their income off of.  They collect insanely large fees and aren't there to help? When these types of situations arise I personally believe that should take care of their hosts. Covering the loses I incurred is not even one thousandth of a cent for a massive corporation like airbnb, but for me it's an entire weeks income. It's feeding my children and paying my bills. Why commit to using a service if you aren't protected when things are blatantly wrong? 

Thanks again. I do appreciate your input I just do not necessarily agree with the lack of support from airbnb when it comes to people's property and livelihood. They should recognize the issue and provide the support. Why would they be responsible for the damage of my property if they are nothing more than a broker of an agreement? 

I'm positive airbnb returned all of the service fees to the guest and probably even covered their expenses to stay the night at a hotel (guest initially tried charging me for the hotel fees). 

[Mark116]

@Stephen1120  I always assume that Airbnb will be no help and that is the best case scenario that they don't actively sabotage things.  Airbnb does not support you as a host, or care about you or your business.  They have [correctly] reasoned that there will always be more hosts in the pipeline and so they care about 1) branding, 2) guests 3) money, hosts might crack the top ten but that is it.

However, in this case, Airbnb shouldn't compensate you because you are the one who cancelled and did the refund.  If you want to try to get Airbnb to pay for whatever items were damaged, you are on stronger ground there, but I wouldn't count on that either.  It actually IS the wild west on Airbnb but that fact is obscured because most people are not scammers or destroyers, so most of the time things go as they are supposed to, but when they don't, Airbnb can't be counted on to act either responsible or even logically.

[Stephen1120]

Thanks, Mark. You are accurate. I assumed airbnb would read into the details and do the right thing even though they don't have any obligation to. 

[Anonymous]

@Stephen1120  You've frequently asserted that you're 100% positive about things that you don't actually have unequivocal evidence about, so TBH I don't take your certainty on anything very seriously. I have relatives who are 100% positive that they've seen ghosts in the house, and you can't really argue with that even when you know it was probably just the Klansman they married.

This might be a good time to actually read the Terms of Service that you click in agreement to every time you take a booking. Here's a shortcut: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2908/terms-of-service   Before making broad assumptions about what your contract stipulates Airbnb's obligations to you are, make sure you've actually read that contract in full. I think your idea of what Airbnb should ideally be for hosts is really cool, but it doesn't resonate with a) what they are, nor with b) what their Terms of Service promise (and those two are also pretty different things). 

Perhaps hosts who have more experience with competing listing services can suggest one that is better at covering your butt when you get suckered by a guest. I don't know one way or other, if the support that you feel you deserve is actually available at VRBO, et al, but that seems worth investigating. Alternatively, a lot of property owners who don't have the stomach or the balls for doing the dirty work of vetting guests and defending their homes against drunk two-bit con artists choose to offload that responsibility onto an experienced property manager, rather than a beleaguered cleaner. Also an option to consider.

[Stephen1120]

Thanks again, Andrew. I believe I asserted that I was 100% positive about ONE thing - the fact that airbnb returned the fees and covered their hotel stay. I made that claim because the rep I spoke to that night told me they were returning the fees. In regards to the hotel stay she said airbnb would quote "handle" it. I took that as they were compensating the guest as anyone in my position would. Not sure how that is comparable to seeing ghosts? If I made any other claims like that, please let me know. 

I have ignored the insults and blame shifting you've laced through out your responses in between the factual comments on terms of service and contracts. All that tells me is you put no time into reading what I wrote and 99.9% of the time into your snarky back handed responses. I understand contracts and I understand that I refunded the guest. I believed airbnb would do the right thing. 

You have once again claimed, foolishly, that I did not vet the guest and that I subjected the cleaner to this because I couldn't handle it myself or because I'm stupid. Can't quite figure out your angle. I can't believe I have to do this again (I don't), but I will. One, I don't live in the area and it was my daughter's birthday. Two, I was doing the right thing by sending the cleaner. At that point the guest was irrationally unhappy, but didn't seem violent. The cleaner and I both believed doing the right thing would satisfy and calm the guest as anyone would. I also paid the cleaner handsomely. Three, I did vet the guest. We had a nice long and lovely conversation in the days leading up to their arrival. They seemed as kind and normal as any other guest. I suppose you wanted me to use psychic powers and/or foresight like your ghost seeing supernatural family members. It's simple as I know airbnb has no contractual obligation to cover my expenses. I assumed they would do the right thing which may be naive. None of your claims or assertions make any sense (besides the facts of the terms of service). My guess is you enjoy injecting yourself into as many of these feeds as you can for thumbs ups and attention. I guess that's an option you considered. 

Sincerely, 

A ghost story 

[Lynn1916]

Disagree. The benefit of Airbnb that it serves as an interface between guests and property.

 We just got this exact scam. Came in, said place was the “filthiest” they’d ever seen. Stuck dust on cabinets and said it was a spiderweb.

Put body hair from private parts in the corner of a bathroom. (Btw they were Caucasian-we’re ethnic and this was our first time renting-no one had ever used the shower!).

They also literally dumped a pile of dirt in the middle of the kitchen.

They even asked to make sure if it were the first time renting.

Luckily we have photos from the final clean up the night before.

Next time, the minute I get a cleaning complaint-I’ll ask them to leave and cancel rental immediately.

[Helen3]

I’m sorry you had this experience - sounds like a real shocker!!

Personally I would have asked Airbnb to cancel the booking when the guest first kicked off @Stephen1120 . You know as an experienced host that’s it’s against Airbnb’s terms for  guests to extort hosts in this way. 

Yes you lose the booking fee but better than  being bullied by this unreasonable guest. And hopefully you would get a replacement booking. 

I would not have put a cleaner into this sort of situation but would have gone in myself. It’s not fair to put someone else in this sort of situation when you know you have an unstable, unreasonable guest. 

I also wouldn’t have refunded until I had personally checked my listing for damage.

It’s a shame you chose to refund this bully without checking your place first. 

Going forward do familiarise yourself with how Airbnb works and your rights, so you don’t get caught out again. 

[Stephen1120]

Helen, 

Again I appreciate your response, but if the details are taken into account there was no time to check the place first. It was a hostile situation. If I had not provided the refund who knows what he would have done? There is nothing in Airbnb's rules, regulations, topics, etc. that outlines a particular situation like this where my home was literally being held hostage. 

True, I should not have subjected the cleaner to them, but I truly believed that would satisfy the guest. It was only after he went on his tirade with the cleaner that I realized they did not want a solution of any kind. 

Lastly, I did try to get in touch with airbnb for an hour, but I could not get any one on the phone. This was a short time period where I had to react in the moment to what the guest was threatening and actually doing. It would have been great if airbnb got on the line with me, but that didn't happen until hours later. 

Thank you 

[Helen3]

You don’t look into the future you have someone local  who can check the property in person. 

I think the lesson here is that you need a local co-host who can be on hand to manage these sort of situations for you. They could have gone in and checked the place against the guests claims before deciding on a course of action. @Stephen1120 

please leave an honest review to warn other hosts. 

[Stephen1120]

True, but how would familiarizing myself with how airbnb works prevent a random unpredictable situation from happening. Many of these responses are asking me to see into the future somehow. 

Thanks

[Anne1005]

That is such a great suggestion to get into the home and see the damage before refunding. Then what?  Have the computer and organise the refund and wait in the property until that is done and then physically wait until guest leaves .Lock the door behind them until they are gone. 

I refunded my guest this week from my home.  But the guest stayed for another 5 hours. she said she was working as a Lawyer!!  we gave her a time to leave of 8.30 pm and she had not departed . We had to threaten her with a police call out and she opened the door and left. I should have stayed in the house at 10 am when I visited to see her complaints - she destroyed a bed etc. but then she locked me out so I could not get back in allowing her to do her days work. I wanted her out so I should have stayed and sorted out the full refund and asked her to depart. not sure that would have worked as she needed to get a days work in !!! so she said - who knows what she wanted .  I knew she was difficult from the first conversation but did not know the rules of cancellation when the person has given only 6 hours before arrival and is in flight for all of that time and out of communication. I can not see the penalties for cancelling a very last minute booking where the guest has only just booked but not arrived ie started the booking. I would love it if anyone can answer this point.