Non payment from guest

[Michelle2137]

I accepted a booking this week for 1 night and the guests requested to stay an additional 2 nights. I have a payment of $10 an extra guest a night which airbnb had not added on the total amount.

I just got an email from airbnb saying the guests payment didn't go thru and they would not be paying me. 

How is this possible?

[Elena87]

@Michelle2137 

In the airbnb payment tos ; 

https://www.airbnb.com/terms/payments_terms#sec201910_7

At 9.2 Airbnb absolves itself paying out if it cannot collect payment from the guest , labelling itself as a Limited Payment Collection Agent to exonerate.

9.2 Each Providing Member agrees that payment made by a Purchasing Member through Airbnb Payments, shall be considered the same as a payment made directly to the Providing Member, and the Providing Member will provide the purchased services to the Purchasing Member in the agreed-upon manner as if the Providing Member has received the payment directly from the Purchasing Member. Each Providing Member agrees that Airbnb Payments may refund the Purchasing Member in accordance with the Airbnb Terms. Each Providing Member understands that Airbnb Payments’ obligation to pay the Providing Member is subject to and conditional upon successful receipt of the associated payments from Purchasing Members. Airbnb Payments guarantees payments to Providing Members only for such amounts that have been successfully received by Airbnb Payments from Purchasing Members in accordance with these Payments Terms. In accepting appointment as the limited payment collection agent of the Providing Member, Airbnb Payments assumes no liability for any acts or omissions of the Providing Member

This particular issue infrequently crops up in the community pages. On the one hand, perhaps if you keep calling the airbnb service centre they might decide to pay as a goodwill gesture.

I understand that airbnb would be exposed to collusion scams if they guaranteed to pay, so from a business perspective it is on balance prudent to have such an exclusion.

Otherwise, it's another thing for all hosts, new and old, to keep in mind and to weigh up when faced for last minute extensions requests whether to accept via airbnb. For extra guests, it's always good practice to confirm number of guests in advance of the booking start date to prevent errors, deliberate or oversights

[Michelle2137]

Thanks for the reply Elena. I'm still not sure how that works since I thought airbnb usually collect the payment as soon as they book. They do when I book. 

[Mark116]

@Michelle2137  Are they not paying you for the whole stay or just the extra person charge?  

@Elena87  I get those TOS, but they are also based on the premise that airbnb takes the money at time of booking, so in theory, about 99.9% of the time, except in the cases where they stupidly let people split the payment or same day res, airbnb should already have the money by the time the guest arrives.  Right?

[Michelle2137]

This is what I understood, @Mark116 and as far as I know my payments aren't split.

I received an email immediately after the guest extended the stay saying the payment hadn't gone thru and that I should follow up with the guest.

They were out at the time and in the end the guest noticed it quickly and asked me before I had a chance to bring it up. She didn't understand what happened and I told her to check her email from airbnb. In the end she re entered her bank details and it went thru, so really no sure what happened.

Hopefully it's some weird one off thing although it does concern me as to whether it may happen in the future. 

As far as the extra guest payment it showed up later. I find a lot of discrepancies between my devices with rates etc ie iPhone/ipad/macbook. I have no idea why. I accepted a week long booking for around $700 which ended up being $400 odd. And on top of that when I looked at the request the first time it said like $279 but then had a $400 total at the bottom. 

I wondered at one point if when a person saves a listing it holds the price rate at the time of saving?? 

Even my own listing and calendar shows different rates on different days on the MacBook.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Michelle2137 @Mark116 

I've never read that 9.2 clause which @Elena87 pointed out. Talk about absolving all responsibility!

The option for guests to pay fully upfront is available, but in our set up we have two payments set at 50% on booking then 50% 14 days before arrival. As hosts we don't see any payment until days after the guests arrive, and we have a strict cancellation policy, meaning our deposit is secured - so why make them pay months ahead?

I have never checked that guests have paid in full before allowing access, I have wrongly assumed that with Airbnb being in control of financial transactions it would be their responsibility. I will be certainly checking in the future.

This:

and the Providing Member will provide the purchased services to the Purchasing Member in the agreed-upon manner as if the Providing Member has received the payment directly from the Purchasing Member. 

"If the guest doesn't pay, the host will accommodate the guest anyway..."

Like hell ! This Host might suffer or be the cause of an Extenuating Circumstance ! (joke).

Joking apart, what would be the legal way to avoid this or does @Michelle2137 just need to absorb the loss?

[Mark116]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  How do you check?  All I ever see is the date that they transfer the payment to us, I don't know how to see when/that the guest has paid airbnb?  I hate the split payment thing because it totally encourages guests to not pay the back half.

I guess you could sue airbnb in small claims court or something, but otherwise, since that is the 'agreement' I don't know that there is anything to be done.  I always heard that airbnb did a better job of protecting payments than booking and vrbo, but maybe not

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Mark116 

Sorry, can’t find any way to discover payments to date on a guests account using the ABB app.

Next time I’m near a desk or laptop I’ll look again. 

This is positively encouraging scammy guests and intentionally penalising hosts if payment cannot be checked.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Mark116 

I’d guess it would be amongst the ‘progress’ or in the ‘details’ tab somewhere?

Payment set up wise it’s part of your settings. We accommodate 8 which makes sense to split payments as often it’s a large amount for a 3 day booking. One night single person would be a different consideration.

[Sarah977]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  It's part of a host's settings? Where do you find that setting? I didn't think hosts had any input into whether a guest is allowed to pay all or half up front. And as far as I've ever seen, there is nowhere a host is given the information as to whether a guest has paid in full or not I once had an Airbnb rep mention that the guest paid half up front (it wasn't a probelm-the guest did pay the other half on time and was a great guest), when I was asking about the reservation, because the guest wasn't answering my mesages, but I don't think the rep was supposed to tell me that.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Sarah977 

I’m pretty sure that when I set up our listing the ability to specify payments was there.  I’d have to search through to find where.

For sure, we booked a place in Turkey last year and that payment option was available. 

[Sarah977]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  Yes, that payment option was available to you as a guest, but its Airbnb who gives that option to guests, not hosts. I know I read it somewhere in the Airbnb info, although I can't remember where- it said that they offer that option to some guests for some reservations.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Sarah977 

I just checked through our settings and can't find those payment options. I'm pretty sure that in setting it up I managed to save the 50-50% charging option, although it evades me now. At the time it made sense as it was a lower cost commitment to book by the guests. Regularly, we send guests payment requests before they arrive and we know not to send them before 14 days before their arrival as the system won't allow it because before then their second payment hasn't been made. Included in that second payment is the damage deposit (or more precisely the headroom on their credit card limit). Around 10 days before arrival payment requests get allowed.

What would be the criteria be for providing different payment options by Airbnb and how do they decide what the payment terms are?

[Sarah977]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  I have no idea how Airbnb determines which guests are given that 50/50 option and which aren't. All I remember was reading that "some "guests will be eligible for that on "some" bookings. When I have time to research, I'll try to figure out where that was written.

At the time, I remember thinking that maybe they wouldn't offer it to first-time users, as they didn't have an established track record of viable payments, or that they wouldn't offer it to those whose payments were problematic in the past, or maybe those who had low ratings as guests. Or that maybe bookings under a certain $ amount wouldn't be eligible. But those were just wild guesses on my part.

[Sarah977]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 I tried typing key words into the Airbnb Help search on 50% payments up front, but of course I can't find that wording anywhere there- I'll keep looking. But what I did see there under guest payment info is that the 50% upfront option appears to be discontinued-

"Note: Payment plans are no longer available for new reservations, although guests booking in Brazil can choose to pay in installments."

Now, do you think this might have anything to do with Airbnb trying to fill its coffers right now? Ya think?