3 dissapointing guests all in 1 day

[Sean433]

Guest 1:

Booked for 2 but seemed to have at least 3 guests, maybe 4. We charge $10 extra for every guest after 2.  This is for a listing I co-host for. The main host told me they not only had at least 3 guests but there was urine on bed, they were banging doors when closing them while all other guests are mindful of how they treat the place. So I left a review only mentioning the extra guests, not mentioning the urine or the banging. Airbnb then calls me and says I need proof and if I don't have proof, there needs to be a trail of me messaging the guest to address the extra guests. I said i did not confront because often times it leads to retaliatory review and how do we provide proof if the listing doesn't have a camera. I also asked how come I don't get this level of support if I call in to review an unfair review of me? How come airbnb does not ask guests for proof? He kept talking to me like a robot and i just had to hang up or lose it. 15 minutes later, review of guest is gone.

Guest 2:

Partied until 4:30 am and received complaints from tenants downstairs. Apartment smelled like weed when cleaner came. I confronted the partying because it was yesterday but not the weed because we only found out after the cleaner came. So if i leave a review, good chance I will get retaliatory review. Also, by the logic of the customer service rep in the above example, can my review be removed because i did not confront guest of the weed and if so, how to confront if it is after the fact?

Guest 3:

Check-out time is 11:00am. Cleaner came at 3:00pm because she was busy cleaning the apartment the guest smoked weed in (guest 2). They tell the cleaner they need 30 more minutes (after they are already 4 hours late in checking out). I message the guest saying she needs to enter immediately because we have new guests coming soon. He did not reply yet (it is 3:32 pm now).

I am used to guests breaking rules but 3 in 1 day is unusual. If I leave guest 2 & 3 review, good chance I will get back to back retaliatory reviews and not the same level of support Guest 1 had.

@Branka-and-Silvia0- this one was for you !

[Susan17]

@Sean433 

Thankfully, your cleaning lady wasn't hurt, but in my experience, the more you let guests away with, the more liberties they'll take - not only with you, but with their unfortunate future hosts, as they'll be emboldened by their experience of not being held accountable for their transgressions. 

How will you fare with the LPAT  rulings in Toronto yesterday? Will you be affected? 

[Sean433]

@Susan17 

She was thankfully not hurt physically but hurt psychologically. I sent attached a screen shot of her experience in the next page in hopes that the guest is removed. I almost always let bad behaviour go in the interest of moving forward but this was one is inexcusable on so many levels.

Yes and no, the ruling is rather lenient. We can still rent STR for 180 days a year since each of the listings I manage has a different primary resident. We also rent for 30 days at a time here and there which is not considered STR. It will remove a lot of competition which I see as a positive.

[Rebecca181]

@Sean433 One would think that even the new, recently trained Airbnb customer service 'support' person would be educated enough, and empowered enough by management, to see that a host with hundreds of stays and hundreds of positive guest reviews is more than likely experienced enough to know when a guest is a danger to the community and should be removed from the platform. 

Instead, it appears that over the past two years hosts are increasingly viewed as being 'suspect' reporters whose accounts of dangerous, even criminal guest behavior(s) on their property are not to be believed. They remain on the platform (often under a different name and 'profile' photo (cartoon character, guns, flowers, etc) and continue to use the platform and cause problems in yet more host homes with ease.

There's enough of a moon-lit sky now to see the iceberg directly in our path. Some of us will be getting off the ship before it sinks.

[Rebecca181]

Airbnb's policies support and encourage 'bad actor' guests that harm hosts and their homes. All hosts should be concerned. I've de-listed my property until I feel less at risk. No other booking site seeks to control my listing in the manner Airbnb now seeks to control it via their guestcentric policies, and no other booking site prevents me from properly vetting and screening guests so that I know who is coming to my home. All hosts should be concerned, at the very least. And even enraged. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Sean433 @Rebecca181 @Mike1034 @Emilia42 

Oh, yes...Airbnb is sprinting... just not in the host's direction. All dots are already connected, we just have to step back to see the bigger picture.

[Sean433]

@Laura_C @Lizzie 

Good morning, as both of you may know if you look into my account as a host, I very rarely escalate issues we have had with guests breaking rules which is happening a lot. As I pointed out, we had 3 different guests break critical rules in the past few days. This happens at a constant level. 9 out of 10 times, I let them go because I would rather spend my energy and time with good guests and making sure our listings are above standard. My reviews reflect this. However what happened with our guest Shlomo yesterday is a bigger safety issue that needs to be addressed before he does this again. It was inexcusable. I ask that you escalate this to trust and safety because the customer service rep I spoke to yesterday was not very helpful.

Our cleaner sent me a text message this morning about how she was in fear for her safety over how this guest yelled at her to leave after he was already 4 hours past check-out. I want to attach the image of the text message she sent me this morning because I want to be transparent and help airbnb do what's right. As well, feel free to reach out to our current guests staying there and they can also verify that the guest only left at 4:00pm after they arrived and knocked the door. Despite all of this evidence, the case manager said that they cannot charge Shlomo for his overstay because he is denying he left late. In fact, he said to the customer service rep that he had a flight at 1:00pm and left the home earlier. Well, I have 4 different eyewitness, our cleaner plus the 3 guests staying at the listing now which have and will verify what I am stating. So it is now his word against the word of 4 different people plus me.

The cleaner and the current guests staying there now were punished for his actions. If he is not removed from the platform, it may happen again. If we lose our cleaner who has been an exceptional employee, that will be very unfortunate because she is now in fear of her future safety because of this experience. Please help make this right in the interest of upholding trust and safety for the community which includes hosts, cleaners and other guests. At this stage, the amount I have requested Shlomo for his overstay and for the cost to refund our current guests their cleaning fee is not important to me. I am not concerned for the money as I am concerned about how airbnb is apparently letting him get away with this despite all of the evidence I have already submitted to them and on this thread.

Please also feel free to reach out to our current guest for further validation of what happened yesterday.

[Sean433]

@Laura_C @Lizzie7 

Further verification of what happened from our current guests who came to this bad surprise...

[Lisa723]

@Sean433 what an unfortunate string of events.

Why are you afraid of retaliatory reviews, since the guest can't see your review before they leave their own?

[Sean433]

@Lisa723 

I am 99% certain he will leave a bad review as soon as I leave him one. He is probably smart enough to realize my review of him will be bad. I don't think he deserving of a bad review. He needs to be removed from the platform. If this doesn't happen by the 14th day, I will leave one at the last moment. But if he doesn't get removed, I think I just won't bother asking airbnb for anything anymore, since no matter what evidence I have, it seems guests can do no wrong if they just deny things. I gave airbnb so much evidence, we all know what happened.

[Allison2]

Have you never run into this kind of situation as a host?

I'll tell you how I got my lowest rating in 5 years of hosting.

A guest (a doctor, he wanted to be sure I knew), booked my small suite with a max of 4 people. (~400 square ft, 2 BR suite. One with 2 twin beds, one queen). The first night he snuck a 5th person in. I addressed it directly and asked him for extra payment. No problem, I thought we were square.

They blew a fuse and messaged about it. I replied 2 minutes later and had it fixed 10 minutes after that.

The next night he snuck yet another person into the suite, which I didn't see until they were checking out. (That's 6 people, 3 beds, tiny place). He'd already been told about my max occupancy, so this was just disrespectful. I charged them my full "unauthorized guest" fee. ($100)

Mind you, we prepared everything exactly as I do for every guest, earning a 4.96 average rating.

He rated me 3* overall

3* on communication, implying that the power was out all day and that the doorbell camera was "creepy". (It's the only thing that saved me with this jerk. If Sean had one, Air wouldn't dodge the late checkout fees)

3* on value, complaining that they "didn't use any more beds than provided" (duh? not like they could use more beds than provided?)  It was only poor value because he broke the rules and paid extra guest charges.

I didn't earn a 3* score. That disrespectful guest was mad that his entitlement doesn't extend to the inside of my house. He wanted to hurt my listing because he was called out on his poor behavior. THAT's a retaliatory review.

Sometimes they submit theirs right away. Sometimes they'll wait and see if you submit one first. The only way to avoid them is to leave your review just before the review window closes.

[Taj46]

As far as the checkout goes, doing research and I do agree with the following method is to include in your house rules:

Late checkouts = $50 fee

and if that late checkout is more than 2 hours = a full days rate (not allowing them to stay)

and the reason why I agree with this is because this guest is Jeopardizing your business by costing you not only money for your cleaners, the stress and time of yourself, team and now a new guest.   

[Emilia42]

@Sean433 Did you attempt to charge the guest for the overstay per the TOS? Did Airbnb discourage you from doing so or did they simple refuse to help collect any additional money?

[Sean433]

@Emilia42 @Taj46 

I did however airbnb said since he is denying he left late, they cannot charge him. Although the evidence is so clear as I presented here and to airbnb. The fact that airbnb would believe such a person over myself or our current guests who have 22 reviews themselves is embarrassing. Both the cleaner and our guests have sent me messages confirming this. The guests even saw him inside and confronted him as stated in the message from the guest which I attached here.

Taj, the house rules you set out don't mean anything. You can write whatever you want, airbnb will not enforce it when it comes to charging guests even if you have evidence. They do not actually take a deposit from the guest. Scummy people such as this will not pay attention to the rules anyways.

Even after I included Lizzie and Laura on this thread, I did not get a reply from anyone. The money is not even the important thing here. They are setting a precedence whereby a guest can do almost whatever they want which includes intimidating others, screwing over hosts and their employees and in this particular case even screwing over other guests who had to check into a dirty home. I have come to accept some of this over the years as this is not the first example of such an instance but this one in particular is inexcusable. Threatening our cleaning lady is NOT RIGHT. He needs to be banned!!!

I was at work at the time and I was not able to get there in time to personally see him out. Otherwise, I sure would have and would have also recorded it on my phone although the extra evidence probably woudn't matter to airbnb.

[Alice595]

@Sean433  I have at least two guests who left one hour late than my checkout time 12pm. I was at the checkout when they left late. If I were not at the checkout, they probably would have stayed even longer. They told me that they needed to take a shower before they checked out. Then I had to wait for one hour before they checked out.

I really don't know how to actually charge those guests. I just left them a review by stating that they checked out late. It is really annoying. But Airbnb just don't stand on the hosts' side to enforce the rules laid out in their TOS.

[Emilia42]

@Sean433 That is unbelievable! Even if it had been the next guests who called to complain that the previous guest was still there it would still fall back on the host. The guest can do no wrong and there is no support from Airbnb when these situations happen.