Atlanta: Meon Guest Account, and Host Guarantee

[Ryan563]

This post is especially for hosts in Atlanta. I hosted someone over the holidays using the account name Meon (I'm not saying a person in the world named Meon  actually reserved my house, but that was the name on the account). To make a long story short, the group robbed us, went on a shopping spree with our credit cards, and trashed the house, stealing items, as well as financial documents from our safe. We canceled their reservation when it became clear that our safe had been compromised, and AirBNB told me they were moving them to another host's property!

This may be a long shot, but if anyone else in Atlanta hosted Meon  over the holidays I think we should compare notes. I have learned from my bank that someone tried to pay for an AirBNB reservation following this incident with my checking account using checks stolen from our safe, so I'm almost certain that I was not the only victim of this guest, whose count has since been removed for terms of service violations. AirBNB must have information about this, but I only learned about the attempted use of my checking account from the bank.

I'm currently going through a host guarantee claims process (I think), but AirBNB has not been communicative since we took care of basic cleaning and lock change business. The theft and damages claims have not been addressed. In fact, they told me I needed to negotiate directly with the guest, but I couldn't do that if I wanted to, and I don't, because the account has been removed.

[Helen3]

Sorry to hear this happened sounds horrific. Call airbnb back and post on their social media and ask them how you are meant to lodge a claim if the account is removed. @Ryan563 

How were the guests able to get hold of your credit cards and get into your safe?

Did they have previous bookings/verified ID?

Doesn't sound like they moved the guests to another host if they cancelled their profile.

[Ryan563]

I just got off a long phone call with AirBNB. The first person I spoke to hung up on me when I refused to get off the phone until he transferred me to someone who could discuss my case with authority. When I called back I was told that the operators "can't" transfer calls to case managers in claims. I think it's probably true that they cannot, but from the AirBNB policy perspective, the correct verb is "will" not. The system is designed to make it impossible to communicate directly with case managers handling claims. The Trust and Safety manager we had at first was very communicative and efficiently resolved that part of our complaint, but since then I have been getting more and more impatient with this process.

I don't know how the guests got into our safe, but I suppose that a consumer safe is probably not that hard to break into for professional thieves who have full access without any worry of surveillance. In retrospect I shouldn't have approved these guests. It was a newly created account with no review history, and they booked for six days at the last minute. I accepted in part because another guest had cancelled a week-long holiday reservation at the last minute, and in part because we'd grown used to AirBNB over years of use as a "safe" platform. After this experience I would definitely scrutinize newly created accounts more closely, and would be especially suspicious of last minute bookings around the holidays.

The profile was not cancelled immediately, and AirBNB told me they were moving the guests to another host. I am almost certain that AirBNB relocated these people to another host, despite my complaints (which I don't think were taken seriously enough), and that another host was probably also victimized as a result of AirBNB's policies. I still hope that our claims will be honored, but I am not happy at all with this process so far.

[Colleen253]

@Ryan563  You need to file a police report if you haven't yet, and start compiling all your receipts/proof of ownership for stolen items, and detailed photos of and estimates for repairs re the damages in your house. Expect it may take awhile for Airbnb to follow up at first, (it took a week before I finally heard from someone who could get the ball rolling) but be persistent and make a lot of noise about it. Tell them to immediately make clear to you the process they want you to follow since they removed this guests account, as normally the first thing they would have you do is communicate with the guest and start the resolution process that way. This situation is beyond that. When I had something similar happen, the case manager I had forwarded me a link for the form to fill out for the host guarantee. The best way to get resolution is to be firm and persistent, follow whatever protocol you're given, and have all your documents meticulously compiled and in order.

[Ryan563]

Thanks, Colleen. At this point we have been through all the steps you describe, from police report to documents to host guarantee form and persistence. We've gotten stalled at the need to negotiate directly with the guests. I was on the phone for over an hour last night, not because AirBNB was connecting me with people able to discuss my case (they weren't) but because I refused to hang up with the front level operator. All she could do was escalate me into the "pink" box, which she assured me was serious. As I understand things, we need to get past this "negotiate with the guests" phase before anything else can happen, but by case manager seems determined to keep us stalled there, maybe until we give up or our claims are somehow vacated. After no correspondence whatsoever for 5 days, he finally emailed me again this morning following my long phone call... with the exact same form email he sent on his previous one and only correspondence. We need to negotiate with the guests! He seems not even to have read a single thing about my case, or else seems to have deliberately ignored the details. This is such an aggravating waste of time...

[Colleen253]

@Ryan563  It seems to come down to who you end up having to deal with. Some are great, others not so much, judging by my experience, and reading the posts of others who have had endless frustration in similar situations. It IS nonsensical and ridiculous, that they want you to communicate with the guest whose account they removed (!!??) And it would seem that they aim to make the process frustrating enough that you'll just give up and go away. Some on this forum have said getting noisy on social media has helped. 

[Ryan563]

Yes, I think our case manager Dwayne J is deliberately trying to keep our claims from advancing. Ignorance is not plausible since I have explained this now half a dozen times in writing and on the phone. I just called again and they are re-notating and re-escalating my case, but I still can't get transferred on the phone to Dwayne! I am going to get noisier and noisier on social media! Thanks for your advice and commiseration.

[Sarah977]

@Ryan563  When I have gotten these kinds of communications from CS reps that make it evident they haven't even read or familiarized themselves with the facts of the issue, I have had success turning them around to be helpful by messaging back something like:

" Hi XX, thank you for your response. However, it appears that you haven't actually read the particulars of this issue, as you are telling me to make the claim with the guest, when Airbnb has removed this guest's account from the platform, so I am not able to message this guest any longer.  I realize that you have a heavy caseload, but please advise as to what my next step should be here, since it is impossible for me to do as you have suggested, and receiving a message like you sent is extremely frustrating. Thank you for your attention and awaiting your reply."

It's important to keep in mind that the CS reps do not make policy and are poorly trained- that is not their fault, they are just lowly employees and are obviously instructed by Airbnb to send these useless links and forms and close cases as quickly as possible. I have found the best approach is to be polite, empathetic (hence that line about their heavy caseload) and thank them for their time, even if their responses have been frustrating and make you want to slap them upside the head.

The 3 P's of dealing with CS are patience, politeness and persistence. Admittedly that doesn't always help when you have the misfortune to get a really clueless and unhelpful CS rep, but it can often move things along or turn them around.

Good luck with this terrible situation.

[Ryan563]

Thanks. I'm afraid I abandoned politeness along the way, but after another phone call and escalation in the past 10 hours I've finally broken through the impasse and received instructions to (re-)submit all the damages and losses documentation that I already submitted before... Better than where we were a minute ago, I guess.

[Colleen253]

And yes, be cautious of last minute bookings. Adjust your settings to require minimum two days notice. Do you actually live in the same city as your listing? I recommend you change your description re guest interaction to specify that you live very nearby, to discourage the kind of people who want to get up to no good. Or re word it. What you have now is inviting to them. You never want to suggest that you are an 'arms length' host. Do you have security cameras to monitor who comes and goes? If not get them installed, the kind you can monitor in real time. All the better to see your tv walking out the front front door, or the first 5 of 50 showing up to party. Check your guests out thoroughly before accepting them, or if you're going to be using IB, at least require ALL the verifications possible, just don't rest easy in those (the horror that landed on my doorstep had uploaded a gov't id). One can't even trust completely in good reviews from other hosts. Trust your instincts and don't be afraid to just say no. Sometimes the cost is greater than the payout.

[Ryan563]

This is all good advice. I've already realized that we need to do things differently in the future, that AirBNB is not as safe as we'd become lulled into thinking it was. Evidence is important for the police report too. The police are working with photos of car license plates in our case. I suppose if we'd had a porch camera that would have helped. I think communicating that we're nearby is a good idea too, though I suppose these kinds of scams are more common during the holidays when there is an assumption that people are traveling out of town, as we were. We usually do have a two day delay on bookings, but I'd taken it off this time because a holiday guest had cancelled on us at the last minute right before Christmas. I guess I should have read the signs better. I wouldn't make the same mistakes again.

[Colleen253]

@Ryan563 "AirBNB is not as safe as we'd become lulled into thinking it was". This is true, and something all hosts need to be tuned into right from the get go, unfortunately. Sure, smile and appreciate the overwhelming majority of great guests, but at the same time, hosts need to be prepared and alert because things can go wrong so quickly, when the guard is down. We often don't realize it, until something does go wrong.

[Colleen253]

@Ryan563 One thought...have you tested the message thread you had with the guest? I mentioned that my scenario was very similar, and even though at first I could not communicate on the message thread, at some point it opened up again and I was able to get a message through. I knew it would do absolutely no good, but I sent it anyway, for posterity (and shiggles). I just asked the **bleep**ehole if he was was going to return my stolen items and pay to restore the damages. If you 'could' get a message through, it might help move things forward, as ridiculous as that would be.

[Ryan563]

I have tested the message thread. The account remains inactive, and honestly I don't like the idea of contacting these people. They really moved in to rob us. They went through the entire house and pulled out anything they could find that might have financial information, and didn't try to hide it at all. Documents left scattered all over the place, including a bunch of useless receipts in Japanese left over from a business trip to Japan (it's funny to think of them looking at those and imagining they might contain some foreign bank account information). My position from the beginning has been that this is a safety issue and something that should be handled by intermediaries and the police. AirBNB agreed with me, after much persuasion, and communicated with them on my behalf to cancel the reservation, but that mediation ended with the claims process.

Update: I just received an email from Dwayne after this latest escalation. He now acknowledges our situation and has asked me to itemize all the damages and losses with receipts and photographs. I've already sent AirBNB all of this documentation! But I will do it again. Of course, we don't have receipts for the stolen items, so those losses may just go uncompensated even after all this hassle.