Bad guest begets Bad Review with TERRIBLE support from Airbnb

[Kevin-And-Janai0]

Here's another example of the piss poor support provided by Airbnb to its Hosts. They need to take into account that Hosts are the reason they have a business at all, as hosts do all the risk taking in the business.

In our situation, Kristine, our crack case manager, gave us phone and written advice that we relied on to remove a bad guest prior to the end of their stay in the hope that we could circumvent any more of their bad behavior while in our condo.

The guests, without permission, took ALL of our white bedding from condo (which sleeps 6) on a 2 night camping trip. Excuses were made, but with 12 years in this business, we've never had anyone do something as disrespectful as this with our property. Kristine agreed with our position that this behavior was unacceptable on the phone, and initially in her written remarks, until we'd already made the move to cancel the remaining three nights of their stay. After that Kristine did a turnabout and it left us with our only 1 star review, potentially putting our Super Host status in jeopardy. The 1 star overall review wasn't even supported by the reviews of the sub categories by the guest, which would have averaged out to a 3+.

Kristine quickly escalated this case out of her responsibility, and of course, no one else, including her supposed Supervisor, took any further action or responsibility.

Here's the transcript -

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**[Private conversation removed in line with Community Center Guidelines]

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Kevin-And-Janai0 

Uh, frustrating.... 😞

Did your guests gave you back your bedding or not? Was it damaged?

As far as I know, the reservation can't be canceled after check-in. It can only be altered/shortened. 

From my experience - if the damage does not exceed 200€ or the amount for the rest of their stay, then it is better to let them stay and then file a damage claim. 

[Kevin-And-Janai0]

Good advice. If Airbnb had distinguished between cancellation and alteration upfront, then we could have made an informed decision, but Kristine didn’t. We would likely have sucked it up and let them stay the duration. 

The guest didn’t disappoint though, as they left a broken shower handle and six missing or damaged towels

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Kevin-And-Janai0 

ah... The best is to read this forum every day and after a while, you will know much more than the average CS rep knows 🙂

[Kaylee18]

@Kevin-And-Janai0   I had a guest break a house rule (they were 6 hours into their one night stay) and Airbnb cancelled the reservation and they were asked to leave by an Airbnb rep. A reservation can definitely be cancelled in the middle of a stay, but always let Airbnb be the ones to do it 🙂  

[Sarah977]

@Kevin-And-Janai0  I just love the "We didn't know it was a breach."  They don't know that you don't take something that doesn't belong to you away without permission? I wouldn't do that to a friend. They probably took the towels on the camping trip, too and left them hanging over a tree in the campground, or took them on purpose because they got kicked out.

I had some house sitters from hell once. They took 3 of my brand new Indian print bedspreads to the beach and on a 3 day yoga retreat (mind you they were supposed to be house-sitting, not going out of town for 3 days). I came back to find the spreads totally faded, some holes in one of them, and one completely missing. I was eventually able to track it down, as I knew someone who had gone with them on the retreat and told me they left in someone's car who had given them a ride. But do you think they had the decency to leave me a note saying as much and leaving the phone number of the person whose car it was in?

[Flavia195]

Airbnb always use the term "alteration" for something that is clearly "cancellation"... we need to tell clearly to Airbnb CS " 

Alteration is a substituiton, from one date to another one.

If someone have to get out of my house because thief, is unrespectful or so, it is a Cancellation...

Why Airbnb doesnt respect the hosts? 

[Kevin-And-Janai0]

An update on our bad review is warranted, and further highlights Airbnb's poor customer service.

Sometime this past weekend both the bad guest review, and our response, were taken down from Air. Our rating went back to Super host. The funny thing is that as of today, Chris, the supposed supervisor in case management is still arguing with that there is nothing they can do about the review. So apparently customer service doesn't talk to other areas of the company that oversee reviews, a severe breakdown in any process that should protect good owners. The point is don't give up, complain as much as possible if you get an unwarranted bad review.

Kevin