Customer experience nightmare. Has Abnb ever canceled a guest reservation and charged you for it?

[Serge127]

How can abnb become so poor with customer service 9guest experience/ host experience etc...).

They even hung up because they do not have anything new to say. A case is with a department that has failed so far to contact me.

I have been hosting since 2013 and never have i seem such a bad experience for the company that prides itself for the host and guest experience.

When something goes wrong. It really shows how much work is needed.

Abnb decideds to cancel a guest. First time even I have seen this. (3 days after the guest checked in) I received a call from the Customer Experience team asking me to remove the guest from my property.

No explanation given other than data privacy prevents it.

Ok. 

My question: How will this affect me? Not at all. It is being handled by the team. 

After an uncomfortable for 4 nights with a guest canceled by abnb., no more phone calls.

Two further book9ijgs No payments from Abnb.

Customer support. POOR POOR POOR.

Chain of command? Absent. 

I am lost for words. 

Will I recommend Abnb after such experience? NEVER. 

extremely disappointing  AND FRUSTRATing.

[Emiel1 · Accepted solution]

Hello @Serge127 ,

Allthough i don't understand everything, it seems your are frustrated about Airbnb, who is not at all communicating with you, after initially they cancelled a reservation for an unknown reason ?

And why are you not being payed for the next bookings ? 

This is a strange story....

[Serge127]

Thank you Emiel;-) It is feeling like the twilight zone.

They haven't paid the next booking because of an adjustment they have made for the canceled booking.

They have basically concluded that I owed them money because the guest stayed for 6 or 7 days instead of the 30 days he had booked and for which I was paid for as normal.

If this guest had canceled, I would have been compensated. If I had canceled, I would have paid a penalty on top of a refund to the guest.

They've canceled without giving an explanation. I become the enforcer of their cancelation.

Then I get charged ("adjusted") for the pleasure. 

Strange.

Has anyone else experienced somethng similar or am I missing something?

[Serge127]

@Emiel1 I have posted a copy of the email that has started this strange situation. 

Anyone else had experienced this?

What do you think? 

[Sarah977]

@Serge127   This does sound very strange. No way should you be penalized for a cancellation that was done without your knowledge or consent by Airbnb.

Was talking to a friend who is a host and has been successful in getting the support she needs, numerous times. She said the key is to not get frustrated- if she gets a rep that is clueless or unhelpful, she just says thank you for your time, hangs up and calls back, getting another rep. She'll do this as many times as necessary until she gets a responsive rep. She stays unfailingly polite, but firm and unwavering about what she is asking for.

[Serge127]

Hello Sarah 🙂

Thank you for your input. 

It is strange I agree. Unless I am missing something, this is what I am experiencing right now.

The frustration comes when you start repeating the same story again and again to each assistant you get to speak to. Don't forget the security questions that come with it when you call.

Callbacks are fine but after "5 recorded escalations to the higher department" what else can they do? 

Frontend customer agents can only tell you that the case had been escalated. 

With no written acknowledgment, feedback or follow up, you start to feel that something is not quite right.

Where is the host guarantee? Does it not apply? Can it be extended to cases like this?

Abnb was much better than that. They were so much more on point. 

Frustration kicks in when I balance the time spent trying to understand what is going on and collect guests payment versus the awesome other things I could be doing with my time.

Agents get paid for their time to be on the phone. We do not, unfortunately. 

When I add them all up, I become even more annoyed with abnb because they have not been forthcoming.  

Besides the still unpaid bookings ( I hope common sense will prevail so I can fairly get paid for them); I took 2 more recent bookings that show payout dates to June 10 and June 11 respectively. The guest checked in on the 2 and 3 June. 

This is literally a payout date set to 7 days into the booking and not the usual 24 hours we have been doing for the past 5 years. 

By the way, I am set up on paypal for payout...24 hrs.

Am I missing something?

I decided to share and see if and how often this happen because it is strange but it is happening to me right now.

Fair enough It's not a huge sum of money but the principle of fairness must apply. 

[Serge127]

Hi guys. Here is the beginning of the little nightmare. 

Best to share everything I cam with the community to prevent such situation for happening again without proper fail safe procedures in place. 

Thomas M., May 7, 06:19 PDT:

Hello Serge,

My name is Thomas and I'm a member of Airbnb's Trust & Safety team. We will be contacting you by phone shortly about your current reservation HM3RRSPQSB with Ben. Airbnb has determined that we are unable to support this reservation and will be moving forward with canceling it. If check-in has happened already, we ask that the checkout process begin as soon as possible.

We truly apologize for this inconvenience and would like to assure you that these situations are unique and that we are here to support you. I will be reaching out to you by phone shortly to follow up, but in the meantime feel free to reply directly this email with any questions or concerns.

As per your request I will wait you to be back home to request Ben to leave. Please notify me as soon as you will be home.

If you have any questions please come back to me.

Best,

Thomas
www.airbnb.com/help

[Ange2]

@Serge127   Could be the guest's credit card didn't go through or the verification failed, but 3 days after the guest checked in, that's an insane oversight on Airbnb's part !   I was under the impression all this was taken care of before they booked.  I would call Airbnb directly