Difficult guest

[Nicole1064]

I hosted by first guest over December and if was more stressfull to me than I think for the guests.

The first few days went well accept that they did not follow some house rules, after about the 4th day they complained that the swimming pool was not working.  I sent someone out and everything was fine.  I have a full security system in the house and I explained how it works in detail, the guest disregarded the alarm system and left the property unattended without activating the alarm several times.

On New years eve they went out and did not return home and failed to ativate the alarm. there was a massive storm that tripped the main switch inside the house.  This caused the electric gate motor battery to run down.  They again complained about the swimming pool not working I arranged for someone to go out but they advised shortly after the comlained that the pool is working.  The guest had accidentally switched off the pool motor hence it not working.

Later in the morning they tried to open the gate but it failed to open fully, they then tried to force the gate open without unlocking the gate first, this caused for the track on the gate to snap.  I could unfortuantely only get a repair man out the next day due to it being a public holiday - however if they had followed the rules and unlocked the motor first to manual mode the gate would have opened easily without force and a very exspensive repair cost.

I appologised to the guest and provided the option of leaving the property and I will give her refund for the 3 days - she chose not to leave and advised that it was teething problems and all is good. They continued staying on the property for the remainder of their holiday.

The guest has now send me her private banking details requesting a refund for one night that they did not stay due to bad weather and they will not be able to enjoy the day on the beach.

I feel that if I dont give her a refund then I will get a bad review, I have accomodated this guest in every way I can,  what are my options? 😞

[Emiel1]

@Nicole1064,

Refunding, if neccesary,  need to be done via the Airbnb platform, so do not use private banking for this purpose. It's against Airbnb rules, explain this to the guests. As described by you the guest created the problems themself or it was due to extreme weather conditions. They also damaged the gate and repaircosts are involved. Where did the guest stay that one night and were you informed about it ?

Fear for bad review should never be a reason for refunding. But if you can make some compromise which keeps everybody happy, it's allways worth a try. All essential communication should be in the message system, so it can be read later by Airbnb if problems arise.

Best regards,

Emiel

[Sarah977]

@Nicole1064   Really frustrating guests, sorry you had to put up with them.

Guests like these almost always leave bad reviews, no matter how much you bend over to accommodate them. Guests who complain a lot during their stay, especially when their complaints stem from their own negligence in following instructions, will not only mention those things in their review (even if you addressed the issue promptly at the the time), they will magnify them and even add complaints about other things that weren't mentioned during the stay.

So never give a refund or write a bad guest a good review in the hopes of warding off their bad review. It won't work. Do review them (reviews are blind, they can't see yours until they've submitted theirs) and if they leave you a bad review you can leave a public response to their review, which makes it clear that their complaints derived from their lack of attention to clear instructions.,

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Nicole1064

The best thing you can do is leave an honest and factual review.

Refunds don't guarantee a good review. Based on your description.....they are bad people! They don't know how to follow instructions! They have no common sense! They are entitled and totally trying to scam you. They damaged your home because they couldn't follow simple instructions - how is this your fault? How is bad weather your fault???? The fact that they sent you their account info for a refund really says it all - you should keep all communication on the ABB messenger and should report them to ABB.

[Jackie148]

@Nicole1064your appologising for their lack of regard to your instructions now she wants a refund no way she is just playing you just my thoughts

[Quincy]

Welcome @Nicole1064,

I'm so sorry to hear that this all has happened to you. As a few days have passed I was wondering if you could let us know how everything went?