Disturbing CS call

[Angie321]

Today I made my first call to  CS for assistance with an instant booking that I was not comfortable with for several reasons. The good news is that they did cancel the guest reservation for me -twice ( because despite my explaining to her why it was canceled she immediately turned around and instant booked again.) So ‘yay’ for that.  ( and she is now blocked so I don’t have to worry about any more bookings from her. )

But I was very disturbed by my conversation with the first agent that I spoke with. First, when  I pointed out that one of my concerns was that although she lived in British Columbia, Canada, the phone number she had provided as part of her verifications was a landline in southern Illinois  and when I did a reverse look up on it and found it to be registered to a man with a different name. The agent told me that this was not a violation of Airbnb terms. What? If guests are allowed to enter any random phone number, or email address, or anything else  what is the point of multiple verifications?

The other disturbing part of the conversation was when I asked him to cancel the reservation. He kept insisting that I could do it online without penalty in the case of an instant bookIng  which I know is what their documentation says. But from what I’ve read and learned in various host forums, that is often not the case so I asked him again to cancel it for me.   He then told me that he would have to contact the guest first and get her side of the story and that a judgment might be made in her favor in which case I would receive a cancellation penalty.   It felt as though he were threatening me...”do it my way or you will be punished.”.  

At that point I asked to be transferred to a supervisor who did, in fact, cancel the reservation for me as did the CS Representative who I spoke with after her second booking.

 It’s bad enough to have guests threaten to write bad reviews if they don’t get their way, but when similar threats come from CS  representatives it’s very disheartening. 

[Linda108]

Kudos to you for persisting with your goal with CS.  At times an indivual CS will be mistaken and you need to stay the course until you get what you know is right.  I thought the phone number had to be registered to the person in the profile.  How about flagging the profile for having a false profile phone number?  Could hurt IMO

[Angie321]

I would have thought that about phone #s, too.  But according to this representative that’s not the case. He said it could be a number where they could be reached and that’s OK.

[Manasui0]

hi .. sorry what is IMO??

[Helen3]

In My Opinion @Manasui0  - sorry sometimes posters here forget that not everyone has English as a first language.

[Emilia42]

My landline is registered to my father, who has a different name, so you would probably cancel on me too 😕

[Angie321]

 But I doubt that it’s in a location 2000 miles from where you say you live.  :>}.  And that was just one of my concerns with the booking. There were other more glaring ones 

[Emilia42]

Actually, yes, my father and I have not always lived under the same roof but I have always claimed my "home number" as my telephone #. I am sure this is quite common.

[Manasui0]

well I live in Bali and in my ID I live in Jakarta.. will that be a pproblem, cause is different island all together.. and I was raise in neither of the location mentioned above..

[Lisa723]

@Angie321 phones can be registered to anyone anywhere and be perfectly legit. I have 4 phones on my family plan all registered to me; two are with my brother and sister-in-law on the other side of the US. I don't know why or how Airbnb would have a rule that the phone at which you can be reached must be registered in your name.

[Angie321]

That makes sense...had not considered that.  Thanks

The phone issue only came up when I was wanting to text her about other problems with the booking after she had not replied to a message on the platform or via email.  It wasn’t the primary reason I was concerned...but it did add another red flag.  

[Linda108]

I got more curious about verified phone number and found this article.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/277/how-do-i-verify-my-phone-number

I was mistaken that Air BNB phone verification meant the number was connected to the person identified in the profile.  Phone verification is a step taken for the profile owner to respond to a text or message sent to the phone number.  The CS was correct.  However a guest may be non-responsive for various reasons and letting Air BNB know this is a problem is a good idea.

[Angie321]

Thank you, Linda...good to know.

[Ange2]

@Angie321      " He then told me that he would have to contact the guest first and get her side of the story and that a judgment might be made in her favor in which case I would receive a cancellation penalty."

I received the same response re: IB (one of three contrary responses with 3 different CS, each blaming the prior CS for giving false out information), never did get a clear response from anyone  just went round in circles. They refused to read Airbnb policy, even when I sent them the links, which states with IB activated you can cancel three times with no penalty if you are uncomfortable.

I am still mystified as to why they have to call the guest.