Guest is threatening my partner and I and will not leave property. Airbnb support ambassador won't reply to any messages or calls.

[Lee353]

My guest started threatening my partner and I last night and somehow figured out we were gay.  We quickly realized the people staying are not the person who made the reservation.  I spent 3 hours on the phone with airbnb last night 9.30p-12.30a trying to get this dealt with.  The support ambassador said they would have the guest leave by 10am today, but now no one will answer me via phone or the app thread.  The guest is still there, though they left 3 hours ago, and left the door standing wide open.  I'm terrified for my safety to go down to the property, but airbnb will not help me.  

I am at my wit's end.  I've hosted thousands of guests over 4 years, and airbnb has totally failed me in the only case I've ever been fearful for my safety.  Does anyone know how to get a response?  I've told them repeatedly this is a safety issue, but they keep saying I have to wait for my support ambassador to come back in, but that may be 3 days from now.  What do I do?

[Lisa723]

@M199 three instant-booked cancellations per year, but not when the stay is in progress.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2022/can-a-host-cancel-a-reservation-without-adverse-consequence...

[M199]

@Lisa723 

Thanks for clarifying!  Appreciated.  I wasn't 100% sure.

[Sarah977]

@Lee353  Tell "Shantal" if you are unlucky enough to still be dealing with her, that 3rd party bookings that were not accepted as such by the host are against Airbnb Terms of Service ( find the policy and send it to her- she's clueless) and are most certainly subject to a neutral cancellation by Airbnb with no penalties to the host. You should also politely demand to talk to someone in the Trust and Safety dept. as you have been threatened by the guest and are fearful of him being violent or trashing your place.

[Lee353]

Update: The door was left standing wide open for 7+ hours until a gracious neighbor happened to walk by and closed it for me.  I spoke to him on the Ring camera, and he said there was luggage everywhere in the house.  So we locked the Schlage Connect and disabled the guest code since our assumption was that they deserted the property when left the door standing wide open for 7+ hours and wouldn't respond to any of our messages about abandoning the property with the door open.

The guests returned home around 10pm.  When I opened the Ring camera after seeing motion, they were ranting about me locking them out of the property and me being crazy and how they were going to call the police.  I went ahead and spoke to them on the camera because I wanted them to admit, on video, they were staying under someone else's profile.  They admitted they were and began to apologize profusely for their threats and extortion attempt.  They also admitted all the things they complained about were not actually issues, and we could just ignore them all.  They claim they have been forced to "be bullies" with landlords in NYC, and they realize they were "mean-spirited" to me for no reason and begged to let them continue their reservation.  They claimed Airbnb has not reached out to them to tell them they need to leave the property.  I was non-committal and just told them I would re-enable their code so they could get their things and reach out to Airbnb to handle.

I called Airbnb and again got no where.  Then I wake up this morning to a message from an Airbnb support rep asking if I was going to let this guest continue their stay.  

All I can assume at this point is that Airbnb is not going to cancel this reservation for me despite the guest admitting in writing and on video that they are not the person who made the reservation.  

I have 4 properties exclusively on Airbnb, but it's clear that I need to branch out and try another platform after this. 😞 

[Lee353]

One last question: does Airbnb allow married couple to "share" a profile?  That's the only reason I can think of that Airbnb isn't canceling this as a 3rd party reservation.  The guy claims the profile is his wife.  If he had disclosed that upfront, I'd be more inclined to buy that, but if that's true, does Airbnb really allow that loophole in their TOS?

[Colleen253]

@Lee353 No. Each member must have their own account. The problem is you’re dealing with outsourced call center workers who know diddly about Airbnb. Which is why hosts should never rely on Airbnb for anything. And also why we need to vet potential guests heavily. To prevent them getting in the door in the first place. 

[Sarah977]

@Lee353  @Colleen253  There are shared accounts. So it seems to be permitted. But the profiile has to include the names of both people. There are plenty of profiles here that say XX and YY.  

[Colleen253]

@Sarah977 Sure, you can put whatever name you want on your public profile. Doesn’t even have to be your real name. But as as far as the actual account goes, it can only be in one name, with one ID profile afaik. Do you know where joint account is mentioned in the help pages or terms?

[Lisa723]

@Lee353 @Sarah977

Airbnb terms of service say "You may not register more than one account or transfer your account to someone else. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality and security of your account credentials and may not disclose your credentials to any third party. You are responsible and liable for activities conducted through your account and must immediately notify Airbnb if you suspect that your credentials have been lost, stolen, or your account is otherwise compromised."

So, as @Colleen253 said, it's ostensibly not allowed. But Airbnb enforces its own rules unevenly, to put it mildly. We regularly get bookings from accounts with two names on them, even "identity verified" accounts. People can change the name on the account to anything they want after id verification. 

[Mark116]

@Lee353  Airbnb doesn't care about third party bookings, every time I have contacted them, they always tell me it is okay, LOL.  The final time I contacted them to try and get them to decline the request so it didn't affect my stats they wouldn't do it, and when I asked them to send me in writing that such a booking by a third party was allowed by Airbnb rules, they admitted it was not.

Have you directly asked Airbnb to cancel this booking penalty free due to it being a third party booking?  I would recommend you do this again, where this is the single thing you mention, make sure  you have both Airbnb's specific regulations that do not permit a third party booking as well as the evidence where the guests have admitted it is a third party booking.

[Lee353]

REPEATEDLY.  I've asked 3 ambassadors to cancel, and they refuse "until the investigation is complete."

[Mark116]

@Lee353  Are you doing it on the phone? I find that I get better results when I use the message system because that forces Aibnb to go on the record with a response.  Otherwise, they will just look for reasons to stall and not make a decision that inconveniences a guest.

How much longer is this reservation supposed to last?

ETA to be more clear, my point was that if you confuse the CS reps with multiple issues they will always flake out, so it was to be very targeted in your request for the cancellation and not include the other details.

[Lee353]

I've done it in the app, via email, and on the phone.  This guest is supposed to be there for 25 more days.

[Colleen253]

@Lee353 I agree with Mark that chat messaging is the best contact method, also because you can paste links to policy. It’s hard for them to go around or deny policy when it’s staring them in the face. 

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/427/booking-for-friends-and-family

[Mark116 · Accepted solution]

@Lee353  Okay, well then you obviously have  to get them out 1) before they can claim tenant rights and 2) ASAP before they destroy the unit.

I'm thinking of something like this..

Airbnb:

I am writing about reservation XXX.

It has come to my attention that this reservation is a third party booking, which is not allowed under Airbnb's TOS and therefore neither the guests nor the host are entitled to any of Airbnb's protection.

[cut and paste Airbnb TOS on third party bookings] + evidence of the third party booking.

As you can see from XX evidence, this is obviously a third party booking which is not allowable.

This booking puts the guests and the hosts at risk.

Please provide a neutral Airbnb cancellation for this reservation as soon as possible.

_____________________________

Something like that, which is very straightforward and see what happens.

Your other alternative is to just cancel them and then spend the next weeks and months trying to get Airbnb to open your calendar and remove the host penalties that they will inevitably lodge on the listing.