Guests who make false claims

[Stay-Together0]

This is my first time posting something on the community board. The reason I am posting this is because I need some feedback from some other Hosts. It seems like with Airbnb I come across guests every so often that try to find something to complain about so they can get a refund or discount. Today I received a message from Airbnb telling me a guest had filed a claim for having to stay in a dirty room and that they reached out to us to get this taken care of and they had to now get Airbnb involved. The guest had a reservation for 1 night only. They never once contacted us about anything let alone the room being dirty. But this guest tells Airbnb she did contact us and she wants a refund. When I replied I pointed out the fact that if they look at the messages exchanged this guest never once contacted about a dirty room issue. I have dealt with this same thing with a few guests with Airbnb and of course Airbnb always sides with the guests and the Host gets screwed... Does this happen to anyone else? It almost feels like certain people will book only with Airbnb because they know they can come up with some complaint and Airbnb will give them a refund. I've even had a guests threaten me and tell me that if I didnt allow a late checkout that they were going to contact Airbnb and file a complaint and ask for a refund. These guests left a mess that was close to the worst I have ever seen one of my units, yet they threaten me if I dont give them what they want they will call and file a complaint. This tells me this guests has done this before and knows Airbnb will side with the guests regardless of the circumstances. Does any of this happen to anyone else or am I just the unfortuniate one? I think us Host need to develop a group that we can list the names and information on guests that have done things like this or have been bad guests. This would allow other Hosts the opportunity to know if this person is someone they should be dealing with. Its ironic this guest that just file this complaint waited to say anything until the time for review had expired. We left her a 5 star review not knowing she was a liar and manipulator. Im very frustrated by this and how this only seems to happen to me with Airbnb guests. All the other places I have my rentals listed I dont have these issues because those companies dont allow guests to make false claims and lie about things that didnt exist. I would love to hear from others in the community if they have experienced similar situations etc. Im looking for some feedback. Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Also, one other thing. Is it against Airbnb policy if I was to post the name of the guest in this forum so others can be cautious when dealing with this person?  Dan STS

[Sarah977]

@Stay-Together0  Posting the name of the guest here would be fairly pointless, as there are hosts from all over the world on this forum and the chances of any of us getting a booking from this particular guest are extremely slim. Also the moderators may remove the guest's name. But there is a Facebook guest blacklist where you could post.

As to guests lying and writing false reviews and demanding refunds for made-up stuff,  just spend a few days reading through these forums- it's a very common issue.

[Stay-Together0]

Sarah, thank you for the information and feedback. By chance do you know the name of the Facebook site when guests get blacklisted? I think this would be good to have so we can add people but also look to see if we have questions about a guest and can see if they are on this list. As I had mentioned this is really the first time I have been on here or posted anything, but with the feedback I received and with your suggestion I am going to explore these forums because I think they will definately be very helpful to me. Thank you again and if you have that Facebook information I would apprecaite you passing it on. 

[Sarah977]

@Stay-Together0  No, sorry, I don't have the Facebook info, I don't use Facebook at all myself. I imagine you could find it pretty easily by doing a Google search.

[Helen3]

Hello @Stay-Together0 

I have never had this happen in four years of hosting, but then I am an individual host rather than a property management company so likely to attract a different type of guest. 

The best way to warn your future hosts about problem guests is to leave them an honest review.

I am not sure how your guest only raised issues with Airbnb after the 14 day review period passed. Surely Airbnb says they need to do so within 24 hours of their arrival?

And with guests that threaten bad reviews if they didn't get a late check out, I hope you are flagged this with Airbnb and mentioning this in your reviews of these guests along with marking down  to a maximum of three stars, so they can't iB with future hosts.

[Stay-Together0]

Thank you for your input and advice. With the guest that did threaten to file a claim if we didnt allow a late checkout, I did notify Airbnb about the situation and told them exactly what happened and they told me they have never had any issues with this guest and they would reaxch out to him about the situation and that was it. Of course reviews are very important with Airbnb and I am always honest in the reviews I leave but its unfortuniate that not all guests do the same. I've had some really bad experiences with Airbnb siding with guests when guests are in the wrong. We had one guest steal a couple items and had solid proof of this and filed a cliam and they dismissed the claim because the guest denied the allegations even though we had proof. We always go out of our ways to make our guests happy and their stay amazing, not just to get a good review, but to keep them coming back and refering their friends and family our way. I appreciate your feed back. Thank you

[Anonymous]

@Stay-Together0   You have 14 listings and hundreds of previous reviews. It's unfortunate when you get a bad apple, but the odds of not getting one are vanishingly slim under these circumstances. So no, you're not the "unfortunate one." 

I do hope that when your guests leave a big mess and/or attempt to extort a late checkout out of you, your review reflects this. Otherwise, ironically you would also be making "false claims."

[Stay-Together0]

Andrew, thank you for your input. We have always tried to leave a positive review for guests, but have learned that we need to leave honest reviews rather then over look things that need to be reported on the reviews. I see your point about we would be making false claims if we gave a good review when the place was a disaster etc. I have never looked at it from that perspective and it makes perfect sense. Thank you for pointing that out to me. 

[Payam11]

I totally agree. Some guests are dodgy and make false claims or exaggerate some minor issues to get discount and then leave negative review. Airbnb needs to think seriously about these kind of scams and tackle them.