I was unfairly treated by airbnb when guest damaged my items and disrespected my house rules

I was unfairly treated by airbnb when guest damaged my items and disrespected my house rules

I wanted to share my extremely bad experience related to Airbnb. I just recently started hosting and had my first bad guest. Guest stayed for two nights, she violated multiple housing rules (that they were supposed to agree to and comply) and damaged my property.

After guest left and I noticed the damage they caused to bedding and found out from neighbors that guests didn’t comply to my house rules.

I didn’t know how exactly I’m supposed to ask for so-called host protection and it was not properly explained on the website, so I asked the support how I am supposed to claim the damage for items in my apartment.  I had to wait for almost 3 days before getting a reply, even though they promise to reply within 24 hours, yep, sure, bull…t. so, when I finally got a reply explaining the procedure, I opened the claim. Here I must mention, that guest checked out on 18 of March and claim was opened on 21 of March, I couldn’t open it earlier, because I didn’t know how.

My claim for refund for the damaged items was immediately rejected by the guest (didn’t expect anything out of that, but this is a procedure), so I escalated it to host protection request. Little that I knew, my request got denied on 23 of March (same month I must mention) because I didn’t submit it within 14 days 😄 Ridiculous you would say? No, not for Airbnb, so, apparently, I had 14 days to submit a complaint and I didn’t follow this timeline, when there were JUST 5 DAYS THAT PASSED between guest leaving and answer to my request for host protection being received.

I have contacted Airbnb to inquire why did they give me such a ridiculous answer that doesn’t make any sense. After two days of silence, I’ve got a message that they declined my host protection request because next guest have already checked in and I have to submit requests ONLY between checkout of one guest and check-in of another, HA! Here comes the interesting part, the guest who caused damage have checked out at 11 am on March 18, but next guest checked in at 11:30 guess when? Also at March 18, so, as per Airbnb, I had precisely whole 30 minutes to:

  • Discover the damage
  • Document all the damage
  • Find similar items online or buy new items that needed to be repaired or replaced
  • Submit a claim via Airbnb
  • ….apparently also have time for cleaning and greeting new guest

Who they think I am, some f…. Barry Allen?

So, Airbnb rejected my host protection on bogus reason like this, they left me to pick up the bill, they made up ridiculous excuse not to assist me in any way and yeah this is how their host protection works.

Name of the wonderful specialist who makes those smart and not at all ridiculous decisions is Alison, but she also changes it to Alice to confuse you, good job Alice.

As an employee of quite powerful Belgian law firm, we already had to deal with multiple complaints against Airbnb and Alison/Alice comes out quite often, showing total disrespect for personal belongings or damages caused by guests to the hosts. Doesn’t matter how severe damage is and what kind of proof you have Alice/Alison (maybe she is bipolar, who knows) will ALWAYS find the way to dismiss your claim and to not give you deserved and promised protection.

However, what is interesting, once hosts starting to file complaints, lawsuits and go to press, Airbnb immediately settles cases, pays demanded compensation and then begs not to leak story to the press any further.

There, had to be shared!

Anyway, if you have problems with Airbnb, my advice is COMPLAIN COMPLAIN COMPLAIN , the best way is to complain to US California Better Business Bureau, then your complaint will be published in multiple places and will be forwarded directly to Airbnb headquarters, they will have to read and act on it. To lodge a complaint, you don’t have to be in US, it’s enough that business office is there.

We have to force them to respect hosts and guests rights and stop treating us like milking cows

 

12 Replies 12

@Axel66 the whole experience must have been very upsetting, and you have a right to feel angry.

The process of filing a claim is not well explained to new hosts, so the first time something like this happens the host is expected to know all sorts of things they have no idea about.

 

You have done something great here, though, by sharing your story in detail because it might help some future host know what to do should something unfortunate happen like this.

 

I am curious about one thing: you mention the short amount of time you had because the departing guest checked out at 11:00 am, and the next guest checked in at 11:30 am. Do you normally only leave yourself 30 minutes to turn over your listing?

Hi, no, obviously not 😃 They were about only to come in to drop their bags and I had no problem with them coming early, I help if I can, in this case there were two people cleaning and we had to change bedding and clean floor/bathroom/toilet, studio is small (23 meters) so we did all the work within half an hour, normally it does take us (we usually clean in two) 30 minutes to 1,5 hour to clean up everything. On a positive side after publishing same story on a few more websites (such as tripadvisor), airbnb already contacted me to review my case again. I o believe we have to complain as much as possible about treatment we find unfair, so airbnb can evolve and be more friendly for everyone.

@Axel66 yes, I agree that it is important to make noise and let other hosts know about incidents like this. The parts of the policy that make it most difficult on hosts will probably only be changed if hosts complain about it loudly enough and publicly enough. (We have all heard stories of people only getting help when their story gets noticed in the media.)

 

While I hope you never have another guest that causes any damage to your place, do you think there is something in the future you and other hosts can do regarding check-out procedures to help them if they need to make a claim like you did? How can we protect ourselves?

 

Honestly I see the only way to protect uorselves is for airbnb to give us sufficient time to report the damages, for instance my listing is occupied practically till middle June right now and it would be very hard for me to make a claim "before next guest checks in", it has to be 14 days or any other timeframe, I don't really see any other option, I used to work for booking.com before airbnb even existed and I saw how company evolved under pressure of users, after all, we are their income and they are no one without us (both hosts and guests), we need fair procedures and reasonable time, also, there is a pattern when "guest is always right", what is not true, people making decisions about host protection and disputes should be better trained and definitely not blindsided, because so far I believe that guests' side has unfair advantage in every dispute.

@Axel66 that makes a lot of sense.

We also have a lot of same day check out and check in. It seems completely unrealistic for a host to find damage, document the damage, and file a claim all before the next guest checks in.

We barely have time to clean the place as it is!

 

What would be the best way for hosts to apply pressure to have this policy changed for the better?

 

Of course it does 🙂 I work in the quite big lawfirm and we are recently being flooded with lawsuits against airbnb, but the difference is that even though it is quite affordable in EU (lawsuit I mean), they are expensive in US and it keeps many people away from taking legal steps against airbnb, for americans I would recommend to complain about unfair policies directly to airbnb and customer rights organizations, such as BBB. For european hosts, you can always complain to local ombudsman, ombudsman in Ireland and there is an option of Europen Small Court Claim, which costs around 30 euro (depending on the country). Other than this, I can say that airbnb settled every case that was filed against them before it even hit the court. So the only way I see is to apply pressure on them, legal if necessary, until they will evolve

Cormac0
Level 10
Kraków, Poland

@Axel

 

 

That last thing Airbnb want is a class action coming down the tracks, but it’s only a matter of time, because Airbnb for 80% of clients is very exploitative and it is a far as I'm concerned a smoke and mirror operation.

 

They claim that they are merely a hosting site! but by any reasonable measure Hosts are employees,

 

  1. Hosts don't control the fee's
  2. Hosts don't control the deposit and decision around the operation of them
  3. Hosts continually have rules foisted on them that they don't agree with, which seriously effects Host autonomy.

 

I.e. 48 hours cooling off period on a “strict cancelation policy”

 

Alex, perhaps you could look at if a contract actual exists between Guest and Host?

 

Because It’s my conjecture it doesn’t, rather there are two contracts in existence

 

  1. Between Guest and Airbnb and

b Between Airbnb and Host

 

Evidence of this is the fact that the Host has no exposure of the fee's that Airbnb charges to the Guests, despite repeated request to see this information. Surely if we are self employed we should receive all the moneys and remit a fee to Airbnb, control the security deposit (considering the disproportional risk a Host takes compared to a Guest) and have a veto on rules that we find goes against natural justice.

 

David126
Level 10
Como, CO

@Axel66

 

In these circumstances you can contact AirBnb and get them to cancel your next booking citing Extenuating Circumstances, that will give you enough time to prepare the claim and fix the damages.

 

I take it you realise the very limited extent of the Host Guarantee?

 

Personally I would not let a stand alone property without a real security deposit to cater for just such issues

David

There was really no reason to cancel, if only bedding needs to be changed, it's not like they destroyed half of apartment 🙂 and also they wouldn't, they would charge me more for cancelling next booking or find some bogus reason not to cancel it

Ati1
Level 1
Guildford, United Kingdom

Hi Alex Thank you for sharing your experience. I am having a horrible time with airbnb. A guest who stayed with me for 2 months (jan and feb) ruined the toilet flush (and he does not deny this. he was in fact a great guest) and one thing led to another I was around 5500 euro out of pocket for the total damaged this caused to a toilet that was only 2 years old. It was a wall hung toilet and they had to cut into the wall take the cistern out, replace it and retile the wall. I used as many old parts as possible and tried to keep costs down. But the apartment is in Copenhagen and this is the price of things there. 

 

Before the 14 day period of my guest checking out I called airbnb about the claim I was about to make. I was told that the host guarantee would cover it and that I had to do nothing at the moment. The person I spoke to (Rosalyn) would forward the case to a case manager and they would get back to me asking me for the proper documentation. I even got an email from her stating this. So I was not worried (at this time).

 

14 days later and I still had not heard from any case manager. I emailed airbnb to ask what was going on. No reply. 

 

After 2 more weeks I emailed again and to my surprise was told that there was no case opened for this claim and that the 30 days had passed so there was nothing I could do. I forwarded the email from Rosalyn where she writes that she has opened a claim for me. After more emails back and forth where I was told that Rosalyn had not done anything, the airbnb customer service rep wrote to me that I could in fact open a case and that the 14day/30 day period is only there to make things easier for airbnb. I can always make a claim. I also have this in writing. 

 

So I go ahead and make my claim. The system allows me to do that. 

 

After less than 24 hours Levy writes to me that they cannot accept my claim because the period had passed. I have since forwarded all documentation I had to Levy. I have phoned him, but his department does not accept phone calls. So several messages have been left. Clearly airbnb are trying to ignore me to get me to drop this. It has been over a week since I heard from airbnb. 

I have now come to a place where this has become a case of principal for me. I need to do something. 

 

I will in fact complain to US California Better Business Bureau, thank you for the tip Alex. I will also take my case to the ombudsman here in the UK. I have also contacted a consumer rights program with the BBC and they were very eager to get their hands on my story. I have forwarded all of the emails to them and they want to meet with me. I will also contact several newspapers here in the UK. I am already in talks with one of them who have also asked me for my emails. 

 

Is there anything else you guys can think of that I can do? 

 

Thank you for reading.

 

KR

Ati 

 

 

 

Dwight-And-Parisa0
Level 2
West Palm Beach, FL

I just had a very unfair experience as well.  Guest trashed the apartment and I sent info to Airbnb via host protection option and emailed additional info as well since they  did not indicate where to submit it on the web portal.  Eventually I received a response that it was denied because I submitted info by 8 pm on the deadline date even though they never said that it had to be submitted by a specific time of the deadline date.  I also missed out on an entire season of bookings because they changed my minimum stay to 180 days without my approval or knowledge. I will complain to the Better Business Bureau as well.  

Billy---Domi-Serviced-Apartments0
Level 1
Glen Waverley, Australia

We have just had a very bad experience with Airbnb support.
We have a reservation that guest turned out to check in with 6 ppl. After we verified they have around 8-10 ppl to stay in our 2 bedrooms apartment for an activity. we have house rule listed no party allowed
With potential and foreseen violation of our house rule, we have refused to let them stay.
The guest walked away and then lied to Airbnb they only have 4 ppl to stay. While the whole process to communicate with Airbnb, they are purely protecting guest and insist full refund to the guest.
In the end, a supervisor called Kat replied and just close the case. The reason they think there is violation of house rule so full refund will be given as we refused to check in the guest.
Airbnb close the conversation and not allowed for further discussion.
The view from Airbnb is not right and not even protecting a host.
Even they have so called damage claim procedure, but as a host to prevent a damage is much more important than to be compensated after damage occurred.
Airbnb is arrogant and not listening to us.
So I plan to take this case further. We are processing to AAA to seek for further advice and assistance on this case.