Is this a scam? If so how does it work?

[Michael6471]

We have a very clean house renovated less than two years ago. Everything is fairly new and we keep it spotless. We had some guests show up for a weekend stay that left immediately, saying the house was dirty. They were kids, low twenties, a boy and a girl. The boy had been an AirBnB member since 2019 but had no reviews. To show us why they left, they sent us pictures of some kitchen towel they wiped somewhere and got grimy, and a couple bugs which they found. I later found three bugs on the floor -- a lady bug, a small beetle and a cluster fly. They had all shown up since the day before when I vacuumed. But this is late winter in Maine -- all houses have bugs which come out of the walls when you turn the heat up. Then there were the bath towels, which they said were not laundered. The towels were just stiff because they were air dried. We also noticed they got stuck in the mud next to our driveway trying to leave, as if they raced up and then raced away again, too quickly or too spaced out to notice they were not on our gravel. They cancelled their stay before nightfall and asked for a refund which we gave them the next morning. But of course, their payment has not actually been credited to our bank account, so if their credit card payment bounces or is stopped somehow, we'll be out of pocket and they'll have the refund. Our rural neighborhood isn't super nice, with a few dilapidated trailer homes on the same road within a mile or so, and the neighbors are in the process of demolishing a shed right on our line, which looks kinda low rent right now, so I can imagine that someone from a very sheltered existence might not like that if what they wanted was lighthouses and moose, but this is rural Maine and this is how people actually live here. Is this a) a scam, or b) did these guests find the place not to their liking for some other reason and make excuses, or c) did they sincerely think the place was somehow dirty? We can't figure it out. I can imagine that some urban folks have never encountered trailer home neighbors, air dried towels, or lived in houses with a bug or two, but all this seemed excessive and also kind of pre-planned and dramatized. We did notice a spray can of Lysol in the background of one of the photos. We are not sure if this is actually our can from our supplies or not, but it was left on one of the laundry machines. We never leave anything on those machines. Were they spraying everything down with Lysol? We're mystified. Anyone have any wisdom here to impart?

[Lorna170]

@Michael6471   Your listing is very cute, your pictures are good and I would suspect very true to what you see when you arrive as a guest.  I have a small, rural 1930s cabin which does very well except when rented to 20 something’s. Unless they are the off the grid hiking types, they criticize the cabin and make up excuses to get a refund.  

Take a deep breath and forget about these two guests.  Whatever their issue was, ignore it.  Perhaps they had a fight and made up stuff about your listing in order to get their money back instead of contacting you to say that they cannot stay.   Best wishes.

p.s.  Perhaps a view of the house from the drive in?  Your pictures looked like the back yard only.

[Huma0]

@Michael6471 

Never issue a refund to a guest before you get a payout, firstly for the reason you already gave, i.e. if their payment bounces, Airbnb isn't going to pay you and also, in these situations, the guest could apply to Airbnb for a refund and if they get a CS rep who issues it without bothering to consult you (does happen), the guest has been refunded twice. Simply explain to them that Airbnb, not the host, collects the funds when a guest books and therefore you can only refund them when you receive their payout (minus any Airbnb fees).

[Louise0]

The guest pays Airbnb when they book, not just before you receive your payout.  Airbnb does not refund a guest unless the guest has already sent cleared funds to Airbnb.  When you agree to refund a guest all that happens is that the pending payout from Airbnb to you is decreased by the amount of the refund.  As long as you follow the correct procedure and always refund only through the platform, you cannot be left out of pocket by issuing a refund, nor is it possible for the guest to receive a 'double' refund by receiving one from you and one from Airbnb.

Having said that, I wouldn't offer any refund to these guests.

[Michael6471]

OK. I'm starting to piece together a logical explanation based on the timing, what we found at the house, and what the commentators above have said. So, hypothetically, the guests decided on the first day of the booking they no longer wanted to stay at our house, possibly even before they arrived, and for reasons unrelated to the house itself. So it was a boy who wanted a nice weekend with his girlfriend but she decided not to come at the last minute or something like that. Our refund policy allows full refunds up to 24 hours prior, so he would not have gotten his money back. He zoomed up in his car, getting stuck in the mud. He arrived six hours later than he was supposed to arrive, possibly because of the girlfriend's reluctance. He jumps out, goes inside the house, comes up with three nonsensical reasons why the house is dirty, takes pictures to "prove" it, and then asks for a refund immediately using his phone. We say no, we can't because we don't actually have any money from him yet and won't until Monday or Tuesday. When we don't give him the refund right away, he diddles around on the phone and finds a way to cancel the booking. This is after we have gone to bed. The next morning we see this and press a button to give him the refund. This is hypothetical, but explains all the evidence.