Lack of host support

Jani15
Level 4
Corning, CA

Lack of host support

This is a bit lengthy but valuable information for a host. First let me say that our Airbnb has nearly 600 reviews with a 5 star rating. We work hard and take very seriously the comfort and safety of our guests. Our Airbnb is above our garage so we greet nearly all of our guests and let them know we are here if they need anything, anytime. 

 

This past week on Wednesday we had PG&E come to our home for electrical reasons (issue with our kitchen lights dimming off and on and turns out it was weather/wind related) but PG&E sent a rep that only checked gas issues. Since he was here I asked him to check our gas fireplace and then our (new) dryer just to make sure things were properly hooked up. While here he checked our meter outside and stated that we had a gas leak. He said it was significant enough that he turned it off immediately and put a lock on the meter. He said we would need to get a plumber out to find the leak.

 

Unfortunately we had guests arriving that afternoon for a stay of five nights, in fact they arrived as PG&E was here. I explained the situation to them and told them they should have enough hot water (there was a separate large water heater in the garage only for guests use) to hold them over until we resolved the issue. We immediately called a reputable plumbing company and they sent two technicians out. They worked for the entire afternoon but said there was still a leak and they would need to come back the next day. As you can imagine I was beyond stressed over concern that my guests would not have hot water. The plumbers came the next afternoon and finished around 5 pm. The bill was $1,600. Again, we called PG&E and asked them to turn come out and turn on the gas. They arrived at 8 pm, did a check and announced that there was still a leak and they would not turn on the gas, and again, locked the meter. I stayed in communication with our guests who fortunately said they were doing fine. 

 

We had another guest arriving for a weeks stay at the end of our current guests stay. I reached out to the guest and told her what was happening and that I was worried we might not have the issue resolved by the time she arrived. I told her I would give her a full refund if she wanted to cancel and book some where else. Still feeling horrible for our current guests and even worse for the guest that had to find a place to stay with only 4 days notice I decided to call Airbnb. I needed support, perhaps they could guide me a little and well, make me feel like I was doing everything I could. Big mistake. Big.

 

I reached out to them and gave them a bit of info. All they heard was gas leak (forget that it was turned completely off and the meter locked) and then transferred me over to their safety team. Hear me now....the safety team is not there to help YOU the host, only to help the guest.

 

The safety team person assigned did not listen to me. She was smug and condesending. She told me the gas leak was a hazard to our guests and immediately told me she was blocking our Airbnb until the issue was resolved. I told her there was NO gas leak, NONE because they gas was turned off and the meter locked by a technician. I emailed her during the call with a photo of the Service Report stating it was off and locked. I tried telling her that the issue was this; our guests might be without hot water.  I had only reached out to Airbnb for a little guidance. And just like that, bam, our Airbnb disappeared from their site. I told her that it was unrealistic to block our account indefinitely. I would understand even a month but it completely disappeared. That was Thursday night. We met with our guests and were completely transparent with all that was happening. We told them we would give them a refund if they didn't want to stay the next four nights. They said they would think about it. The next morning, Friday, they said they wanted to stay. With that I told them I would refund them a fair amount. 

 

The same Friday morning we hired a different plumbing company who eventually found and repaired the leak. The bill was $600. We called PG&E, they came out again and all was resolved before our guests returned at 5 pm. 

 

I immediately emailed the Safety team rep with documentation from PG&E that EVERYTHING was resolved.  She called me, however I missed the call but the voicemail said to refer to an email she sent me. PS, at that point she reinstated our account and it was again visible. 

 

Here is the last paragraph in the email (the first two told me I had to reply with a written statement that I had read, understand and agree with their Community Standards policy regarding safety and security):

 

Please note that failure to comply with this requirement, or future violations of this policy, will result in the permanent termination of your Airbnb account. Regards, so and so.

 

After 5 and a half years of hosting, nearly 600 reviews and a 5 star rating, I was treated like I had done something intentionally. Violated their safety policy. Really? My husband and I spent over 48 torturous hours, 4 inspections by 3 different PG&E technicians, two plumbing companies, numerous phone calls, $2,200,  me crying, him so upset because I was distraught. Not because of the money although that was painful enough but because I work extremely hard to assure every guest has the best possible Airbnb experience ever. Oh, turns out we could have hosted the guest who decided to cancel but she had already booked another place. I was happy that she found a place.

 

The bottom line: Airbnb does not support the host. Period. I will, in the future, not make the same mistake. Be very careful if you have issues, be minimal with what you say or how you say it because this could happen to you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

29 Replies 29
Sean-and-Hope0
Level 1
Rosendale, NY

We too have been stellar host since 2014 and this fall we had one guest who arrived at 10 at night on a Thursday and then left 10 minutes later saying they were overcome by mold and needed to find another place to stay which they texted us they found within half an hour. This was incredulous to us since we live in a small town in the Catskills. The likelihood of finding another open hotel that didn’t have mold  within half an hour at 10:15 at night was kind of absurd. The following day when I suggested that they get a refund from Airbnb because I didn’t realize of the draconian measures that were about to happen, the guest  complained about mold to Air Bnb who Claim to give me two hours to form a rebuttal, which I was unable to do because I was in meetings for work all morning which I had relayed to the guests before telling them to get a refund from Airbnb.

 

Airbnb after waiting for two hours for me to respond to a message I didn’t see, shut us down until we got a mold inspection. We were able to find somebody on to come on Saturday which was amazing. He arrived we explain the situation and sent him upstairs to the apartment. His first words to us was “Were those people gaming the system? Your place looks great. On first glance I do not see or smell any mold.” $800 later and a mold report that came out clean, we still were unlisted on Airbnb Without any word back from them until Tuesday afternoon. Truly unconscionable for us to be treated so poorly after being a super host and highly rated Airbnb host for so many years. I agree Air Bnb does not care about the host at all. And meanwhile we had to run around like crazy to get the mold inspection taken care of to a situation we knew that didn’t exist. 

 

I think it’s time for Air Bnb to treat hosts better

I am so sorry to hear this happened to you and I completely know how you feel. I didn’t mention in my post that the plumbers were saying there was a possibility we would have to tear up our lawn and dig up concrete to find the leak. I think that was probably my underlying fear the whole time. Luckily that’s not what it was. I’m just amazed at how poorly hosts are treated. Airbnb has gotten so big it’s like the IRS, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.  Someone said in a post that Airbnb only cares about the guest because they generate the money, but they would have no guests if it weren’t for the hosts.  I have definitely learned to keep my mouth shut and handle things on my own. Your situation was different because your Guest contact Airbnb. I am so sorry to hear that that happened to you and you were treated so poorly.  

Susan1188
Level 10
Marbella, Spain

I'm just looking at your listing and able to book?*

 

It was removed for two days.

Branka-and-Silvia0
Level 10
Zagreb, Croatia

@Jani15  you can't expect any guidance from outsourced young CS reps who are mostly inexperienced with house maintenance and hosting. As Sarah said - if you need some advice come here instead

 

And you really shouldn't be so stressed out in situations like this. Life is not perfect, things break, you can't have everything under control no matter how hard you try.  What you managed to organize in 48 hours would take at least a month in Zagreb, you would get a nervous breakdown and a stroke if you would live and work here 😄

 

Just to give you perspective - last year we had an earthquake and 2 chimneys on our building were broken. The gas company closed the gas immediately even though we didn't have any gas leak in the building. We had to find 2 different ingeneers and pay for 2 different elaborates, change all boilers in all flats the building, instal plastic tubes in all chimneys, get certificates from the chimney service company, gas company and boiler service to get gas again. It took us 12 months ( 1 full year) to get hot water and heating again.  Not to mention the cost we had and of course, our Airbnb was closed but we had to pay all taxes for short term licence the entire year like we were open and of course all utilities for an empty apartment. Of course, we had damage in our homes as well and had to repair them ... same as almost everyone in the city centre, thousands of buildings become permanently or temporarily inhabitable. To find any available repairman, painter, construction company.... was a jackpot and their prices become crazy.  I didn't cry or freak out... there were many people who become homeless so I and my family were actually very lucky.

And so are you 🙂 Relax.

 

I am so sorry to hear about your bad experience. Stay strong and stay positive.

Geraldo
Tracy781
Level 2
Saratoga, CA

It is very unfortunate that Airbnb doesn't actually care at all the hosting community, let alone true support. I am currently experiencing a nightmare with a fraudulent guest named Cengiz Hulagu (an Ebay employee) who tried to blackmail me for refund with fake bed bugs pictures. Since his intention of blackmailing was seen through by me and failed, he then put a 1-star review after his checkout and said that there were bed bugs everywhere in the property etc false statements and sent support a bunch of disgusting pictures he either downloaded online or took from somewhere else. Not a single piece of furniture or wall shown on the pictures matches my property. He also put a false statement that he was forced to move out 10 days earlier (he booked for a month) due to bed bugs even though he actually checked out on the last day (the smart door lock recorded his in and out property accessing history). 

 

My experience with Airbnb support circus is a long and horrible crap too. Long crap in a short summary:

  1. As soon as the support saw the review and the pictures, they simply chose to blindly believe in the false claim of bed bugs and went ahead to suspend my listing immediately.
  2. They requested me to confirm the bed bugs issue by hiring a professional inspection company and show proof of professional treatment and notified me that some type of negative remark was placed in my account by support.
  3. Notified me that if I didn't follow the support circus' request, Airbnb would permanently remove my listing. Even though I kept emphasizing to the support that it was an obvious scam of Cengiz Hulagu as non of those pictures Cengiz sent as proof of bed bugs matched my property. 
  4. I requested multiple times via inbox message for support to call me for better communication and hear my side of story with this fraudulent guest. Support didn't bother to call me. One support associate eventually tried to call me during a weekend while I was hiking in the high sierra mountains. There is no cell signals in the high sierra mountains. So the call didn't reach me. The support then placed a note stating that phone calls were not answered by me and closed the case. 
  5. I reopened the case and explained to the support via inbox message that I was in the mountains with no cell signals. I then asked she/he to call me on the following Monday afternoon. This time the support did attempt to call me twice: both around 5:00am while I was asleep! Missed calls. Case closed again. 
  6. I then hired a professional bed bugs inspection company and performed a thorough inspection including every bed and mattress and linens, each corner of the property, every closet, cabinets, bathroom, kitchen, every chair and sofa. No evidence of any bed bugs was found.  
  7. Escalated support level with inspection report and claim of financial loss and requested support to remove the crap review. After many rounds of robotic reviews/responses from the escalation support team, here is the latest email they sent to me this morning:

 

**[Content removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines- Please note that it is not allowed to share Airbnb investigation and private conversations]

Brian2036
Level 10
Arkansas, United States

@Tracy781 

 

I am really sorry for you, and incidents like this should alarm everyone, both hosts and guests.

 

 I believe that a host who is falsely accused and who suffers financial losses thereby should be entitled to compensation.

 

If a guest punches a hole in the wall the host is (supposedly) covered for the cost of repairs.

 

How is this different?

@Brian2036 Thank you for your empathy 🙂 The sharing of my horrible experience is exactly to alert the host community to be aware of the existence of this type of guests and how CS is of no help at all.

 

Also, the way Airbnb CS handling incidents like the one I am experiencing is completely wrong. It gives the wrong signal to the entire airbnb community: there is no consequence to any guests making false accusations to retaliate hosts who stand up against blackmailing by frauds. Not only that, it effectively encourages fraudulent guests to maximize the power of negative review that it would have on the host financially. Think about it, if you are a prospecting guests and see a past guest review stating that there are bed bugs, would you rather be safe and not book such a listing, even though the host responded that there is no bed bugs with thorough inspection?

I’m so furious and frustrated with Airbnb right now I am considering not to continue with them.  
My place is not fancy but nicely renovated two bedrooms one bath, kitchen with a dining area, living room and washer/dryer.  Also has a very private fenced in backyard yard and fenced in front yard with street parking right in front, not to mention it’s right at the edge of a town center that has grocery stores, gym, post office, library, shops and restaurants, the subway is exactly one mile away, I get decent numbers of bookings because my prices are very reasonable! 
the reason why I am doing Airbnb is because I don’t want to wonder if I will be able to collect next month’s rent!  
I’ve been doing this for several years now, there has been some problems along the way but I have always try to grin and bear it even when I felt I wasn’t treated fairly, but this time I am so fed up I just don’t feel like taking it anymore!!

 I got a reservation of a six days stay just two days before their arrival. In the message the only word he sent was “hello”, I replied immediately and asked if he could tell me what’s the purpose of the visit which is the information I ask all my guests but he never replied.  Also he never notified me of their arrival as I asked all my guests do.

to make a long story short, the day after their check in, I received a message from the Support Team, asking me to supply them with photos of the house after it was cleaned WITH A TIME STAMP! the guest has sufficient evidence to prove the house was messy and dirty, if I can’t supply them with the photos from my “cleaning crew “ with a time stamp, they will have to refund the guest! I replied the message saying I cleaned the place myself the day before, I was NEVER asked to take pictures!!!  I asked to see their pictures twice but was never given.  After that, this person just simply closed the case without giving me a chance to make my case to defend myself, I couldn’t even continue the conversation!!

 So I called Airbnb because I wasn’t able to reach the guest, the person who appeared to be very understanding of my frustration, said she will look into it and will get back to me in an hour.  Hours went by, I received a message saying someone else will be contacting me, after the third person tells me that he’s going home and will continue to check into the case tomorrow.  In the meantime, I saw there was a request from that particular guest to alter his reservation to two days, I didn’t reply because I felt I should wait to hear from Airbnb first, then to my surprise Airbnb agreed with the alteration without consulting me at all!!!!

since then I’ve not heard from Airbnb at all, so I went to the house to see if they have left the house, I knocked on the door there was no answer, I went in and found the coffee table and one of the end tables in the living room was moved out of place and clearly they didn’t remove the trash, left water in different areas and kind of messy.  I took pictures and made another call to Airbnb, basically I was told they have refunded the guest except for the two days they stayed.  I was furious that they did everything without my consent and again I asked to see the photos the guests supposedly have sent but was told that they are private and need to get consent from the guest first.  WTF!!!!  I no longer have the stomach to deal with this company anymore! I told him they have always sided with the guest and just throw me under the bus!  They better understand that without hosts, they will not be in business!!!!

 I will consult with a lawyer to see if I can make them operate differently!! I might need to find out if others are having similar problems.

 

Audrey Jan

Maryland

Maxine120
Level 2
Ottawa, Canada

Maxine120_0-1635952952357.png

 

My name is Sara, a Support Ambassador on Airbnb's Claims Team.

Thanks so much for following up. I understand this is not the outcome you were hoping for.

We do our best to fairly and reasonably mediate these cases. In our efforts to be objective, keeping in mind that we were not present during the reservation, we must consider all available documentation and communication when coming to a decision which aligns with our policies and procedures.

We regret that this decision has negatively affected you, but we believe this to be a fair resolution, all things considered.

Airbnb reserves the right to make the final determination with regard to these disputes, which is outlined in our Terms of Service. Thus, we are unable to reconsider the decision made in this case.

Please know that we are thankful to have you as a host in our community and look forward to the many positive experiences you will have using Airbnb moving forward.

All the best.
Sara

 

this is the response I got from Airbnb to a problem I had with a guest Jacob who I hosted. He stole my food, damage my stairwell walls, stole some of the things he used while staying at my location including the two towels and extra bed linens in his room. Reported that his stay was bad. Airbnb was quick to down grade my super host status as a result. 

This stealing and damaged happened during the pandemic, Airbnb was not able to handle the problem, told me they will handle the problem after the pandemic which they never did, I had to raise the issue again with them. 

Mirabel sent me a claim form after several strings of emails. The form was not downloadable as per my attempt to show that the form was blank and did not download. 
I requested a useable form and my request was not responded to nor was I pointed in the direction of where I can find the form and fill it out. 

Sara sent me their final decision yesterday. I have lost in all ways hosting this thief and none of my evidence that proved I hosted a thief and that my superhost status should not have changed yet she essentially told me no can do and to suck it up and continue to perform. Great way to support your good hosts. 

Bonnie398
Level 2
St. Louis, MO

I’ve read you experience and I hate this has happed…but as fas as AirBNB NOT SUPPORTING HOSTS I TOTALLY AGREE!!! I have had multiple incidents where I have reached out to AirBNB and they treated me like crap. They have never helped me receive compensation for damages or broken rules and I’ve been hosting since 2018. Not as long as you but the point is THEY DO NOT HELP US…HOSTS. It’s terrible! 

Candee0
Level 8
Oceanside, CA

Oh how I feel your agony! 

 

Rebecca1604
Level 2
Breckenridge, CO

We need to gather together and form some kind of union. My story is below if anyone is inclined to read it:

 

In November I contacted Airbnb because I was receiving no new bookings from October 14, which at first I thought had something to do with it being the "off season" and people just not traveling, but it was nothing close to our previous off seasons (to which my calendars on Airbnb can attest to, which I will show in number at the end). So I decided to look into it, as we were really struggling with the lack of income. I found that when searching for a place in our town, our listing would only show up when I zoomed in, directly over our home. Strange. I have been a super host for many years, and have hosted hundreds of guests- I typically show up right away on Airbnb's search (as our listing is doing once again). So I contacted Airbnb to see what the issue may be.
The first email I sent was November 7, the person "helping" me did nothing and did not actually hear my concern, nothing was done and this person closed the case. Weeks went by and our listing completely disappeared from the search, even when directly over our home. At that time I urgently contacted Airbnb on November 24, as we were entering Thanksgiving weekend, with our room vacant, and this being one of our busiest times, and our listing was nowhere to be found. I knew something was seriously wrong.

In addition to sending a message, I also spoke with and Airbnb representative. The representative seemed to understand and gave me a sense of hope that my issue would be dealt with, and in a timely manner. She brought her manager/surpervisor over to look at the issue and they concluded there was something wrong, and it looked like a bug, or at least a tech problem they could not correct themselves. She said that someone from the tech department would need to contact me. I asked her to make sure someone contacted me that day, as I was losing out on a lot of income for the Thanksgiving weekend. She assured me somebody would contact me. Nobody did. Ever. My listing remained absent, with no way to make any income.
The representative on the message did absolutely nothing for me, at least she didn't lie, but she closed out our communication stating that it had been resolved. I responded that it had not, in fact, been resolved at all. She closed the communication anyway.

From October 14 until December 2, our listing did not show up on Airbnb's website or only showed up when zoomed directly over our home. In 2020 we made $3136 during these dates, in 2021 we made $281 during these dates, and all from bookings created before October 14.