Abusive Guests and Deposit Claim

[Ann190]

I recently encountered an abusive guest.

The guests came in, had a party in violation of the house rules (you can tell there was a party as there were a lot of beer cans and bottles left and a huge cluster of trash for the number of the guests for a short stay), took a bottle of perfume, left a mess and drapery rod hanging from the wall...There's trash everywhere and cigarette butts in the yard..

I took some pictures of the mess, and got a handyman immediately to fix the drapery rod as I had to host another guest group very soon. It was not very easy to find one with such a short notice. 

After all that, I sent a request for money to the guest who created the mess, attached pictures and invoice from the handyman. I waited a few days, no response, then I involved airbnb.

Airbnb basically dismissed all the evidences.

They cannot accept the invoice as it's not "issued on official company letterhead by a registered company". 

They said I have to file a police report to recover the missing perfurme (about $20 value).

They said I need to keep original receipts of all the towels that I need to replace which didn't occur to me at the time of the purchase. 

I didn't even try to claim for additional cleaning services...

Apparently, there are a lot of "rules according to Airbnb's accounting department" preventing the hosts from claiming the deposit and recover from the damage. When I came to the case, I realized how difficult it is and how vulnerable hosts are in the face of abusive guests. 

I left a negative review for the guest and she stayed quiet throughout the time. Since she didn't write a review for me, the negative review for her remains unseen. This seems to be an easy way to get away?

The deposit I'm trying to claim is very minimum (about $150, handyman alone cost me $120 not including tips). If I cannot collect it due to these implicit "accounting department rules", I'm at least looking to learn how I should have handled this so I don't always end up hurting. 

I'd appreciate any advices how to handle such incidents. 

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

@Ann190

What a horrible experience - and so frustrating when it's so difficult to claim against the deposit.

one correction: your review will be posted on the guest's profile after 14 days (if they have not left a review in the meantime)

[Ann190]

Thanks @Gerry-And-Rashid0 for your kind note and tip! 

[Deryl0]

I just had almost exactly the same experience.  My guest brought a dog, which I only allowed because I believed I had a security deposit to cover any mess the dog would make.  Well, the dog made a lot of messes and I had to have my carpet cleaner come after they left.  I submitted the carpet cleaning invoice which was on legit company letterhead.  Air BNB wanted pictures, which neither my housekeeper nor my carpet cleaner thought to take.  I doubt a photo could have fully conveyed the problem.  How do I document odors?  Not only did ABNB reject my claim, it seemed like an automated message with no human being actually considering the situation. And that is possibly the most frustrating part.  I can't get a human on the phone to discuss it with.

If Air BNB is going to continue with this policy, I won't stay an Air BNB host much longer.

[Annette33]

@Deryl0 , so sorry this has happened to you. must be really frustrating to have your willingness and good natured approach be taken advantage of.  I see you're fairly new to Airbnb, don't give up! It's an opportunity to figure out what you can do to preempt such an incident in the future:

1.) You practically have no house rules in place - start putting them in asap - and then you have leverage with Airbnb when a guest breaks them . Start with the generic house rules Airbnb offers, such as "no smoking", "no pets" (!) , no parties, etc.. then add some of your own. Perhaps study what other hosts have in their house rules, you'll get the idea what works for you.

2.) Study all rules Airbnb has in place, then you'll know much better how to react and what to expect when something goes wrong. Overall, don't rely on Airbnb to help you out, get creative and firm in solving the issues as they arise. But if anything like this happens again, take pictures asap.  Airbnb is too big a company to just take a host's word for something that may or may not hVe hPpened.

[Mae8]

This is a total scam by Airbnb. We have had our flats destroyed in London. We provided estimates and resceipts on "official company letterhead" from registered companies. Airbnb does not respond for weeks and then states, "we do not accept this". Then we ask them to provide an example. They provided an example...that looks EXACTLY like the invoices we provided.

The $1,000,000 host guarantee is a scam. 

Today we were hit again. We have to spend about 10 - 30 hours communicating with airbnb, fixing the damages, going to the stores, etc., and NONE of this is covered by airbnb. Airbnb is shooting themselves in the foot as we have to remove our properties from Airbnb and they will no longer get the revenue. Airbnb is too large now to care of do anything about this.

Read the problems on the web.