All I can say is WOW

[Laura3135]

I cant believe this has happend but it did...

We  had a guest book in a few weeks in advance for one night, he was stopping off for a night on his way through to somewhere, we get that alot in our Airbnb..

we gave him the standed all the infomation when he booked, then a few days before he arrives we gave him all the information again, with check in info as well, having hosted 100s of guests now, we have fine tuned our pre- info system and its been working out great.

THEN he says on the second message in the Airbnb system, he cant read all the information of our message as he has an old phone, can we txt it to him..

ok thats fine i txt our check in info to him.

2 hours before he is due to check in i get a phone call, it is another Airbnb in Taupo he is trying to check into, the owner calls me saying well WTF, your guest has turned up to my place, they looked at his account and had there address and our phone number....  well all i could do was say sorry and give our guest our address AGAIN as we always put it in our check in details, and let him know he is 2 hours early our check in is at 3pm.

He never showed up, at 10pm i got worried and contacted Airbnb, i got a response straight away and they thought it was strange looking at the message logs as well and could not contact him....we tried calling his phone number as well.... it ended as that.

A week later we hear from Airbnb that the Guest has replied back to all there messages finaly, that he was not happy he was given the wrong address and was not able to check in 2 hours early so he decided to stay else where, and has left us a  review, ive not left a review for him yet but i know his will be bad.

 well he didint stay with us,and ill only Guess what his review will be, even Airbnb has said, there system may have gave him the wrong address, but they cannot stop the the review process, so sorry about that.

so to sum up, I did everything right even have the Airbnb log to prove it, the guest could not read anything he had booked, Airbnb said they may have sent him to the wrong place...he gets the **bleep**s and moves on, but he is stil lable to leave a review for us, and Airbnb cant do nothing about it...

Really???

[Emilia42]

@Laura3135 

Wow, this is Airbnb's glitch. I think the next thing to do would be to write a neutral, factual review of him --> "Unfortunately, an Airbnb glitch gave XX the wrong address and he tried to check into another host's location. After trying to work out the miscommunication, he never showed up. I did not host him and therefore cannot comment any further." Then you will be able to see his review. Call Airbnb and fight tooth and nail for them to remove it. You may have to talk to different reps and it may take you a while. Hopefully, there will be something written in his review that will result in a simple decision to remove. Good luck!

[Colleen253]

@Laura3135 

@Emilia42 is right, you may have to keep trying, to get the review removed. If you get a CS rep who won’t help you, call back and try another. Keep at it until you get one who is competent to understand what happened and act appropriately.  Many of them are woefully untrained and just can’t handle these situations. 

Emphasize that it was AIRBNB error. Keep it simple and stay calm, when speaking to Airbnb. The key points here are “wrong address provided on guest confirmation from Airbnb can only be AIRBNB’s fault.” And the “address you gave the guest TWICE in your check in details messages was CORRECT”. 

They may not be able to stop the review process, but they can certainly delete a review.

This was not your error.

[Linda108]

How frustrating for you!  You can imagine how frustrating it was for the guest as well.  Perhaps we all assume that technology works all the time even though all of us have experienced otherwise. 

It might be my age (over 70) but I do not trust technology completely and do not build my communication based on the assumption that systems work all the time and people understand how to use them.  Now, more than ever, Air BNB is not as good a partner via customer service as it has been in the past, so assuming they will be helpful is a sure way to disappointment.  I wonder if you could have spoken to the guest when it first started, you would have been able to realize the problem earlier.  Just a thought. 😛

[Ann72]

@Laura3135  100% terrible and annoying.  But don't worry about the review.  He won't look too smart.  You sent him multiple messages - surely in one of those he saw the correct information, but instead chose to overlook it and use the info that Airbnb gave him in the reservation.  (I think that's what happened?)  He'll complain and you can be VERY brief and say you were sorry about the glitch but he had every opportunity to call and respond to text messages.

[Lisa723]

@Laura3135 this is the very epitome of an irrelevant review and you should definitely be able to get it removed:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/548/airbnbs-dispute-moderation-for-reviews

[Laura3135]

Thank you everyone for your help, looks like the review will be removed.

 I never got to read the review as i had not left one yet, looks like i still can leave one tho, im wondering if i should or not?  I have no idea how the system works if his one has been removed, if i post one his one might come back etc...

I wouldn't mark him right down or anything silly like that, but let other hosts know what they maybe in for.

Or maybe just leave it aloan.

 

[Robin4]

@Laura3135 

Laura, you can leave a review but, be very diplomatic and make sure your review is objective without being accusatorial.  Remember your review will only be worthwhile if it remains public.

I would say something like....."As much as we would liked to have had the pleasure of hosting Glenn his method of communication directed him to a property not listed by us. We would have been happy to help Glenn out and welcome him to our property but, he chose to pursue other avenues of accommodation without involving us. We therefore can't offer an opinion on him as a guest.

We try our best for our guests but feel Glenn may not be a good candidate for the Airbnb market, he would be better served by the hotel industry and unfortunately (as a host) I cannot recommend Glenn to other hosts"! 

Something like that is quite nebulous and does not accuse Glenn of being anything other than a bloody goose. It has not accused Airbnb of any wrongdoing and has not accused Glenn of anything contravening Airbnb's content policy so, Airbnb will not be able to remove it.

Sorry Laura you have had this situation, you are a great host and deserve better than this. Both the guest and Airbnb have let you down, but I would not expect any help from Airbnb.....they have a habit of sweeping their problems into the trash-bin without giving too much thought to the consequences of their faults!

Cheers.......Rob

[Lisa723]

@Laura3135 I would leave it alone. He was a poor communicator but it might have worked out OK absent the Airbnb glitch.