Dealing with party help line - reporting about my experience

[Inna22]

Yesterday at about 4pm  I received an alert from Party Squasher that I have upwards 30 guests at one of my properties. The reservation was for 5 and they been staying a couple of nights already without any issues. I called the guest who said that he was having a few people over. I told him it was not allowed and that they should take their gathering elsewhere. He promised to do that. Since this was early evening and there were no other red flags from this guest, I wanted to give him a chance to peacefully disperse. An hour later the number creeped up a little bit instead of going down so I called and messaged him again. This time he did not answer. I called Airbnb. I would’ve normally just gone over there, but I was at a family birthday with my kids and I didn’t feel this was a home trashing rager but rather an unauthorized gathering so I thought I will give this whole party line a chance to take care of this for me as per its intended design.

After being on hold with the original customer service agent, I was transferred to somebody else. That person's role was to just gather information. Another half hour later somebody else called me back and went over everything yet again. I assumed this person would jump straight onto dealing with the situation and then call me back to discuss. However, I never heard back from anybody and the counter was still showing a good number of people so I decided to head over to the house. On my way I called Airbnb one more time and was told that I have a case manager (the last person I spoke with) and that person communicates by email only. The only way to get answers to any of my questions was for either me or this representative on the phone (who by the way was lovely) to email him and wait for him to email back. Clearly an extremely unproductive way of doing anything. My main question at that point was if I have the right to remove the entire group or only the unregistered guests and what the consequences would be to me as well as what action if any he took so far. The rep on the phone emailed the case manager and was hearing back regularly, but they were generic answers and not specific to my questions. When I parked, I started to exchange emails with that person myself and was getting really vague responses – quotes from various policies all having nothing to do with the questions I was asking. By the time I arrived, the party was over. This was about 7:30 PM. The guest was extremely apologetic and claimed he would pay for damages if there was any. Visually I could only see some splashes on the walls and I could faintly smell smoke in one of the bedrooms.

I was still not given a clear answer on what would happen if I ask the guest to leave. The person on the phone could not authorize anything without the case manager and the case manager was not answering the questions asked. I made a decision of letting the guest stay. I’m not a big fan of kicking people out on the street. The party was over. There was nothing to gain for me at that point by leaving these people outside to freeze at 8 PM. Yes, maybe that should be a punishment to them but hopefully karma will step in. I also didn’t want to have a cancellation and loss of income on my account at that point when everything was said and done anyway. Also I thought by letting them stay I felt I was keeping the door open to getting the guest to pay if anything major is discovered at departure.

I emailed the representative one last time but never heard back until midday today. His message said he was closing the case.

To summarize: the party helpline is a farce. Most importantly, there’s absolutely no sense of urgency. If a naïve host relies on them for help, it will just never come. The problem may be is that some host will call them thinking that something will be done and waste precious time instead of taking their own action. There are also no policies in place. I should’ve received an email outlining what is going to happen, what my rights are, how to get in touch with customer service through a priority line and what the next steps would be. Ideally they should have a security company or retired law-enforcement in big metropolitan cities or areas on retainer to come and help. Prior to them establishing this line, what would’ve happened was this: I would’ve realized there was a party, I would have either kicked them out myself or called the police without relying on anyone but me; then I would’ve followed standard process to get reimbursed. Now all the regular steps are taken away from me but there is nothing to replace them (if you choose to engage Airbnb).

[Alex-And-Rhea0]

@Mark116 Thank you Brilliant advice.

[Paul-and-Jennifer1]

I had a similar experience with Airbnb it is a farce nobody answered your questions we got Generic computer generated emails Saying there was a case manager looking into it nobody ever looked into my party and I had damage I also had an unruly guessed that said horrible things to me and caused quite a bit of damage Airbnb sent me another computer generated response just recently saying the case was closed they never even spoke to the guest what the hell are we paying these people for if they can’t step up when we need their help

[Alex-And-Rhea0]

@Inna22 Wow! That's a terrible experience and I must say you handled it well. Interesting how many episodes I've read so far lurking in these forums, that Air Bnb is impotent when it comes to helping hosts. 

It makes me wonder why? We are the ones who made them what they are. 4 million people per night!

So how do you propose to avoid this? At least here in Japan as a Hotelier I must be compliant and have copies of all passports of all guests.  I think that Air Bnb has to initiate some kind of security by collecting personal information on all potential Air Bnb travellers. Why not? At least there is legal recourse if something terrible happens and it has. Thanks for sharing your experience it only goes to show we hosts have to do something about this.

[Inna22]

@Alex-And-Rhea0 I think there’s a lot of factors in play here. One Solution would be greeting every guest and asking for an ID from everybody. This might not be convenient depending on your lifestyle or if you are an out-of-town host. This will also limit your reservations because sometimes people for legitimate reasons can’t arrive all at the same time. Having noise monitoring and counter devices will alert you if something happens. Acting on those immediately is important as well. Renting out a smaller space would obviously limit the number of people wanting to throw a party. Mine are bigger, so I am in a risk category to begin with. Last but not least, in my city they track the number of times police is dispatched to an Airbnb location and might not renew my license if I have several calls. Therefore, I am very careful in calling and getting police involved. In another city the answer may be as simple as getting the police out at the first sign of any trouble

[Susan17]

@Inna22 

You raise a very valid and important point about police involvement, and how Airbnb's fractious and combative relationship with law enforcement agencies around the world has caused hosts to be put at even greater risk, because they're often too reluctant  to call the police, in case it gets them shut down. 

The police in many jurisdictions are amongst the strongest, most vocal and most powerful objectors to Airbnb activity being permitted to continue in their cities, due to the massive drains on their time, manpower and resources in dealing with endless Airbnb callouts (the majority of which, turn out to be civil matters anyway. (There are numerous reports of police in many regions now refusing to attend Airbnb callouts at all, except in dire emergencies, because they've simply had enough of being used as if they were Airbnb's private security firm)

And despite their CX agents routinely advising hosts to "Call the cops", for every little thing, Airbnb is not so quick to cooperate with the police when they're the ones seeking assistance of information from the company, even in serious or time-sensitive cases. Law enforcement agencies are forced to jump through a serious of laborious hoops to request information from Airbnb, and are often met with stonewalling and intransigence, rather than assistance. 

Apart from having to provide reams of documentation for the most basic pieces of information, if the police are chasing someone in particular (say for example, a suspected murderer using a series of Airbnb's as safe houses), Airbnb also insists that the officers provide them with a Non-Disclosure Order, otherwise their policy is to inform the guest (criminal) that the cops are trying to track him/her down. Then they'll carefully scrutinise the NDO for "legal deficiencies", before deciding whether or not to honour it. As the clock ticks down...

"Where Airbnb identifies a legal deficiency in a non-disclosure order, Airbnb’s practice is to inform the requesting law enforcement agent about the deficiency and indicate what the appropriate process would be"

From the latest stats available (Jan 1 - June 30, 2018), 1368 law enforcement requests were submitted to Airbnb for user information globally, yet in only 305 of those cases, "at least some account information was disclosed"

So all this has inevitably resulted in a preposterous - and extremely dangerous - situation where the relationship between Airbnb and various law enforcement agencies has deteriorated to such an extent, that not only can hosts not rely on Airbnb to back them up in times of crisis, they can't (or are too scared to) call on the police for back-up either. 

[Tony-And-Una0]

A friend of ours, that also hosts, recently asked two men to leave his apartment that were not authorised to be there late at night - they were "guests" of two ladies that had rented the place.

The ladies complained to Airbnb that he was aggressive (he is not an aggressive person). His listing is now permanently suspended - despite several years of five star reviews.

[Marie82]

@Tony-And-Una0 sorry to hear about ur friend but an unfortunate typical attitude of Airbnb toward loyal hosts. 

We come to a point even making a remark to guests is going to be challenge without a risk of being

delisted.

[Susan17]

@Tony-And-Una0 

What a horrible situation for your friend. It's bad enough that he was delisted as a result of false allegations (no doubt, without any sort of proper investigation), but to be branded as some sort of aggressive bully on top of that, just adds insult to injury.

The scariest part is though, that we've all become so accustomed to seeing shocking stories like this in relation to Airbnb, that we're actually desensitised to it now, and nobody bats an eyelid (until it happens to them, of course). We should all be up in arms about this sort of brutal, abusive treatment of our fellow hosts, but everyone prefers to just look the other way and pretend its not happening. 😞

[Krystal16]

@Inna22   I would suggest saving all the emails between the case manager and yourself, detail what has happened and send the correspondence to the mayors of cities that have recently had shootings.  Send it to John Tory, the mayor of Toronto, this new hotline is supposed to be in response to the recent shooting in a condo there.  mayor_tory@toronto.ca

You could also send to news sources.  Ridiculous that you are calling the party help line and you can only communicate with your case manager by email.  Imagine calling 911 and having the operator tell you, I understand there is a burglar in your home with a gun but you have been assigned a case manager please email him/her and he will respond at his earliest convenience.

[Inna22]

@Krystal16 Airbnb is my source of income. Think of it as your children – you might criticize them and complain about them, but you’re not going to kick them out. I’m not going to complain about Airbnb to media as Airbnb is not going to do anything about my particular situation anyway and this will accumulatively create bad publicity for them and therefore bring less business to us. Furthermore, the f I take it to media that I have parties all the time, most likely Airbnb will just **bleep** ME down and say see- we have dealt with this

[Sean433]

@Inna22 @Krystal16 

I agree with Inna. If you are going to take the path Krystal and many others I have read suggested, do not be surprised if your account is perm suspended at some point down the road. If you don't rely on this income that much or just don't care if your relationship with the company is tarnished, then that is one thing. But for those who have established a brand with several listings like Inna, it is a suicidal mission and won't lead to growth. To me, you are better off trying to build a relationship with executives and voice your concerns that way.

I am also from Toronto and voiced many times how tighter rules should be applied to locals through here and directly to executives (won't mention names). I am not saying I am the reason the new 25+ rule in Toronto passed but if I had even a small part in it, that is great. It is a good rule that they just implemented. I did not have to go to the media for airbnb to have implemented this rule. Although I am sure the media coverage of the shooting did help expedite this new rule, it is not the path I would take. I do not think it is wise.

[Susan17]

@Sean433 

How are they monitoring and implementing the 25+ rule? I haven't heard anything about mandatory ID Verification for all visitors to Toronto? Is it just a case of guests ticking a box to say "Yeah, sure I'm over 25"?

[Sean433]

@Susan17 

I  believe it is through their government issued ID. It is not the visitors to Toronto that they monitor. The rule only applies to locals. I have not read anything about who is determined to be a local since Toronto and its surrounding cities are very large.

In the case of the previous shooting that catapulted this rule, the guests were from Brampton which is about a 1 hour drive from this Condo that was in Downtown Toronto. Experienced hosts here know that you should never rent to locals for the weekend especially those from Brampton where the worst of the worst come from.  I would assume all of the major neighboring cities around Toronto are considered "locals". If this new rule proves successful at reducing violence, it seems it will be rolled out to other cities.  I think that this was a huge decision.

[Susan17]

@Sean433 

Sorry yes, as it's a Canada-wide rule, I was forgetting that only local (whatever that means) under-25s are banned from renting entire homes, unless they have "positive reviews" (but no clarification on whether that's 1, 5 or 20 reviews?)

Tbh, I can't see how they're possibly going to enforce this. Even at this point, details are still very sketchy (such as what, exactly, constitutes "local"), and just because one person in the group is 25, doesn't necessarily mean they all are (I foresee a lot of older brother's accounts, being used by their younger bros - just like we all used to use our older siblings IDs to get into pubs and clubs at far too young an age!) 

Just all seems far too vague and non-committal to be of any real value. Once again, if Airbnb had any real will or intent to enforce this rule, they'd have laid down very strict, clear and precise guidelines and parameters. They haven't done that though, which makes it look suspiciously like just another crisis-control PR exercise. 

[Susan17]

@Sean433 

PS The reason I asked about whether there's some new box for guests to tick to state that they're not under 25, was a quote from Dennis Lehane that I read a few days ago, which had me wondering..

Airbnb says the measure relies on user-provided information and "user verification systems."

Also, his follow-up quote didn't exactly inspire confidence..

"We're not infallible ... there are ways that people are going to circumvent systems," Lehane said.