Escalation support, fraud, scam

Christina142
Level 4
California, United States

Escalation support, fraud, scam

Hi Folks,

 

Can someone tell me how to escalate an issue?  Currently, I'm "escalated" to Res 2, but have never, ever received a proactive contact from Airbnb about a scammer who stayed at my house.  I've been trying to get help 18 days.  18 days and not a single proactive response from Airbnb.  When I've called in I've been told someone will contact me in 15 minutes, 1 hour, and within 24 hours; to date I've never been contacted by Airbnb support.  

 

A little backgound; I only accept guests with at least 3 positive host reviews and no negative reviews because of some unfortunate experiences I had when I first starting hosting about four years ago.  I accepted a guest by the name of Olusegun who had 11 positive review which were strangely all from Florida from February 2019-April 2019.  Somehow he "canceled" his stay on the 2nd day of a one week booking.  I have a strict no cancellation policy, Airbnb never contacted me about his cancellation, and he stayed until the 3rd day of his booking.  I never would have known any of this as Airbnb NEVER CONTACTED ME ABOUT THE CANCELLATION.  I only knew about it because I needed to pay bills and didn't see the money in my account.  Additionally, this guy showed up an hour and a half early for check in, smoked in the house (totally against the rules), and brought two of his friends with him (the booking was for one guest not three).

 

Also, Airbnb disabled my ability to review Olusegun prior to the 14 day period.  So I can't even warn future potential hosts about what a scammer and fraud this guy is....

 

Coincidentally, my Airbnb account was hacked at the same time, a new PayPal payout method was added and made the primary payout method on my account.  I caught this right away, deleted the new payout method and changed my passwords.  What a PITA.

 

I still don't have my money.  Have never heard from anyone at Airbnb about this issue.  Every time I call I get the run around. I am so frustrated and disappointed.  Does anyone have any advice on how I can get through to someone at Airbnb who will tell me what the hell happened with this booking (I feel like it's a total inside-job scam), and get me my money?

 

TIA

6 Replies 6
Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Christina142 You could try Twitter - Airbnb don't seem to like bad publicity.

Nick
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hi @Christina142 

 

I'm one of the Community Managers here on the CC. Let me start by saying I am you are experiencing this. I contacted the CS on your behalf and they told me they've already made contact with you. 

 

I wanted to see if there are any updates and do hope your issue will soon be resolved.

 

Thanks
Nick

Christina142
Level 4
California, United States

Nick thanks for reaching out.  However, Airbnb has NEVER made contact with me regarding this issue, I've been the one doing all the contacting.  Today I received this message and am furious:

"Airbnb Support4:31 PM
Hi Christina,

Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective.

After gathering and carefully reviewing all related documentation, we decided we are unable to provide additional payouts for the reservation because the reservation was cancelled due to safety reasons. Since the reservation was cancelled, the review was also closed. To know more, please click here:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/13

We consider this decision final. I apologize again for the inconvenience. Never hesitate to call us back if you would need help. I will be delighted to work with you again in the future. I hope you were happy with my assistance and I wish you well. Stay safe with your family."
 
I've been a SuperHost with Airbnb for four years and have never, ever had a "Safety" issue.  And, if Olusegun had a safety issue why wasn't I contacted about it so I could rectify it?  I feel like I'm totally getting scammed.  I want the full payment of the reservation plus my regular cleaning fee.  I want to know what the heck happened so I can avoid it in the future.  I seriously feel like Airbnb has let me down and I'm getting scammed.  
 
Do you have any advice for me?
 
 
Nick
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Thanks @Christina142  for updating us here, and I'm truly sorry to hear you didn't get the ideal resolution here.

 

I'm afraid there is just so much we can do from our end here on the CC and without further details of the case, I am not able to offer specific advice other than, if you are unhappy with the decision then the best thing to do would be to reply to the message to dispute the resolution reached.

 

If you have any questions please do drop me a DM and I can do my best to help.

 

Thanks,
Nick

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Christina142 My GUESS is that Airbnb collected the money from the guests fraudulent credit card. When the card company reversed the transaction Airbnb then cancelled the guest and (luckily ) he moved out.

Sadly Airbnb's T&Cs mean they are not liable for payments not being made even though this is one of the key things a host needs.

I may be wrong but do let me know if you find out more. I am more likely to be right if it was a last minute booking.

 

Helen350
Level 10
Whitehaven, United Kingdom

..... Ah Yes, the "safety reasons" could well have been @Christina142 's safety, with a guest who used a stolen credit card, not his safety, as she assumed (thinking she was being wrongly accused of unsafe premises.) 

- Would have been nice if CS had properly explained this tho' , wouldn't it? - rather than adding insult (& paranoia) to injury!