Free stay for Complaining guests

[Brice32]

I have had it above my eyebrows with Airbnb. I have always loved airbnb and have been a big advocate of them up until today. We have a beautiful property in Corsica right off the water that we rent during the summers. Last summer 2017 we had a guest and his family stay for 2 WEEKS. In the first 2 days he called us to tell us the air conditioner was not working properly. Great! we fixed it within a day, no problem. This guest goes on to enjoy his vacation with no other questions or requests for us.

Fast forward the end of this guest 2 week stay we get a complaint from him demanding to be refunded his entire stay. WTF!!! No way we say. Then we get a email from airbnb stating the guest has complained and due to his complaints we should offer to give him some of his money back. What were the complaints we ask?

1. The TV signal was weak and cut out to much. (Mind you...Corsica is a island, you will be lucky to get cell phone service alot of places)

2. The bathroom was dirty and not enough toilet paper

3. The location of the property was not precise

We then told airbnb we will certainly not refund his money because those claims were ridiculous and we don't have a everyday maid to clean up after these mooches and they need to provide their own toilet paper after 4 rolls we already provide for them. We then thought the process was finished.

We are now here to today and finished our first guest of the summer. We are looking for our payout when we learn that Airbnb decided to credit the man his money and deduct 800Euros from us. I am FURIOUS. We call and they say they can't do anything about it since it was a year ago and they did not need our permission to deduct the money because it was Airbnb's choice. I don't know what kind of world these airbnb workers are floating on but its obvious this man just wanted some money back. Not only did he stay the full 2 weeks enjoying his vacation but he waited until the vacation was over to call Airbnb. If a guest is turned off by your property the first thing I would suggest is for them to call Airbnb right away and have airbnb find them another place to stay. THIS IS ALL AIRBNB fault. Not only did they side with a mooch of a guest but they did absoloulty no mediation between us and him to come to a reasonable solution. 

As of right now since we have not heard back from their department after spending 1.5hrs on the phone we might have to take legal action. In my eyes Airbnb has just stolen from us. 

Good luck to all those hosts out there and hopefully you don't end up getting frauded. 

[Rebecca160]

@Brice32This sounds grossly unfair to you. The guest, in this case, should not have succeeded in getting his entire stay refunded. And to have Airbnb take out the money this year for the refund this guest did not deserve is terribly wrong.

If I were you, I would escalate this case to the highest levels. Reach out via Facebook and Twitter, if necessary. If you get no satisfaction, then you ight consider switching to another hosting site.

Hosts will be watching to see how this turns out for you. Good luck.

[Geoff22]

I would be furious - as you are.  I hope you get some satisfaction and that it doens't take too long.   And I echo what others have said, escalate on FB and Twitter if you don't get results soon.

[Letti0]

@Brice32  right on the AirBnB twitter account and Face book visible to the public I would post "Airbnb has just stolen from us! They need to correct this NOW!!!" I'd add the $ amount also. 

[Shawn16]

I've seen this before.  They are scammers who want a free vacation place. They have mastered the art of bogus complaints because they know Airbnb will try to get them a refund from the host.  The only way around this is to check in with them via text on arrival and ask them in writing if everything is as they expected and if anything needs attention.  Then I leave notes with my phone number telling hem to contact me immediately if anything needs attention.  (I also put his in the house rules).  After one guest complained about the house being dirty  (it wasn't) I started asking people in the house rules to text photos of any problems so I could asap fix them.  Guess what?  No bogus complaints after that (I guess the scammers decided to pursue other hosts. Works for me! )