Convo with Customer Service About Fleas:
(My Favorite part is when rep tells me to submit reciepts for bug spray within one hour or they will not be able to assist, lol, insane.)
Airbnb Support
5:25 PM
Tony,
My name is Natalie, I am a Case Manager with Airbnb. Thank you so much for reaching out to us on this matter. I am going to do what I can to make sure that we get this taken care of for you. If you dont mind letting me know how many nights the Guest actually stayed at the listing I would greatly appreciate it!
Tony
5:25 PM
the guest left today.
Airbnb Support
5:36 PM
Perfect, thank you so much. So I have spoken with my team, and we understand that you think that the Guest is the one who brought the fleas. Now with that, we don't have any documentation to prove showing that the Guest is the one who brought the fleas. What we do know is that when the Guest entered the listing, that's when they started to complain about the bites and the marks.
Now the Guest is not going to get a full refund. But we do need to issue them some sort of refund. I do want to run something by you that me and my team have come up with. So for the nights not spent, we will go ahead and issue the Guest a full refund by altering the reservation. While doing that, your calendar dates do open back up as well. And then 20% of each night spent. So altogether, the Guest would receive a refund of $130. Let me know what you think about that.
Tony
5:41 PM
Honestly, that's what I figured you would do. I would like to file an insurance claim then. If not this guest, it definitely was am airbnb guest who brought the fleas. As usual, airbnb wants me to take the hit, including excessive cleaning fees and lost income. Any refund to this guest will mean I receive no further payment for August, and AGAIN will need to take a cash advance to cover rent. My situation with you has been snowballing into a worse and worse situation since you guys refunded a guest for breaking all my house rules in June. You are clearly going to do exactly what you proposed above no matter what I say, why ask?
Tony
5:59 PM
Every time I talk to CS department, polite words that are in reality not helping. It would be nice, Just One Time in two years, to see Airbnb do something, anything, responsible. When I realized one of your guests brought me fleas, I didn't complain, I didn't wait, I sprung into action and just took responsibility for the problem. Even though I had just done laundry, I re-laundered hundreds of pounds of laundry. I bought excessive amounts of bombers. I got industrial grade wall spray. I even washed this girl's clothes because she had then lying all over the floor. Then your cs department hits me up for more money instead of guiding me through filing an insurance claim. You leave me at a loss as to how to even communicate with your department.
for the record, that's 30,000 sq feet of bug bomber for a 2400 sq foot house.
AUGUST 29, 2018
Airbnb Support
11:14 AM
You are an amazing Host Tony. I do not want to take that away from you at all. But the fact of the matter is when the Guest arrived to the listing, she was getting bit by fleas. We have no way to prove that the Guest is the one who brought the fleas in. Maybe your previous Guests didn't notice the fleas. The Guest was bitten in your listing. So that is why we are needing to go ahead and give her a partial payout. You are still getting paid out, but the Guest was effected by this.
Tony
2:11 PM
#1. I'm just printing out all these "customer service" threads. What you are constantly doing, and being directed to do by airbnb, is in bad faith. If this was the only instance where you are making decisions like this, that works be acceptable, but it's not. It's called bad faith when you use technicalities in the contract to constantly do something other than what's expected(honor cancellation policy). ILLEGAL. Look it up.
#2 "The fact of the matter" is the guest never complained until the day she left, she said nothing when she showed up. She in fact thought it was so acceptable at first they she had an unregistered guest over guys a sleep over! There were no fleas before she showed up.
#3 Either this guest, OR ANOTHER GUEST YOU SENT, BROUGHT ME FLEAS. Answer this question directly: are you claiming the fleas appeared out of thin air? I can't see how it matters which guest brought them, why are you not opening am insurance claim for me???????
Tony
2:24 PM
Let's talk about filing an insurance claim, that's the only responsible place for this to go.
Airbnb Support
2:27 PM
Tony,
Just to clarify, Airbnb is not sending anyone to you. We as Airbnb are a third party when it comes to these situations. We give you the platform to host and make money. Just like we give guests the platform to travel. You as the Host, are the ones accepting the reservations. We as Airbnb will not and will never force you to host a guest. You do that at your own will. Now while inviting these Guests into your listing, yes you take on the risk of anyone bringing anything into your listing. Whether it be fleas, bed bugs, roaches, or any other type of vermin. Airbnb is here to help and assist you as much as possible but we not held responsible for anything that happens to your listing. Also, you agreed to all of these when you accepted our Terms of Service.
I am sorry that you are going through this Tony and I am trying to help you but I need you to understand that I am here to also help the Guest as well. Like you said, either this guest or another guest, it doesn't matter how the fleas got into the listing, this guest was effected, so we need to accommodate this guest now. You have already done exactly what you were supposed to do and that was take care of your listing and the fleas.
We are not going to be able to make an insurance claim because we have no proof/documentation to prove that this guest was the one who brought the fleas in. Now if you would like to send me receipts of the bombs and stuff that you bought, I would be more than happy to go ahead and bring that back to my team and see if we can reimburse you for some of it. But before we do that, we need to come to an agreement on reimbursing the Guest.
Tony
2:30 PM
Whenever you do this stuff, the hosts just go over your head and report on the Community Forum. Again, answer the question directly: Are you claiming that the fleas were not brought by any Airbnb guest? Every room in the house constantly booked on your website, one of your guests brought the fleas, whether it was Madison or a different guest. Airbnb is the only platform I use.
Airbnb Support
3:21 PM
I understand the Airbnb is the only platform you use, but Airbnb can't be held accountable for the Guests you accept to allow into your home. I personally can not answer your question because I don't know for a fact where the fleas came from. Just like you don't know exactly where the fleas came from. The fleas could have come from a cleaning service if you have one, they could have come from you coming in from outside and changing the sheet for the Guest. We have no documentation to prove where these fleas came from. So just because you use the Airbnb platform does not mean that the Guest is the one who brought them in. Like I stated before, if you send me the receipts for the bombs and the spray that you had to use on the listing I will be more than happy to take that to our financial team and see if we can help reimburse you. As a result the Guest was effected by the fleas while staying in your listing, and they do need to be compensated for that.
Tony
3:29 PM
So your answer is "fleas appeared by magic." Gotcha, and not surprised. I'm just going to go ahead and copy and paste this conversation to the host forums so everybody can see how your company handles it when a guest brings a bug infestation.
Airbnb Support
3:34 PM
Tony,
I don't think they appear by magic. I'm stating that we have no documentation to prove it was a guest. At this time you are just assuming it was a guest. But you are more than welcome to do what you feel is necessary!
So what I am going to do is go ahead and issue the Guest a refund of $130, the breakdown is in our above messages. Now like I have stated before, if you have documentation of your receipts I will be more than happy to assist you but if I am not able to get that receipt within the next hour then we are not going to be able to reimburse you. I am sorry that you are going through this Tony, and I hope I am able to further assist you!
Tony
3:53 PM
Your request to submit these receipts "in the next hour" just zero class and inappropriate.
but there they are. See you in the host forums.
Airbnb Support
3:58 PM
I am sorry if you feel that was inappropriate, I am just trying to get this taken care of for you as quickly as possible. I know you went out of your way to buy the bombs and the spray for the listing, and I am just trying to thank you by seeing if we can get you reimbursed.
Tony
3:59 PM
Using "professional speak" doesn't make what you're doing here and less obvious.
Do the right thing and open an insurance claim.
Airbnb Support
4:02 PM
We do have qualifications before you would be able to make an insurance claim. This reservation does not fall under that category. So to still be able to make sure you are taken care of, I am doing the same thing an insurance claim would do, and that's reimburse you.
Tony
4:03 PM
Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night.
Airbnb Support
4:19 PM
Tony,
I have gone ahead and reimbursed you $100 for everything that you spent on the fleas. Everything came out to be $99.48. Thank you and I hope you have a great rest of your day.
AUGUST 31, 2018
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