Hi,
I am a host in Hua Hin Thailand and have been on AIRBNB for about 3 years.
When I first started with AIRBNB the service was fantastic and everytime I had an issue I felt I was being looked after. Fast forward 3 years later and I feel like the amount of issues I am having with guests is increasing, partly I believe because of AIRBNB's policy of giving benefit of the doubt to the guest everytime.
One of my recent guests booked a room with me for a week and at the end of the stay decided to ask for a refund saying that the room was dirty. I have proof that the guest never even went into the room with CCTV as I leave the key in the letterbox for guests that dont know when they will arrive or will be very late. I host around 15 rooms on AIRBNB so I dont have time to hang about.
So when this case was raised with AIRBNB from the guests side I was not properly informed of what the outcome was/is and if there was any proof. I was never asked for proof to state my case either and now when I have gone to do my accounting I notice that the booking reference is missing in AIRBNB, so now I have to chase this up.
Ive also had a recent issue with a Non-English speaking guest giving 1 star feedback on a new listing making AIRBNB pause the listing and when I reached out to them to say the feedback is incorrect as the guest stated it was far from the beach but in fact its very close, they would not remove the feedback.
I feel like AIRBNB is truly getting hard for hosts to make a living on, not only is it getting more competitive and they are driving prices down heavily with their pricing strategies. I really feel like their customer service has just died and they dont care about us hosts anymore. There is no more sympathy or understanding, its been replaced by guilty judgement, like all hosts are just scammers trying to cut corners.
Im truly getting frustrated with the company now, I wouldnt be surprised even if they told me "if you dont like it leave".
Anya