Is AIRBNB unfairly taking guests sides regarding refunds and complaints?

Anya20
Level 3
Hua Hin, Thailand

Is AIRBNB unfairly taking guests sides regarding refunds and complaints?

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 There is no more sympathy or understanding, its been replaced by guilty judgement, like all hosts are just scammers trying to cut corners.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

 

 

26 Replies 26
Marzena4
Level 10
Kraków, Poland

Regarding the topic question, @Anya20: Yes, it is. I've had issues with dishonest untrue reviews - no, they will not remove them. But any comment on someone's nationality, even in a positive sense, is a violation to their non-discrimination policy.

// "The only person you can trust is yourself"
Fred13
Level 10
Placencia, Belize

Three years in the Airbnb world is like saying the Middle Ages versus Modern Times; they have grown that fast. Today, their main objective is to get ~the world's population~ to use Airbnb; hosts will appear to meet the demand since where an economic void rises someone will definitely fill it. 

The present suggests that today hosts must be more self-sufficient and depend less on Airbnb, unlike the 'good old days' when they were able to just call anytime and have Airbnb 'take care' of any crazy situation.  Today, if a hosts suspects a hustling guest, they need to be active, not retroactive.

Mondosol0
Level 2
Hønefoss, Norway

I think the same, Airbnb has changed a lot and since they make the mony on the guests they are leaving behind the hosts. I have said to soo many agents and some of them are also very bad, I just hope they will improve. 

Elio Mondosol

Yes. Well said Anya!

Lauran0
Level 3
Miami, FL

  1. I agree.

As I just wrote on another post, I had a guest urinate and defecate on a toilet seat and I told him to go. Airbnb - James S - told me that wasn’t possible because the guest was a medical student, and he was given the rest of his money back and allowed to leave a review of me that negatively affected my sales and ratings. My review of him was not allowed.

 

I’m looking elsewhere to monetize this space.

I had a guest complain about the aircon not being cold enough. I explained that we had the aircon cleaned in January this year and is scheduled foe another cleaning in a months time but airbnb is siding with the guest and is looking to give her a full refund. What should I do?

Evrim2
Level 2
İstanbul, Turkey

I couldn't agree more. I made a mistake, it was totally my fault. Guests were nice group and they understand and forgive me. It was tiny mistake and AIRBNB refund all their money. It was 6 day stay and it happened at 5th day. I host 4 adults for 6 day for free!

Weiwei0
Level 1
New York, NY

I think for your case the room to beach is far or short very depending ppl, example some one walk to beach 10 min was ok, some one imige beach just out of door. So better way I did is measurement as time or distance and walk about 3 min or 500 Meter from beach to your room will be better solved 

Donald56
Level 2
Miami, FL

I recently began hosting and already I'm feeling uneasy about the customer service received. On both occations it has definitely felt a bit bias towards the guest. The guests can manipulate the system to thier advantage which puts the pressure on the host and when you ask for help from AIRBNB they have a "laissez faire" type of attitude.

 

For example, I was recently alerted that an upcoming reservations was cancelled due to "safety & security." Great, you might think. Yeah, me too until someone else booked it immediately after the booking was automatically cancelled. The person booking ended up being the girlfriend of the person that was remeved from the AIRBNB system. AIRBNB wouldn't look into it any further at my request. So in this case the system failed and still could have allowed someone who AIRBNB deemed untrustworthy to still stay in my home. I had to cancel an instant booking and possibly receive a cancellation review which would ultimately end up negatively impacting my listing.

Deborah296
Level 2
Portland, OR

Same here. 

 

We have a security camera on front porch, mostly for monitoring packages when we're gone so we can have neighbors pick them up for us. However, we followed AirBnB policy, noted the camera on our listing, and the day we installed it we informed all future AirBnB guests who had already reserved that we had the camera, and let them know that we would be monitoring our front porch for packages. 

Later on, one of our guests (who only had a single review before he booked with us, but it was 5 star) reserved for 2 people showed up with 4 people who spent the night, then invited 2 female entertainers over as well in the middle of the night (extra guests for any length of time are not allowed according to our house rules). At 4 am there was a loud arguement on the front porch, with the women threatening to call the police. Our neighbors called us (since they know our policy is quiet hours after 10pm in our residential neighborhood). We reviewed the footage, and asked the guest to be quiet the next night. They didn't comply, and were noisy again. Also smoking in the house and on the front porch (both against our house rules).

We left a review that reflected our experience, but did not get emotional, we simply stated the facts, as reported by our neighbors and verified with our front porch camera, and noting that our guest had actually left the house quite clean, despite violating all 3 of our house rules. 

Our guest complained about the negative review—and AirBnB removed our review, putting him back at a 5 star rating. Their reason? We had violated trust by using our front porch camera to monitor compliance with house rules instead of just monitoring packages. 

We weren't asking for any compensation (nothing was broken, and all it cost us was a bunch of coffee gift cards for our neighbors to say sorry for the 2 nights of noise in the middle of the night) - all we wanted was for future hosts to be warned about this guest. But AirBnB wouldn't even leave our review up. I'm still communicating with them, and I'll update this if they reinstate it or anything, but at this point, I'm rather disturbed since I have both neighbors testimony and then actual video footage from our front porch, seems like pretty good evidence. Makes me question whether I can trust any guest's rating, if it's this easy for them to get any negative reviews thrown out.

That is so shocking, and you were so amazingly patient and accepting with these people. Airbnb has no ethical right to take your review down - as also with me - and legally I doubt they have the right to.

 

Airbnb seems to be acting against it’s espoused legal policies in many cases where Airbnb hosts have been taken advantage of and not supported by Airbnb.

 

Commisserations.

is there an independent site to report or review guests? I live in my home where I host out 2 rooms.  This is a big deal to me.  

What a great idea Grace! We’re not allowed to review guests honestly and this would be so helpful.

Noel704
Level 2
England, United Kingdom

I’m a property owner on the Airbnb site and we need as owners to get together with an independent forum and stand up to this situation and present our side as owners, I feel if we are not able or do not we will be out of business. I feel now Airbnb had totally taken the side of the guests only. I have been suspended from Airbnb site and after 2 appeals I’m still unsure exactly why. My opinions and appeals were completely ignored with a reason why, or any written or verbal explanation.