Seeking opinions/other points of view on guest who may have been deceptive

[Suzanne302]

I had a young couple stay one night. They were very sweet, friendly, clean. However, from the start she questioned my pet fee ($25). She asked to pay cash or venmo instead of using the Resolution Center. I told her that wouldn't be possible and sent the request, which she accepted.

However, a few hours later I received notice from ABB that her $25 may be delayed. And then I was told to expect it March 7th. It's now March 10th. Her payment for the booking went through just fine. But I'm curious if there's anything a guest can do to their account that would make it look like they accepted the resolution center request, but then made it impossible to collect. Change the credit card number or something??

These guests also asked to do laundry (I clearly state no use of washer dryer, and especially not for guests staying one night!) which I declined. They left a nice review, but still, no pet fee.

My first inclination is to forget about it, because the pet did not do any damage or anything out of the ordinary. But the pet fee is for more than that because I provde extra amenities.

My second inclination is to involve ABB now, just on principle, because I think she purposefully did something to get out of paying.

I'd love to hear other points of view on this please!

[Lisa723]

Yes, involve Airbnb.

[Ben551]

@Suzanne302  I would query this with Airbnb.  If your reviews are behind you then I would say there is no constraint in challenging the lack of payment.  If it's clearly included in your listing and was agreed upon, then this ought to have been collected by Airbnb.  Yes, a guest can remove their credit card information at any time, so that could be the issue.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Suzanne302 

Completely agree with @Lisa723 about getting Airbnb involved. You should get your $25 - whether it's from the guest or from Airbnb, imo it doesn't matter. 

Airbnb should have measures in place to make sure scammers can't get away with NOT paying and if they weren't able to collect, then the burden should be on Airbnb to pay up. 

[Linda1656]

I don't understand why Airbnb don't provide a facility to allow guests to pay for their pets at the point of booking! This would avoid embarrassment for both guest and host! Not to mention the effort of obtaining payment from the guest! 

[Laura2592]

@Linda1656right?? It would be SO easy to add a toggle menu for pets and a little pop up for "pet fee" that gets added to the entire price. Just as more people have additional guest fees that roll into the total, so should pets.  I have no clue why this is not done.

[Linda1656]

Absolutely!! Thank you Laura 🙂 

[Laura2592]

@Suzanne302My guess is that the guest gave a fraudulent or expired credit card and ABB is attempting to collect. If you want your $25 you will have to keep after them in a pretty intensive way.

Sometimes there are glitches with payouts when a guest is successful say on the first half of the payment but not the second and ABB does not catch it in time to cancel. We went through this. It took months to resolve but we finally got what was owed. If this guest has withdrawn her payment in some way or used a method that doesn't work, I suspect you will have a long road of calling CS every few days as they try to convince your guest to remit payment in another way. Our guests were cooperative and honest and it still took months to get our $$.

I might suggest rolling your pet fee into your cleaning or nightly price and just not charging an extra. That way you are covered no matter what and no awkward situations with guests who balk at "hidden fees" (though this is clearly stated.) Its a modest enough fee that you wouldn't think anyone would care but unfortunately there are some people who think "free" is too expensive.

[Suzanne302]

@Laura2592 This post is from 2019 and has long been resolved. I’m good. 

[Laura2592]

@Suzanne302 did you ever get the payment or did you decide it was better to let it go?