Stranded and scammed guests totally not supported and even being lied to by AirBnB Customer Support

[Kees1]

I'm a superhost living in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. On July 2, late in the afternoon, a guy ringed my door bell. He asked me if he had to be at my adress regarding an AirBnB reservation he had made with a woman supposedly called Judith -- and he asked me if I knew a Judith in the street. It turned out that the guy at my front door was with his wife, and that they came from Venezuela. They had a reservation for one month at an address straight opposite to my house, but there is no AirBnB listing at that address. The family that lives there knows that I have a popular AirBnB loft studio at the attic of my house, and they told the guy and his wife that they probably had to be at my place. But this was not the case. So I told the guy that he should call the host or AirBnB and I wished him success, because I knew from my own experiences that most AirBnB case managers don't take any responsibility and use nice words, but will nearly allways diverge the problem and do nothing to help.
Fifteen minutes later the guy was again at my front door and he was noticeably very stressed and worried. He asked me if he could use my internet connection and electricity for his laptop. I did let him in because I felt responsable as a member of the AirBnB community and tried to calm him down. His wife waited with the luggage outside.
I heard him talk to the AirBnB Costumer support and they told him that they encountered problems with their computer system and that they would call back. After half an hour there was still the same problem and the guy was really stressed, because he had paid $1000 for the reservation and he was afraid to loose his money. In order to calm him down, I offered him and his wife to be my guests for free for one night at a room that I have pulled from AirBnB because renting two rooms was too much work. I quickly made the room ready so the guy and his wife could relax a little bit. It turned out that even hours later AirBnB didn't call them back and I decided to contact them. They also told me that they had encountered computer problems. I told AirBnB that I found it rather strange that they didn't help out these stranded guests and walked upstairs to hand the phone over to the Venezuelan guy, whose name is Zacarías. AirBnB seemed to help him now. Later that evening they did send Zacarías the following message:

« Hello Zacarías, it was such a pleasure to talk to you I am sorry that this happened to you but do not worry as we will assist you as much as we can okay? I really do apologize for what happened and do not worry as we will investigate your host and we will be penalizing them for this as this should not be tolerated by Airbnb.

Please let me know if you still have concerns for me to address Zacarías. It is a good thing to know that a Superhost is assisting you right now and we really are happy that he is helping you out. Please send our best regards to him as well. »

The next day it turned out that Zacarías and his wife had managed to arrange a sleeping place somewhere in the East of the Netherlands and they left around noon. I contacted Zacarías on Jule 9 via Whatsapp to ask if AirBnB had refunded his money. AirBnB had told him that they sent him the money back but he couldn't see the amount in his bank account yet. On the 12th he still hadn't received it and even untill this day he hasn't received it although he calls AirBnB daily. It is a shame that this is possible. Plesse help him out and sent his money back immediately. The reservation number is **.

Sincerely,
- Kees -

**[Reservation number hidden - Community Center Guidelines]

[Sarah977]

@Kees1  This is a community forum for hosts and guests, not Airbnb itself. So no one here can do anything about helping this guest recoup his $. But I know it can take about 2 weeks for people to receive Airbnb refunds, so the timeline of this guest still not seeing the funds in his account is probably pretty normal, atho if it doesn't come soon, he should keep contacted them.

You were very kind to these people. Too bad Airbnb wasn't.

[Zacarías0]

@Sarah977 thanks for the information. But I called my bank and asked them if they had received any refund from Airbnb. The answer was no.

I don't know what else to do. Everytime I call Airbnb I receive the same answer: "We are going to forward your case to the right department" but nothing happens. It's been almost 3 weeks now. When I called them on Wednesday, I had been told that Airbnb still has my money. So that means the never released the refund, although they had told that they did. It seems they lied to me.

I'm texting and calling them everyday and I really need my money back. I'm migrating from Venezuela so you can tell how important this money is to me.

[Cormac0]

@Kees1 

Its ironic that Airbnb expect us to except complete and anonymous strangers into out homes, while at the same time not trusting the self same guest enough to refund him his money immediately.

I salute you Kees for such a kind gesture, hopefully Airbnb won't get the wrong end of the stick and block your account, I only say this half in jest.

[Kelly149]

@Zacarías0 I am a busy and long-time SH, recently I hosted a 1 night guest who added extra guests to her stay a few hours before check in.  When the standard time for her payment to hit my bank came - Nothing. I called the next day to see what cs would say. "oh dear, there seems to be a problem, I'll ask that team to get back to you." Three days later - Nothing, so I called back. "oh, dear, they haven't told you anything? I'll forward a message again" Three days later - Nothing, so I called back... fast forward to the end. I NEVER heard back from the payments team and best I can tell, they may have never done anything even tho I had hosted this guest and they had received 85% of her money, they were holding the 85% hostage until they managed to collect the remaining 15%. Great.

Eventually I got the guest to complete her payment and then finally about 18 days after hosting her I was paid, never heard a word from payments team.

All this to say that it's not just you, abb is fine when everything works and then they seem pretty lost when there is an out of the ordinary problem.