The Airbnb support team is not responding - 13 days passed

Anvar2
Level 2
London, United Kingdom

The Airbnb support team is not responding - 13 days passed

Hi amazing people, I was wondering if you could advise me.

 

I had a guest 13 days ago who broke several house rules by consuming illegal substances at the apartment, heavily smoking (non-smoking apartment), late checkout and a missing item.

 

I have messaged the guests letting them know that they have been smoking in the apartment. The refused and said no one was smoking and the apartment was left in pristine condition. As we take before and after photos for each reservation to protect ourselves as well as guests, I sent photos to the guest. The guest called me on Whatsapp and started shouting at me and threatening my life if I charge them for the damages caused. 

 

I have reported the issue to police immediately. I have also reported the guest to Airbnb, and made a claim through resolution centre. I haven't heard anything from Airbnb. I have messaged them several times and absolutely zero response.  It has been 13 days already, and nothing has been done. On top of that, the guest has left a review which is obviously unfairly negative and Airbnb doesn't seem to care about any of that.

 

Can someone advise, what course of action should I take in order to resolve this issue promptly?

 

Many thanks for your support!

 

Kind regards, 

Anvar

 

7 Replies 7
Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Anvar2 I can't see any overly negative reviews - Has Airbnb taken action or have I missed it?

@Mike-And-Jane0 the review will be published tomorrow, I believe. I had a notification that the guest has left a review.  

 

I did not leave a review to the guest, as reviews will be published immediately. I thought I'd give some time to Airbnb team to resolve the issue as well as unfair review. 

 

I feel that I need to warn the other hosts about this guest. Imagine you are a host, and one of your guests trashed your apartment and threatened your life, saying they know where you live, they know how you look like and they have your mobile number... 

@Anvar2  If you still have time, leave a review for this guest to warn other hosts! Also, it seems that in order to have the ability to leave a response to a guest review if you need to correct lies or misleading info in a guest's review, you need to have left a review yourself. 

 

Airbnb will either agree to remove the review or not, so it doesn't matter if the guest's review has already been published or not, in fact, they won't remove a review that hasn't yet been published, anyway because before that, you have nothing to object to in the review- you haven't seen it yet, you are only surmising it will be bad (which is probably a safe bet, but not a sure thing)

@Anvar2 Responses from airbnb CS come very slowly, if at all.  My advice is go to the original request you made for damages, and select the guest has not responded and use Airbnb's host guarantee.  My experience with this feature is good, if you have everything documented you should get a positive and timely response from Airbnb, and also I think if the amount is less than your security deposit. Good luck!

Mark116
Level 10
Jersey City, NJ

@Anvar2  You absolutely should leave a review for this guest, factual and unemotional, there is no reason not to.  Airbnb probably won't take the guest review down whatever they have said and if you miss the 14 day window you will  never be able to leave them a review.

 

In future though, you will want to consider whether something like late check out, a missing item, etc. are worth contacting the guest about.  You could just have left your review and the guest may never have reviewed you or even left a positive review, now you're assured to get a negative review and the only thing airbnb might reimburse  you for is cost of extra cleaning due to smoking, but you still  have to 'prove' that to their satsifaction.

As far as how long Airbnb will take, I have no idea, people are saying they wait hours on hold and its taking sometimes many, many different calls to get fair resolution.

Sammy35
Level 10
Pittsburgh, PA

document document document
take pics and post
leave honest review be prepared to get dinged
airbnb is running on fumes.  anyone you will talk to even if you get through will escalte to another team and not have answers.  

you have to decide how impt this is
how much time and energy you are willing to spend
and then set a parameter for letting it go until you hear from airbnb

you're at their mercy, wait times are anywhere from 1-8 hours (i literally heard 8 the other day i almost choked, i call voice over IP blast my pc speakers and go about my biz till someone answers) then i make them document the case and then i respond to their status update (which is no status change) then i saw i'm done thank you and hang up and if i get a review call i blast the customer service process

this business is in the toilet and really truly should be deconstructed

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like nikey: just do it

ps call during normal US biz hours once you are after hours you might as well be talking to yourself and admit yourself to the looney bin while you're at it

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like nikey: just do it