Totally disillusioned by zero support from AirBNB

[Anthony223]

I am getting messages from the AirBNB chiefs, telling me how much AirBNB values us hosts. But it's all a big joke.   Why, oh why, doesn't AirBNB support it's partner hosts ? Customer Support has now become totally useless and I have stopped bothering to contact them.

I am a Super host in Portugal.  I have hosted a huge number of people here (maybe well over a thousand) and the majority have been VERY happy here and we have made a lot of wonderful friends.  But sometimes we get revenge reviews and they are usually very obviously written in revenge.  In two recent cases, guests wrote me revenge reviews because I refused to accept cash when the guests were trying to avoid the AirBNB commission.  I contacted AirBNB Support to ask for the reviews to be removed because they were untrue and damaged my reputation.  Customer Support never bothered to answer me regarding the first case and I didn't ask for support in the second case because it's just pointless. 

I was loyal to AirBNB but this is what happens when we refuse to cooperate with guests who try to cheat AirBNB of their commission.

Anthony Slark

What sort of partnership and support is this ?  There is no support and we are not valued at all.

[Clara116]

@Anthony223 so sorry you had such a high maintenance guest and I read her ridiculous review. And of course she was way out of line with her words. When I read all the other reviews it's clear.... WHERE the problem was. The fact that you refused her wanting to cheat Airbnb should be rewarded or at least respected. I'm tagging our new hosts BOSS who I'm confident will look into this and hopefully make right. Best to you!

@Catherine-Powell I do hope you will please have your team of support check out this unfairness to this host Anthony and stop guests from revenge reviews when they don't get what they want....in this case wanting to cheat Airbnb! Many of us are totally honest and would never steal from Airbnb....but when a guest gets revenge supported I would think it's a setup to push some hosts to give in. Please check this out. Thanks for supporting hosts!  Clara

[Anthony223]

@Clara116 

@Clara116 

Pensacola, FL

Dear Clara, I want to say thank you for doing this.  Big, big thanks.  I did actually type a long reply to you before but when I clicked REPLY, I just got an error message.

I am new to this forum but I have been hosting for three to four years.  I have roughly 500 to 600 reviews (from memory) for my two rooms here.  Mostly we get excellent reviews but sometimes a really awful guest arrives and they get upset if we won't do what they want.  The 2 terrible reviews in recent months were both from guests who were tricky and tried to cheat AirBNB from their commission. The first guest didn't even stay here  but wanted to have extra days and add another person for cash. He was furious that I insisted on doing everything through the AirBNB website.  The 2nd person wanted to pay cash for the entire trip and I would not do that.  She was against any social distancing, refused to wear a mask and wanted to access everything in my home, even though we have a terrible covid epidemic here in Portugal.  So she decided to take revenge and wrote lies in her review. We are feeling terrible here but after recent bad experience with CS,  didn't contact them again.

When I chat to other hosts in the area, I realise that the feeling is that there is no support at all from AirBNB. It's such a big shame that they don't take better care of their partners.

Clara, I want to wish you and your nearest, a wonderful Christmas time and once again, our big thanks for trying to help us.

From Anthony,  my nephew Kumar and his wife Goma.

[Michelle53]

@Anthony223  I recently had a guest request to book for herself, and also mentioned she was travelling with her teenage daughter.  I have a per-guest fee after the first guest. She said she didn't want to pay for both herself and her daughter, because she said the daughter might want to stay with her cousin in university, for some nights. 

She said if the daughter decided to stay the night, she would pay in cash or directly to me using a credit card, but also said the daughter might come over and visit.   I explained that I don't take payments outside of Airbnb, and don't have the ability to take credit cards. 

Of course, we are in the middle of a pandemic, and I said to her that I thought it was risky behavior to have the daughter going back and forth between the cousin's residence and my residence, as we know that younger people don't really take Covid seriously, and that I'm not allowing visitors during Covid, only the guests on the reservation. 

She was a bit upset with me about his, and said she wasn't prepared to pay for nights that weren't used.   As we know, visitors use amenities irrespective of whether they spend the night, or not, so visitors are still a cost, even outside of a pandemic. 

Anyway, I ended up declining her, because I said I felt it was a risk during a pandemic, and also I don't take any payments outside of Airbnb.

After I declined, she said some mean things to me about just trying to price gouge her. I'm glad I didn't end up hosting her - I think she would have found any number of things to be unhappy about ! 

[Anthony223]

Hello Michelle and thanks for replying.   Sometimes guests can be so unreasonable and unethical.

Michelle, I really don't like guests trying to cheat us/AirBNB.  I've always loved using this site. I find it the best booking site to use here in Portugal.  So we don't accept cash payments even though some guests find ingenious ways to try to make us accept their cash.

Now, in retrospect, I wish I'd declined both these guests but easy to say with hindsight. And who wants to refuse people. I do sometimes refuse when there are strong red flags.

Michelle, I'd like to wish you and your nearest, a very good Christmas if possible in this pandemic.

Lots of good wishes from Anthony, my nephew Kumar and his wife Goma.

[Michelle53]

@Anthony223    Thanks for the good wishes !

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and your family.

Let's all look forward to a busy year in 2021 !

[Clara116]

@Anthony223 thanks for your good wishes......after reading more it is important that you understand that your reply to a review is really an insight into you as a host.....it speaks to all future guests - (NOT only to the one guest that did something untoward) I'm hopeful you will work to have both reviews removed so that your response is also removed. Those long lengthy dialogues stick out, and do NOTHING for your business. I understand you need to vent, let it out esp. when wronged. Just do NOT do it on your listing page. Its a very negative way to present yourself. Its an important lesson to learn and since you haven't had this before you get that opportunity now. You want your response to be short, unemotional and direct and most of all pleasant!  Like saying you are sorry you were unable to please this guest, and you are very loyal to Airbnb and would never do business outside. Wish the guest well and move on.  I hope you understand this is the smartest way to deal with the negative side of hosting. Try to get both removed, that will also remove your responses. They clearly were NOT guest any of us want to host....I wish you the best and hope for all good things, Clara

[Colleen253]

@Anthony223 "The 2 terrible reviews in recent months were both from guests who were tricky and tried to cheat AirBNB from their commission"

Guests who ask to skip the service fee by paying off platform are waving a huge red flag in your face and that should never be ignored. Don't hold the door open and invite trouble in. When a guest does this, report and block them. 

Hopefully you end up getting that (clearly revenge and  somewhat irrelevant) review removed, but don't stress over it too much in the meantime. You have a stellar hosting track record with enough great reviews that a few outliers won't make a dent. What is slightly concerning is your responses. Try to keep in mind that your audience is future guests. Keep it brief, neutral and professional, to reassure future guests that booking with you is a good idea.

[Anthony223]

Hello Colleen.  Many, many thanks for replying.  I did actually report both persons for trying to pay me cash.  But I seriously doubt whether the two cases were looked into properly.

We are extremely friendly and welcoming here and always go the extra mile to make our guests welcome and comfortable.  But sometimes we have guests that are clearly just out to get as much as they can out of us.   We have had our rooms full for almost every day since we first started three or four years ago. We don't have a grand luxurious place so our prices are really low.  This can attract some pretty undesirable guests sometimes. We have raised our prices now, to attract a better type of guest. 

Yes, I do tend to wear my heart on my sleeve.  But I do tell the truth.  When such things happen, I take them very seriously and worry for days on end.  I guess that's just me.

Colleen, I want to wish you a really good time at Christmas, if you can with this awful pandemic.  It must be very cold there in Alberta but maybe you will have a really white Christmas.

From Anthony and my two partners, Kumar and his wonderful wife Goma (Sherpa from near Everest in Nepal)

[Robin4]

@Anthony223 

Gee Anthony you think support is bad because you can't get a revenge review removed and you have hosted over 1,000 guests! You just wait until something serious comes along, you will sure know about lack of support then!

I had a guest book and arrive for one evening! As soon as he entered he liked what he saw and wanted to extend his stay for another night using a voucher he had received for being mucked around on a previous stay. I told him he could not extend his current stay with a voucher, he could only use it for a new up-coming booking. I told him to contact Airbnb and see if they could help him.

A few hours went by and an IB (Instant Booking) came in for the next night from another guest! I went to the current guest and asked him if he had abandoned the idea of staying the extra night and he told me, it was all attended to, CX in Manila was extending his reservation. At that point I got a phone call from the CX person in Manila and he told me he was in the process of extending my existing guests booking when he noticed another booking slide in and grab the next night. He asked if I would let him cancel the IB and let that booking be relocated! I told CX I would not allow an existing reservation to be cancelled....Airbnb's policy is, first in gets the booking and that is that. CX assured me it would not be like that, the IB guest would be offered other accommodation with no out of pocket expenses, it would all be taken care of as a neutral cancellation so, I reluctantly agreed. CX told me he would keep me informed and the next morning phoned me and told me the IB booking had been relocated, all was taken care of and I was not to worry about it any further.....great.

6.00 pm that evening the IB booking walks around the corner looking for the accommodation he had booked the previous day. I stood there dumbfounded, here I was with two confirmed Airbnb guests on my property for the same evening. IB guest had a wife and two grizzly kids in the car and wouldn't take no for an answer. I got onto CX in Manila to explain my current situation and to find out what had happened, and I guess his mouth moved but, nothing coherent came out of it....at least not on my end of the phone. It was up to me to whip around the Airbnb hosts I have a liaison with in my area and I was able to relocate the IB guest to another local property. 

It appeared CX just left a message on the IB guests phone and thought that was the end of the matter, problem solved.

*

Another guest wanted to book my property for the month of February next year and when they tried to book they got this message.

It took 4 hours, 31 messages, 3 CX support personnel and 4 special offers to sort that out so the guest could actually book my listing!

You are right to bring this up Anthony because remaining silent is an acceptance of a situation that is simply not good enough, and the more we can illustrate to the company that they are failing their users the more chance we can get the situation improved.

I have always been a loyal Airbnb host but, like many others my frustration with support is leading me to consider doing business off the platform, I don't want to do that but first and foremost I want to look professional in what I do...... and if the company is going to let me down, I will have to rethink my loyalty!

Anthony, I come back to my initial point, if all you have to worry about is the poor handling of a revenge review, wait till something serious comes along and you will know all about inadequate support then!

Cheers.......Rob 

[Anthony223]

Hello Rob and good morning to you.  I just read all your comment and I also looked at your profile. I hope all goes well for you Rob.  Years ago I was nuts about steam locomotives and travelled all over the UK trainspotting and visiting locomotive sheds. I still love to watch Youtube old videos with those special engines.

This review is terrible for us because the woman stated that we throw people and baggage out if they are late, amongst other ridiculous things.  We haven't had any AirBNB bookings after that but possibly that's only because of covid.   We are getting some bookings from booking.com which is the favourite booking site here in Portugal.

The frustrations with trying to get fair treatment from AirBNB are intense here.

I hope you have lots of success with your AirBNB next year, Bob. If ever you come to Portugal, do come and say hello, Bob.

Happy Christmas to you and your family, Bob.

Anthony

[Robin4]

@Anthony223 

Thanks for your kind words Anthony.

I actually resigned from Steam Ranger, I found it very frustrating. There were 76 volunteers but only 2 paid professional personnel. Restoring a locomotive is not like making a cheese sandwich....there is a high level of expertise involved and I found most of the time we were simply sitting around having cups of coffee waiting for instruction and guidance on what to do next. If I am going to give my time away from home, I want it to be useful so I started volunteering in other directions where my time was relevant!

Anthony we are having lots of success with our hosting. For the last year out of the 155 similar Airbnb listings in our area we have been ranked No 1 for most of the time and never been out of the top 3 so it looks like we are getting it right. And we are fortunate in that there is no COVID-19 here to worry about. We have had no local transmission since the 20th November and no cases at all (including expats quarantine) since the 28th November. We can't be complacent because we never know when the next outbreak will occur but at the moment we are COVID free. I am pretty much booked out until March and each month through this year has seen me full.

Your frustration with getting fair treatment from Airbnb is the same as ours Anthony, I am getting to the point where I just accept Airbnb guests and from there on follow my own rules and try not to have anything to do with Airbnb.

Take care Anthony I would love to visit you in Portugal but my wife Ade's  legs have given out on her these days and all our wonderful days of overseas travel are behind us I am afraid....but that doesn't stop me dreaming, I would love to sit around a table and have a wine or two with you, so.....never say never!

All the best Anthony.

Cheers.......Rob