When will AirBnb start banning bad guests?

[Ivan420]

🙈 Hey Guys! 😃

Look at this "guest" which we have now from yesterday:

"May 2019
Terrible guest, booked for 1 and showed up with 3 people. Than lied about it. Refusing to pay for the extra guest. One of her extra guests decides to take a piss right next the entry door. After confronting they denied everything. It was even on video... Don't host her. She is trouble or her friends will be.
Diederik
Diederik, Redondo Beach, CA"

"March 2019
Megan and friends were in front of the townhouse talking loud and had loud music playing from a vehicle in the middle of the night. I live in a quiet complex. She and her guest were in the room talking loudly when I woke at 6am. My other guest had to be at work at 4am and didn’t sleep. He filed a complaint with Airbnb. I think an extended stay is better suited for Megan and friends, not someone’s home and neighborhood.
Adrien
Adrien, Atlanta, GA"

"May 2019
Not a good guest ! Ruined my carpet..took things out of my drawer! And after I asked you did you have the items you said NO! Also I just realized my cousin hosted this same couple ! I wasn’t able to get warned prior !! They also ruined her carpet ! You guys were only their two nights I mean come on ! I had to clean the walls ! I had to pressure clean the carpet . And you were only their two nights .... ridiculous. Wish I would have known my cousin hosted you two months ago wow.. To all host after reading my review scroll down to the review by B. You guys should be banned from Airbnb And you have the nerve to not respond to my request to pay for my carpet Disgusting ! Beware
Allison
Allison, Atlanta, GA"

"March 2019
Megan arrived very late close to 12 am even though checkin ended at 9 pm. I had to reach out to her she also reserved for one guest but showed up with a male and when I spoke to her about it she apologized that she didn't realize she did not add him to the reservation but after reading her other reviews I realized she has done it before..She also left the room and bathroom really messy even a dirty underwear was left in the room.
Kim
Kim, Conyers, GA"

etc...

So, she arrived yesterday with her friend. They don't pay for an additional person and he lived before night. Today I saw 2 people who left our property. And she has 6 nights further. So we decided to cancel this nightmare at it very beginning.

Now we're waiting for Airbnb call back. I told them that I don't want a bad review from these kids.

So I'll keep you with my case 

[Susan1028]

Thank you so much @Helen56 

I had no idea this existed!

[Fiona243]

I have just had a real nightmare with a guest, am currently waiting to see what Airbnb do about him. Guest arrived, very smelly (body odour and cigarette smoke). I gave him the benefit of the doubt as I thought he may just have returned from trekking or back-packing. During the 5 days of his stay he never used the shower. When he checked out the room was a disaster, hundreds of cigarette butts (room is No Smoking), dirty underwear stuffed behind sofa cushions, empty drinks bottles under the bed, and an awful smell of unwashed human being and smoke. Took me 8 loads of laundry and 48 hours to fully clean the rooms and get rid of the smell. I opened a request on Resolution Centre for additional cleaning fees as well as giving him a 1 star review. I raise a complaint with Airbnb CS via message, get a reply saying they value my input and will look into it. I then hear nothing further via the message system.

The following day a very agressive man turned up at my house, demanding to see the former guest, saying former guest owed him money and had given him my address for collection. I told him former guest had left, he wanted to come into my house to look for guest. I barred his way and eventually he left, but I was quite shaken by this. I reported to Airbnb, still no response.

I looked up former guest on Facebook, (which I probably should have done earlier). He had posted my address as his address! I took a screenshot and sent to Airbnb. No reply from Airbnb CS.

I noticed that former guest had now posted another address on his FB page, which I am pretty sure is also on Airbnb. I sent this info to airbnb CS saying that maybe they should contact that host to warn them that the aggressive man may come to their house looking for former guest. No reply from CS.

I phoned airbnb CS. After explaining what was going on (although it should have been clear from my messages to Airbnb support), Airbnb CS rep tells me that she will be escalating this, and I will be getting a call from senior CS.

24 hours pass, no call from Airbnb CS. I call again, when I start to explain case again, I get cut off. I call again, once again I am told that this case needs to be escalated to senior CS, I should hang up and I will be called back. Several hours later I get the call from Airbnb CS. The guy was very courteous, explained that they were investigating and would be taking action, but that they would not be able to tell me what they were doing for reasons of guest privacy (!). I said I was having my locks changed as I worried the former guest may have made a copy of the key, and revisit my house looking for something he can sell to repay the aggressive man. I was told Airbnb will pay for this. I reiterated that I felt they should also contact the other host as I did not want someone else to get frightened by an aggressive stranger coming to their house. I was assured this was being done.

So it seems CS are working on this, but their communication with me was less than stellar. I was not told that anyone was reading my frantic messages, or that they were following up. It was only after I persisted in phoning them that I was told it was being dealt with.

As of today the former guest still has a profile on airbnb, so I will keep checking and if he is still on Airbnb in a few days time I will call CS again to ask why.

[Ale113]

OMG !! O_O This is awful.

[Patricia55]

@Fiona243 

That's awful! So sorry that this has happened to you. Good of you to be putting such effort in, to get something done to protect other hosts.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

yes, interesting question @Ivan420  ... hosts are delisted and unable to relist if their rating falls under 4,5* or so. But guests as yours, whose rating is probably under 3* are still able to book other people properties and cause damages, mess, and problems. Even if delisted they can probably easily sign up again under another name, with another disposable phone number and another fake facebook account.

Airbnb becomes a synonym for "party house" and this is the main reason why Airbnb is a very unpopular neighbor and one of the reasons why it is banned in so many cities around the world.

I don't understand why such guests are protected ... they cause more harm than good to everyone - hosts, neighbors, and Airbnb.

[Suzanne302]

@Branka-and-Silvia0  GOOD point! Why is ABB so quick to delist a host but it seems a guest can do no wrong?

[Susan608]

I had a horrible, violent guest who caused a scene. Airbnb refunded him his money and canceled him and put him up in a hotel for free. They reward bad behavior. 

[Joetta-Lynn0]

I  think Having a Place to rent is ok but i would never host in my own house  and share .i accidently did that and was blessed the couple understood we had a vacation my  host cancealed leavin me to take a night with a private rooms i had 3 grandkids first we were to sleep in seprate sides  of house  in rooms ok. But not across the house  next to the host bedroom was were i was to leave my grandkids  and these days its trust issues  i didnt feel comfortable  second they had a dog it was emotional having kids around and hadnt before we parted and left  i was already out over 800 then  a place were it was like bates motel and air unit stuck blowing hot air in temps in house was 89 i mean its florida.then airbnb finds me this.no way i could sleep not knowing host and they were drinking.why first thing the wifes husband asked my husband and if he wanted a drink and he didnt show him a soda no way.  First  bad move. no way i was going to let him .  i couldnt let anything happen to my grandkids  so we took all we had got a motel room after traveling endless miles it seemed no disney trip this time.horrible but all this i could never share home..

[Ale113]

It happens to me that I cannnot see the star rating of guests. The platform say "Descober how you can see guests' star rating". Then I click and they say I need The IB active (that I alredy have). Conclusion: I cannot see guests's star rating NEVER.

[Emilia42]

@Ale113, same here. This must be a glitch. ALSO, if you click activate instant book (even though it is already activated) all your requirement settings will default back to nothing (no requirements at all)

[Fiona243]

Further to my earlier posting, it is now a week since we hosted the terrible guest. Airbnb refunded us the money we spent getting our front door locks changed, but removed my request for additional fees from the guest to compensate us for the extra cleaning we had to do.

I also checked today and the guest still has an active Airbnb profile, and my review of him is not shown, so prospective hosts will not see my polite but truthful review regarding how dirty this man was.

I have reopened my support case with Airbnb to ask why a guest who a) leaves a filthy mess,  b) shares an Airbnb address on social media, and c) tells debt collectors who are after him to go to an Airbnb address, is not penalised. I await their response.

[James1703]

I had a guest that had three bad reviews and I asked Airbnb to cancel the booking.

Fast forward two months later the guest books again with the same account but the bad reviews have been removed and she has a 5 star rating.

I call up Airbnb about this and they say they can't see the past reviews and they cannot talk about her account. But the CSR had to put me on hold a couple of times to look into this and it appeared that the negative reviews had been removed but she couldn't understand why.

I find it very concerning that Airbnb appears to delete bad reviews.

[Sean433]

@James1703 

I noticed twice where airbnb removed a bad review I left of a guest. The reviews I left were not in violation of the review protocols.

One guest threw a house party and smoke marijuana inside. i stated exactly what happened in his review and for some reason, it was removed. Because of this, should another host be more unfortunate and have damage to their property by this guest, they should be held liable for removing the review because future hosts of this guest deserve to have been warned.

[Susan1028]

In my experience Airbnb doesn’t care about host experiences, damages, losses, or threats to our personal safety and property.

The “host guarantee” is a sham, and so is “trust and safety.” 

In truth we the host bear bear all of the liability and are in our own if there’s an issue.

Airbnb guests  pay the highest booking fees amongst the competition and they are king, so don’t expect justice on your behalf.

Im so glad to know about the Facebook group and hope all hosts will post there.  Other platforms do ban bad and dangerous guests. Airbnb will delete bad reviews of guests even if they’re justified and otherwise just lets them create new profiles, even with the same IDs.

God forbid if we get dinged unjustly, because we have to live with it and get penalized in search rankings, hence the hesitation of many hosts to leave honest reviews about bad guests.

Airbnb is far more interested in profits than our safety.

[Crystal-and-Mike0]

We just had a bad experience with a couple who booked our place from Friday to Monday. They only had one review and it was 5 star. But they left cigarette butts all over the ground outside. They asked us after booking if we had a fire pit or grill, told them we had a small fire pit & they asked if it was big enough to grill on which it really isn't so we decided to go ahead and buy a grill since we felt other guests would like it too. They used one of our white towels to clean the grill, stole some of our linens, lots of beer & liquor bottles left lying around and even stuffed under cabinets. Tore the screen on our screen door. We do NOT want them booking our space again. How can we stop them from booking when we have Instant Booking on? Even if we didn't have IB on, there were no red flags.