Hi all,
Just wanted to give you guys a sharing of my experience a few months on from the incident.
After the guest checked out, I found a few more clothing items stolen from the same guest. I did what I was told by the airbnb rep when I reported the incident - filed a negative comment against her ( thanks guys for the great advice on the comment, I used one of yours 🙂 ) , and as required I had to wait till she files a comment too. So after the guest filed a comment, I immediately filed the claim on airbnb. Turns out that the 'policy' for filing a claim need to be before the next guest checks in, which of course was before both parties leave the comment.
I called again and again and the only reply was always that 'they had evaluated my case but decided not to proceed' and 'this is a final decision.' when they had not even asked me for a single detail about the incident. I reached out to them on Twitter and got the same administrative reply.
How about the guest who stole? Of course they are not going to put any action against the guest as well. It really puts me off sleep thinking that she is out there to steal from other hosts as well.
So my question is - is there any way or do any of you had experience in getting the right people's attention on airbnb (ie the ones who actually provide customer service and has the power to really review cases), and are there any lists out there where hosts can warn others of the actual horrible guests that they had so as to protect each other?
And if you are curious, the guest who stole was someone from a rich family who was here doing an expensive one month course at one of the best universities here. So really, never impose expectations - it will always surprise you. (And I guess rotten apples exists in all forms.)
My biggest takeaway is to never trust airbnb. I've seen numerous hosts on thus forum let thieves and psychos into their homes through airbnb where airbnb has completely ignored and claims rejected - the host guarantee is definitely a hoax and false advertising. It also makes me thankful for the other amazing guests since airbnb really has no protection for us while exposing us to all sort of crazy scenarios that could ever have happened.