Guest denies damages

Barbara2543
Level 3
Athens, GA

Guest denies damages

Hi. I’m new to hosting—only two months in and have had four guests. The last guest damaged some items. I dealt with it through the resolution process, the guest denied the damage and declined to pay so I submitted the claim to Airbnb. Then the guest requested a full refund, and accused me of discrimination. I declined the refund and Airbnb reimbursed me 48% of my claimed damages. 

I’m reeling from this and am wondering how others deal with this type of situation. I can’t wrap my around how this guest repeatedly denies causing the damage. Perhaps I’m naive and have an unreasonable expectation that people will be honest and responsible? I just don’t get it. 

16 Replies 16

@Barbara2543   Unfortunately, people are far less likely to be honest and responsible when doing so will cost them money or deprive them of something they want. So more often than not, if you try to bill guests for damage or confront them on a broken rule, they will retaliate in some form (bad reviews and refund demands being the most common).  When you have to take an action that displeases a guest, you have to make sure it's worth the backlash.

 

You might find guests to be a little more cautious and tidy if you arrange an in-person checkout. It's hard to deny the state a room's in to someone who's standing right next to you in it.

Laura2592
Level 10
Frederick, MD

@Barbara2543 this is sadly common. But what is uncommon is that you got at least some of your claim!

 

Your first few guests are generally the worst ones. They know how much you need those initial reviews. Many hosts just suck up the bad experiences and chalk it up to cost of doing business. Making a claim will alert the poor guest to leave you a retaliatory review so many bad guests gamble that you won't call them out. 

 

This is why honest reviews are so important. Even as a seasoned host I am truly shocked by the number of guests I get with good reviews from others who are incredibly messy, do damage, take items, invite people over beyond capacity and just generally disregard the rules.  I know we can't be the first to experience these things with these guests, but other hosts have not even given the slightest hint there might be an issue.

Shante30
Level 2
Denver, CO

I’ve noticed there is no way these reviews are honest,,,,, i just started about a mo th ago every listing i had has broke something.. this last stay had about 6 good reviews i was at ease thinking  finally i don’t have to worry…..WRONG…stolen items, extra people weren’t added on booking…. $100 pan  charred.. how i  have no **bleep** idea. And a **bleep** pet that was never mentioned… how people do it is  beyond me.

@Shante30 Many hosts are under the mistaken belief that writing a negative review for a guest will prompt one in return. So relying on reviews is not the best way to vet guests. 

Bless you a nightmare by the sound of it!!! If you call Airbnb services they always take the side of the guests I find!!! Never right as our property and overheads !!!! 🙁

Linda3345
Level 10
Corning, NY

Wow, I am feeling so lucky (knock on wood). I have had 7 guests so far, and everyone has been excellent. No damage, left everything extremely neat and tidy. The only thing I can guess is that because we live separately, but on the premises, we only are booking nice people? They have truly been fabulous. 

J-Renato0
Level 10
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

I am going to talk about the bad guest and good ones!
Incidents may happen.
With my guests, issues does not happen frequently, issues are exceptions. Fortunatelly! 

 

@Barbara2543  I don't know how you charged the guest.If I have to charge, I take a picture of the thing that was damaged and send it along with the picture of the receipt for the amount of money I had to pay to repair what was broken.  Or to replace what was broken. Meaning, I send it directly to the guest.
All that done by Airbnb messenger. In this way, Airbnb has proof of the fact if it is necessary.
I had to do it once and the guest did not decline to pay.
I have to say that I was not there when the guest left the property. I saw the damage some time after checkout.
I did not had to resort to Airbnb support.
He apologized for the damage. It was a broken lock. 

 

I had a drunk guest from Canada that broke the sliding glass door of the shower box of one of my listing. Unfortunately he denied to pay. It was an old drunk troublemaker that cause more problems. I wrote a negative review to him. Before mine´s, he had only good reviews.

I have to say that, I have had many great guest from Canada. That one it was an exception.

 

Now, let me talk about the good ones. I have had very honest guests.

Some of them before checking out texted me to report that they broke a drinking glass or some bowl or dish. Some guests replaced it spountaneously.
Some offered to pay for the broken things before checking out. They could have hidden the little broken thing and not told me. However they were honest. I did not charged them.

I would not charge a honest and good guest for some insignificant damage.

 

Our first guests (6 men) are in our house as I type. They have stayed 3 nights and wanted to extend their stay until Nov 4.  He’s not paid for tonight. For 24 hours I’ve been dealing with him and  Airbnb. He’s been saying that he’s from Argentina and his credit card is from there and they’re having problems with it going through.  I have a headache from going back and forth with him last night and all day today (last call was at 9pm). He’s very nice and considerate but somehow I feel like I’m being scammed.   Interesting enough I today I received another request to book for 5 men from  Chili. I thought that was interesting.  This again is my first booking and it’s been a nightmare.  I’m scared to see my house. It was pristine we I left it the last time.  Ugh!  Not sure this was the best thing to do with what use to be our rental.  Does any of this spark a red flag with any of you.  It does with me. 

@Karl-and-Cindy0  do NOT extend this guest period!

 

I had to chase a guest down when they had "credit card issues" and hound ABB with over 30 phone calls for 4 months to get my money. My guests were not bad, they just didn't pay and ABB didn't catch it. I learned that ABB has no way to charge a guest's card outside of the normal fee collection unless the guest is very honest and HELPS customer service figure out how to do this (calls them many times, gives express permission, provides new card numbers etc.) Most guests will just be happy they got a free stay. And once the card is charged it took the payout FOREVER to be released because of "glitches." I had to call dozens upon dozens of time to get my money. Never ever again. Just tell these guests adios at the end of their stay. Trust me. 

I am pretty new, but I would not extend a stay beyond what is booked through Air Bnb (or any service you are using). 

 

Is there a particular event or attraction in your area that would be attracting groups of men? Any reason that makes sense? 

 

 

J-Renato0
Level 10
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

@Karl-and-Cindy0 

If you have a listing that takes 6 guests, you should expect having booking of groups of 6 or 5 guests.
I do not see any issue with this! It is absolutely normal.

 

If you would like to have only families instead of group of guys, do not use instant booking. Pick the guests you would like to host. Ask them questions before accepting a booking.

 

I have more than 400 hundreds reviews. I can not say for sure, but I believe that I have had around 700 guests or more via Airbnb.
I have had guest from several countries in world, from many continents. As for guests from Argentina and Chile, I have a good experience with them. However, my average guests are couples or at the most 3 guests in a group.

 

When people travel abroad, it may happen that they have problem with cred card. Some patience may help to solve the situation. However, take into consideration what Airbnb have to say about your current guest. If Airbnb says that the guest is not fit to continue due to some problem, I would not accept to extend the stay. I would extend the stay only via Airbnb.


Hosting is something that involves different approachs. Different hosts have different views.

Here it is my personal opinion.

Everything turned out fine. He was happy to pay this morning.  They wanted to stay but we said no because it was just a hassle from the very beginning as they were very insistent that they wanted to pay cash so they didn’t have to pay the fees and we said no. They kept pressuring.  

 

I’m sure they were very nice people but they were relentless and it was exhausting.

 

This afternoon they called back because they wanted to come back and stay until November 3.

 

They parked a van in our garage and now our garage smells terrible.  

It was just an interesting experience and was a good learning experience for me.  Btw, I have no problem with men staying at our house.  We live in a small town in So. Oregon and it’s just unusual to have that many men traveling together.  Then to have 5 more traveling from Chili …I don’t know just seemed a little random to me but stranger things have happened. I just didn’t know what to think. Thanks for the input. I’m a newby but I’ll learn.  🤔😀

@Karl-and-Cindy0 

Maybe there is some event or attraction in your area that would be attracting groups of men, students? Some sportive event or whatsoever...  🙂

@Karl-and-Cindy0 

 

I wouldn’t allow more than 4 single men at a time in that house, and even then I would be nervous about parties and general messiness.

 

If you are charging $133 for six people that means they are paying less than $23 dollars each. Maybe they could stay at the YMCA for that price—and maybe they should.

 

You can discourage this by charging an additional fee for every guest after the first two.

 

It would also be a good idea to state that NO OVERNIGHT VISITORS are allowed, all guests must be registered, and if any complaints about noise, parties, etc come from the neighbors, everyone will be evicted immediately.