After Being Assaulted By A Guest

[Duane4]

Video of assault at link at end.

I just had a guest book for 5 people in a house that has a max of 12 allowed by the local government. They showed up with at least 16. Go to the house to count people and you get assaulted. You ask them how many you have. They won't answer. Of course when you asked them in a message how many and they lied to you about it.

This isn't the first time I've had guests book for a smaller number of people. In another house that holds 15 I had a guest bring 21.

AirBNB is doing nothing about this. It's making be concerned about continuing to host on this platform when you get no support. Of course the guest lies and says I'm the one that started it.

Most of guests are wonderful people. But this has me concerned for my safety going forward.

[Link hidden for safety reasons – in line with the Community Center Guidelines]

[Jess78]

@Duane4  I’m unable to view your profile now, did they remove your listing from the platform? 

[Ben551]

@Jess78  @Duane4  I'm seeing the same thing!  Wow... I really hope Aribnb haven't punished you for a guest assaulting you... else they're going to be eaten alive by the media.

[Duane4]

@Jess78 of course they punished me. I voilated terms of service by going public. I hope I made the rest of you a bit safer as you deal with bad guests.

I know I  had a lot of good guests. But when you have really bad guests they don't know how to deal with that. Some of the policies, like not collecting damage deposits and accepting gift cards and prepaid no credit check, credit cards as a sole means of payment have increased risk.

Think about this from the side of a scammer that knows what they are planning. They aren't going to use their real name. They aren't going to use their real checking account for payment. They are going to use a means of payment that limits their risk of loss and you have no say in it at all.

If you are dependant on your short term rental income do yourselves a huge favor.

Make your  own websitesss. Get on multiple platforms. List with local sites. Most of all know your customers.

[Lisa723]

@Ben551 @Jess78 @Duane4 @Susan17 @Lizzie I've seen on another platform that Duane has been "deactivated."

[Ben551]

@Lisa723This makes no sense!  He was attacked by a guest and the video showed it!

[Lisa723]

@Ben551 he made a very public fuss.

[Jess78]

@Ben551 @Lisa723 I don't think the "public" part of the fuss is what the company would deactivate an account for. It was probably the guest's claims, but of course that's all just conjecture based on what I've seen previosly getting hosts shut down.

The more people willingly or unwillingly migrate to other platforms the better, as far as I see it. Duane sounds like he has a good thing getting booked other ways, so I imagine he'll be much better off.

[Ben551]

@Jess78  thanks Jess, that actually makes me feel less concerned for Duane.  You're right, he did say he has active bookings elsewhere, and seemed to me like he had his head firmly attached.  I expect he will do well.

[Mark116]

@Ben551 @Duane4   The point isn't that Duane will do well on other platforms, the real point is, that we all saw the guest threaten him, we saw her put her hands on him, we saw her behave aggressively, we could count that there were more people than his maximum.....and yet, it wasn't the abusive, rule breaking, scamming guest who was banned from the platform, but the host, who is trying to protect his property.  I'm not surprised at all, but it is still disappointing every time when you come to this forum and see how airbnb abuses the assets of its business, again and again.  

[Duane4]

@Mark116 Exactly.

This is why in the name of TRUST and TRANSPARANCY they don't want anyone knowing who is who in real life. They can control the messaging this way. They don't like how you message or where you message. You're gone! Problem solved. NEXT!

To be fair the guest seems to have been banned as well. But they will be back as others are remembering this guest and had problems in the past with them.

I was certain that it wasn't the first time out for them. It's like there is a little dance you go though with people that scam you. After you've been scammed a couple of times you know the dance. When you don't respond the way the scammer thinks you will they escalate as happened in this case.

My family was in the sales finance business and I was collecting loans when I was 13. Done the dance many times.

[Ricardo763]

I'm hundrey percent with you. Guests quality is dropping down so bad. I have tourists apartments from 20 year ago and the people who come to your apartments is totally different. I have the same problem as you with the number of people but also the "revange review" problem. When a guest broken something in my apartment and I ask them to pay all becomes bad in his review. 

Then the situation is this, or I pay what my guests broken or my qualifications go down.

Because the true is if you have mostly 5 stars but just a couple 1 star you are in risk to be suspended in Airbnb.

Any suggestions? Airbnb doest give me any tip about.

[Petra327]

Three times a year you can cancel a booking without getting penalized.  You call the trust and safety department at ABB and cancel the reservation.  Call the police and they will escort them off the premises because it's trespassing when you tell someone to leave and they don't.  I just had this happen to me.

And....put in your listing that a reservation will be cancelled and everyone will be escorted off the premises if there are unauthorized guests on the property.

[Sean433]

It's reasons like this that bad guests get away with things and continue to use the platform and wreck havoc on other hosts. Hosts are punished for protecting themselves and their properties.

I have had many guests sneak in extra guests. I have learned through hosts like Duane that it is not worth confronting such dishonest people about this. If they can be dishonest to have people trespass, they can be dishonest and make false accusations about you as a host. Therefore, I don't confront such activity unless there is a party underway.

10 days ago, I had trashy guests sneak in 4 extra guests, smoke marijuana inside all day, broke our bed and the door. They refused to check-out. Airbnb didn't even bother calling them to ask them to leave after several phone calls to them. i finally arrived at 9:00pm which was 10 hours past check-out and asked them to leave. Placing myself in danger. I then contacted airbnb for the 5th time about this guest and blamed them for letting this happen because they did not bother calling the guest to ask them to leave. And these guests are still on the platform after having caused $3,000 in damages. They will do this again because the case managers failed to do their jobs and didn't even escalate this to safety. I filed a host guarantee claim 7 days ago and still have not heard from anyone.

The guest goes by the name of Susana and is from Toronto. If you come across this guest, please do not accept or host them. This trashy guest gets to stay on the platform yet good hosts such as Duane and Charles get banned for nothing.