AirBnb accusing me of violations without any right of appeal

[Simon5358]

Hi,

I've just had a guest who did not respond to any pre-check in messages or 3 post check-in messages asking if they were ok and letting them know about certain events.

On the last day, late in the evening, without any warning they post a long list of complaints and say it's the worst stay of their life. Things like the fridge is broken, the house is unsafe, there are "hundreds" of flies in the conservatory, etc, etc.

They then request a refund through AirBnb and send them pictures. Based on that, AirBnb decide they are in the right and initiate the claim.

I've been host for 8 years with over 300 five star reviews and have been super host for almost all of that time and many quarters have both of my places listed as Guest Favourite (> 4.9*). 

No one has complained about any of these issue before and if the complaints had come in on the first day we would have resolved them all. In the past I've bought a new 50 inch TV's when the old one broke, fixed heating systems the same day it's been reported, and generally always act on issues as that's how you get 5 star reviews and keep Guest Favourite status.

There doesn't seem to be any thought from AirBnb's side that a person who stays for a week in a place and only at the end then say the place is "smelly", "infested", "unsafe" is actually trying it on. If the place was generally unsafe why stay in it for 7 days. If they complained on day one I know AirBnb would offer to move them if I couldn't resolve the issues.

To top this all off I then hear from my neighbour that they had additional guests over to stay the second last night which is a clear breach of guest rules and that they were very noisy throughout the night.

AirBnb has become so one sided in the way it handles complaints it kind of makes you want to pack it all up.

This is on the back of a recent guest that had broken most of our house rules such as smoking, left food and cigarettes butts on the floor and caused various amounts of damage yet the approach of AirCover was to tell us we need to ask the guest for money back. We didn't feel safe doing so directly as they knew where we live and you feel compromised starting that conversation but the photo evidence was super clear on all the rules they broke and the damage and expense they caused. Air cover is also no longer "replace as new" so if you have anything a few years old, furniture, ornaments, etc AirBnb will say that it's now technically worthless as it's old and so it's not covered anyway. 

Does this ring true for anyone else?

I'm not sure what where to go with this?

[Helen3]

Hi @Simon5358 

Sorry for your experience. It's awful when you put a lot of effort into your property and then guests lie.

With your first situation if you read Airbnbs T&C for Air Cover you can only make a claim if you approach the guest first to try and collect payment. If you don't want to do this you can claim on your home insurance for STR . 

With the second situation what evidence did they provide or their claims. As the guest didn't notify you of these issues on check in the guest shouldn't have been able to claim. 

Have you opened a dispute with Airbnb.

have you looked at CCTv to help ensure guests aren't disturbing neighbours/bringing in guests not in the booking .

[Simon5358]

Hi Helen,

Many thanks for your reply. Regarding the first situation, I wasn't aware of that until we had to make the claim. The guests were abusive to our housekeeper and didn't feel they needed to leave even though it was way past the checkout time. Because we were away we were unable to change the code for the key safe. We felt if we were to start this process then they could easily return and cause more damage. So that's the background. I then also learnt that they have a pretty strict depreciation policy so that things like ornaments and furniture are considered worthless after just a few years. As if you replace the contents of your house every 3-5 years. House insurance is normally a replacement with new if something like this is damaged.

Anyway I can move on from that and realise that AirBnb doesn't have your back but the next situation is much worse. How do I raise a dispute with AirBnb as they don't seem to be replying to me on the original thread.

[Joelle43]

Hello @Simon5358 

Very sorry to read about your recent guest experience and they are quite clearly in breach of Airbnb's T & C's regarding reporting any problems within the 72 hour window if they only advised you on the last day of their 7 day stay😡

There are many posts here on the forum of hosts experiencing the same disappointing and one sided approach from CS so you are going to have to persevere to get this refund revoked and then the bad retaliatory review that is sure to follow.

Gather as much evidence as possible that guests didn't inform you, broke your house rules and include all relevant Airbnb help links to push your case.  Here is just one of them:

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/248

Check out Airbnb on X and other social media to speak of your case.  Use the search function here to read about other posts on this subject

Good luck Simon and please keep us posted
Joëlle

[Simon5358]

Many thanks for the encouraging words Joëlle.

I will keep going and hopefully CS will see my point of view and how unfair they have been. Very good point about the 72 hours,  I've not mentioned that so far but will do now.