Hello Community,
I have a situation I’m hoping for advice about.
I had a dishonest guest (lied about number of children staying and intention of her trip). She was looking for a forever-home as a newcomer to Canada. But first told me that they would be permanently staying in another city and just exploring the area.
After the first night she tried to speak to me off Airbnb to discuss staying “at least a year” or “as long as possible”. I allowed her to book a separate reservation for one month and sent resources for housing. I sent her two refunds ($50 for snow in my driveway and $125 for the extra cleaning fee that would have been tacked on to the second booking). This comes into play a bit later.
My upstairs tenant of 3 years complained that they were very loud and that the husband yelled sometimes hours at a time while the kids cries. Meanwhile the guest is messaging me constantly (it felt like an attempt to lure me into crossing host/guest boundaries, so I kept it brief).
One day at around dinner time, she messaged me several mundane questions to which I responded quickly and then a “by the way, can I use your address to get my social insurance number and bank account”, and that was a huge red flag. I responded clearly that she could not, and to confirm she understood, which she did. The next morning messaging me asking for advice on the process to homeschool her child (???). That same day, official mail (bank or government) arrived to my address in the guests name. My tenant collected it and sent me a picture, marked return to sender and took to the post office.
I contacted Airbnb about cancelling the additional stay, and they did so on my behalf, waiving any penalties. I worried about them retaliating and let Airbnb know. I expected having to dispute a negative review, but boy did I underestimate this guest once I put and end to their fraudulent plan.
The guest is making up crazy stories and requesting a full refund and reporting me to Airbnb. I declined this because her first week was already heavily discounted due to the $50 for snow and $125 cleaning fee that, if anything, should have been paid back to me.
The guest is saying that I was “filming her without consent” because of a security camera installed in my sunroom that doesn’t even work, and saying that I “called someone to pretend to be a contractor” to forcibly remove her family from the home, which is all untrue. They submitted photos of all their luggage in my driveway as “proof” and photos of my security camera (which again, does not even work… and is very visible and would have been noticed right at check in, so if there was any concern, why then would she decide she wanted to stay at least a year?).
Her story doesn’t add up, and she’s a brand new Airbnb profile, whereas I have black and white proof of her address fraud and an a long term host of many years. Why is Airbnb taking her so seriously and threatening to suspend my account and cancel upcoming reservations? Does Airbnb just side with guests and not consider the hosts perspective?
