Be SURE to Engage With Scammers; You'll Pay For It If You DON'T!!

[Julieanna0]

On Monday July 6th, 2020, I was contacted by a scammer with the following message, "Hello! We would like to book your accomodation through the airbnb but we will not check in.  A person is paid for accomodation, but he will live in another place.  You will take 40% of the payment to yourself and send me 60% after recieving money. write to telegrams @andr_osipov"  (Spelling left in original form.)

As it was obvious this was a scam, I declined their request, reported it to Airbnb and blocked them.  BIG MISTAKE!!!  My response rate immediately dropped to 75% and I have been trying for over 2 weeks now to get this adjusted to my previous rate of 100%.  Although I have been promised over and over and over and over that the problem is being "looked into", nothing has been resolved.  Instead, @Airbnb keeps closing the cases.  Then when I call, I'm told that I just reported the case and someone is looking into it.  I am ready to SCREAM as they closed the 3rd case this evening.  I was told that a technical case was opened 2 days ago.  I am on the phone with a customer support rep right now  (Harold, who will not give any last name or case number) who is telling me that indeed, it is a good idea to give the scammer the "benefit of the doubt".  Again,--the message, BE SURE TO ENGAGE WITH THE SCAMMER. 

I AM LIVID!!  I have been accused by @Airbnb of not declining the request, which I clearly did.  I've sent the screen shots below, which somehow, conveniently keep "getting lost". 

I truly have tried to be tolerant and patient as I'm sure they are short on staff due to COVID.  However, on the 16th day, (today), when my case was again closed without resolution, I've reached my limit.

No one has done anything.  However, if they do nothing, and I continue to respond (as I've always done), my response rate will continue to come up on it's own.  Great.  Thanks for nothing @Airbnb!

I was contacted by the scammer on Monday, July 6th, 2020.s I declined the scammer's offer, reported it and then blocked it.As a result, my response rate dropped to 75%.

[Sarah977]

@Julieanna0  OMG. That should definitely not happen. I hope you get this resolved before you tear all your hair out. 

The problem with Airbnb is that things like acceptance rates are handled by an algorithm and it's really hard, if not impossible, to get Airbnb to change those things. I once missed a booking request because Airbnb had not sent me a text notification. Even though I responded to the guest in 25 hours, apologized, explaining what had happened, and she went on to book, Airbnb dinged my 100% response rate, even when I made it clear to them that it was only because of their tech glitch that I was late responding, and even though that glitch took over a month to be resolved in getting my text notifications again.

I think that when you receive a scam inquiry or request, you should simply immediately report it, and neither accept nor decline. 

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

I get maximum 50% of notifications, but probably closer to 30%. I spend so much of my time apologising to guests for late responses because I didn't get a notification. This something that I have repeatedly reported to Airbnb and they always try to make out that it's something to do with my phone. They tell me to delete the App and reinstall it.

Well, that makes no difference. I have had several different phones (iPhone, Samsung, Huwawei etc etc) and it doesn't matter and you can delete and reinstall however many times you like, the App is glitchy and notifications often don't appear.

I know it's not just me because, of the guests I have spoke to about this issue, 100% say they do not get all their notifications either, so I am sure Airbnb are aware of it but can't be bothered to fix it. A multi-billion dollar online company like this should surely be able to develop a reliable App, but apparently not...

[Sarah977]

@Huma0  What I get are text notifications, not notifications through the app. I don't use the app at all, and up until about 6 months ago, I only used an old-school dumb phone.  Because my internet is sometimes wonky, I really relied on those text notifications, rather than having to check my email all the time. And yes, the CS rep kept trying to tell me it must be an issue with my phone provider, or, if you can believe this one "Maybe your message Inbox is full", which I found downright insulting, as if I'd waste my time contacting CS without checking something so basic.

So after trying to get me to go away for awhile, he finally deigned to talk to the tech team, who confirmed, quel surprise, that it was a glitch on their end. I think they might have been trying to phase out text notifications, waiting to see how many people complained. It took them a month to rectify it and so I had to check my hosting account a couple times a day. 

I also had a guest who wasn't answering any messages. I couldn't call her, because she was on the other side of the world. When Airbnb finally managed to get ahold of her, she told me she hadn't received one notification and sincerely apologized. Yet the CS rep insisted that she was receiving notifications.

[Julieanna0]

@Sarah977After reading the responses, it appears that Airbnb is loathe to admit that their system (or their company) might be at fault for anything.  After an hour and 20 minutes on the phone last night, I finally told the CS that I was going to end the call as we were getting nowhere.  He continued to tell me that it was fixed.  It isn't.  I really believe they're hoping that my response rate will continue to come up on it's own as I continue to respond to (legitimate) inquiries as I usually do.  This way they don't have to take any action on their end, and as the CS person tried to assure me last night, "there is no problem with a response rate that is less than 100%." 

I have a lot of compassion for everyone right now and job security due to COVID, however, if ever there was someone who should NOT be in a position of a CS rep,--it was this man.  I consider myself a fairly patient person, however, his condescending attitude and mockery was uncalled for.  Although he (Harold?) refused to give me his last name, he said my case number was 90241358.  For all I know this was a randomly generated number.  It was bizarre,--he also tried to tell me that the same scammer had contacted me last year in October.  I said I didn't think so, and after hanging up I looked at the screen shot again and realized that there was no way that was possible as this scammer person joined in July 2020.  I'm so very confused and angry right now.  I did receive another email today, (NOT from Harold!), stating the following:

"Hi Julieanna,

---

---

I understand the frustration as I used to be a superhost myself.

This is why we are having a specialty team look into it. As we spoke before, unless a case manager or agent is assigned, we cannot properly report technical issues to them.

All of our teams are experiencing a high influx and backlog due to COVID-19 and our peak season, and are trying to work their hardest to get to each user in need.

We thank you for your patience.

Best,

Chantel"

For the life of me, I cannot understand why it has taken 16 days to assign a case manager to this.  According to Airbnb when I call, this issue was reported 2 days ago.

As I always think and say, if we as Airbnb hosts, treated our guests with the same level of customer service we receive from Airbnb,--wow!  We would have NO guests and Airbnb would be out of business!!

[Sarah977]

@Julieanna0  And if Airbnb was rated by hosts and guests the way they rate us, they would have been delisted a long time ago. We get punished if we don't accept or decline a request within 24 hours, even if we have things to discuss with the prospective guests and they are in a time zone 12 hours different from ours. But Airbnb CS can not respond for weeks, or at all, and that's somehow okay. And this was happening before COVID and before they laid off 1900 employees, so their lack of responses now is not a valid excuse.

I never call them. Unless it's something urgent, I would suggest you message them instead. Screenshot the messages so they can't disappear them. It's way to easy for them to deny having a record of you having called about something before, or, like just happened, saying you first called about this 2 days ago. 

[Julieanna0]

@Sarah977 I have a feeling it's going to be at least a month before anything is resolved.  Tomorrow (July 26th) will be 20 days since reporting the scammer and I'm still getting the same responses: i.e. "someone will get back with me", "they are looking into it", and of course, the "out of office excuse."  It's very frustrating!  In the meantime, my response rate is still subpar.  I guess they have no way of manually adjusting anything, which seems very odd,--and in some ways scary.  I wonder if they take more than 20 days to figure things out for their guests?  Hmmmm......

**[Private conversation removed in line with Community Center Guidelines]

[Colleen253]

@Julieanna0 Your screenshot shows it was only an 'Inquiry' not even a 'Request to Book'. If it's an Inquiry, you only need to reply. You don't even need to hit accept or decline. And there is no 'penalty' with Inquiries as long as you do something . This has got to be the result of some sort of glitch, and of course Airbnb CS are notoriously untrained so it can't be addressed or fixed. They never know what's going on or how to fix anything, which is why cases get 'closed' all the time, case managers suddenly are 'out of office' or the infamous 'going on vacation'. Then, having your case 'escalated' is probably the nadir of Airbnb Host suffering.  

[Julieanna0]

@Colleen253  The odd thing is that even when I get a simple inquiry, I must accept or decline.  It doesn’t make logical sense to me.  I was accused by one of the initial Airbnb CS people of NOT declining, so I was told that was my fault my response rate dropped.  Of course, I sent them the screen shot proving I HAD declined it.  So I’m not sure if ignoring the scammer completely is the answer.  (At this point, there doesn’t appear to be any answers!!).  The CS I spoke with yesterday evening was just flat out rude telling me that indeed it WAS best to engage with the scammer while snickering in the background.  Really disappointed in Airbnb.

[Huma0]

@Julieanna0 

When you get an enquiry, the Airbnb system will encourage you to accept or decline, but you don't have to, so it's best just to respond with a message (within 24 hours so your response rate is not effected). Do not decline it. You don't need to.

It's only booking requests that you have to accept or decline within 24 hours. Ignore the prompts from Airbnb to accept/decline enquiries. That is just a way for them to try to pressurise you into accepting more bookings.

[Sarah977]

@Julieanna0  Huma is correct- all you have to do with an Inquiry is message back within 24 hours. Ignore the pesky messages from Airbnb to either pre-approve or decline. (if you clear your cache, they should disappear once the 24 hours has expired) It doesn't affect your acceptance or response rate. Honest.

[Julieanna0]

@Sarah977  Am I ever wishing I had replied to the scammer!!  Almost one month, (on the 6th of July), and there has been zero progress towards getting this resolved.  They have stopped corresponding every day, which is just as well, as nothing was accomplished by it.  It was just the same words over and over again.  This was the last correspondence I received.  I have removed all names in hopes that it will not be deleted.  I noticed how they still refer to the scammer as a "user" even though they have assured me that the scammer's profile has been deleted from the platform.  (Technically speaking, at the time of the incident, they would have been a user.)

**[Private conversation removed in line with Community Center Guidelines]

[Elena87]

@Julieanna0 

It's crystal clear there is no ''benefit of the doubt'' here.

Template known scammers message, newly minted profile, couldn't even be bothered to type in a name.

I occasionally receive a message from a 'lets split the payment' scammer - I was never sure if it would affect the response rate as the messages usually vanish after reporting.

I answer with a simple dot or dash and report the profile then archive the message and be done with it.

[Sarah977]

@Julieanna0  FYI The response rate I see on your listing is 86%, not 75%.  That isn't going to put anyone off of booking with you, so I wouldn't let this take up too much space in your list of things to be really upset about. Yes, it could take a month but at least you are getting responses, even if they are bot responses.

Even before COVID and the laying off of 1900 staff, CS could take a long time to resolve things. Like I said, it took them at least a month to get my text notifications coming in again. I try to keep 3 things in mind when dealing with CS- patience, persistence and politeness. Don't be a thorn in their side, but also don't let them forget you are waiting for them to resolve this, and little things like thanking them for their time and saying that you hope they have a good day off, even if you aren't really being sincere, I find helps to get them working for you.

I try to keep in mind that they are quite low on the totem pole, are most likely overworked and underpaid, deal with irate hosts and guests all day (a job I sure wouldn't want), some of whom I'm sure yell at them in frustration and anger, they don't set policy, and I'm sure they are instructed to respond like robots for the most part.

That doesn't mean I act like a doormat who they can just brush off, and if their responses aren't on point, I do tell them that, but I try to do it in a way that isn't impolite or angry. The goal is to get them to help resolve my issue, so I'm not above some insincere niceties if that's what does the trick.

[Julieanna0]

@Sarah977 I agree re being overworked, underpaid, and instructed to respond like robots. I try to respond to every email they send, just so they know I'm paying attention.  And, as you mentioned, my response rate is coming up from the initial 75%.  This, of course, is what they wish me to accept.  They don't want to look into correcting it,--rather they wish I would just accept whatever my response rate is at, even though they have admitted there is some type of "technical error" they are looking into on their end.  However, as I have attempted to point out to them,--what happens the next time when another "technical error" occurs?  I'm sure I have not been the only host this has happened to, and it just seems wrong that a host is penalized for reporting a scammer.  I was told by a CS that the reason my response rate dropped to 75% was due to the scammers profile NOT being looked at or banned for over a week after I reported it.  I still don't understand why this should be the case as I declined their inquiry, reported the scam, and then blocked them.  Put another way, if this IS the truth, then someone could pull off a pretty elaborate scam and be long gone a week or two later!

At any rate, in my last response, (as the CS claims that she too used to be a host,) I asked her what she would do if she were in my shoes.  Perhaps tomorrow she will have an answer....