Fake damage claims from the host

[Sandra4965]

Hello airbnb community,

I was wondering if anyone had false damage accusations against them after their stay?

I have booked a flat in Bergen to celebrate my dad’s 55th birthday with the family. We have cleaned the dishes, took out the rubbish, gathered used towels and cleaned the surfaces for the flat to look presentable. 

After our departure from the property landlord opened a case for severe damages i.e. deep damage to the counter, paint on the walls, missing glasses and the key fob missing from the key ring, floors being sticky from spilled alcohol and so on. He is claiming over £4,000 in damages that we didn’t do!

every other day last week and this week he comes back with yet additional damages and this sets me to have panic attacks, as this is just absurd! It was a quiet weekend away with the family and NOT a house party for 20 teenagers! And my reviews during the time I have signed up for Airbnb is spotless: all precious hosts have mentioned me being clean and respectful guest.
I can see some pictures being fake and I have already reported it to Airbnb.

Did anyone have similar experience and how you dealt with it?

I am considering even reporting it to the police.

Any recommendations or advise would be much appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

[Alex11522]

I can’t believe this is happening to me.

i checked out a BnB on 12/08 and got a claim from the host 2 weeks later saying there was blood stain on the bed sheet.

Without any photo or evidence, AirBnB agreed the claim and wants to charge me $100+ for it.

i checked the BnB’s review and found there are other guests staying at the BnB after I checked out and before they issued the claim.

AirBnB did not accept my rebuttal and asked me to pay.

what should i do?

[Can0]

did you pay? or what will happen if you dont?

[Christopher2015]

This literally just happened to me and my mother. We left the place in perfect condition only to get notification from the host two weeks later stating we left a small stain on the couch that appears to be bleach! We traveled on an airplane from Colorado to Virginia, and didn't have any cleaning agents to cause any type of stains or we would have notified them of a damage immediately. Now they are charging us $248 for repair/replacement with a 6 year 5-Star streak...What the heck?! This is just so upsetting to have this happen for a quick visit to see family in a place we only slept in AFTER being out visiting family ALL DAY. I will NEVER trust anything associated with our host James of the Cozy Cove ** again! 

**[Identifiable information- Address of a Host's listing removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines due to privacy concerns]

[Tasha879]

That’s unreal! Sorry that happened to you. I was prompted to leave a 5-star review. After I left a great review the host sent a request to pay for damaging a pillow case. We did not damage the pillow case. He is asking 58. Unreal. I cannot revise my review since he left me a review. He said I was a great guest then sent that BS. I didn’t have my lawyer send him a letter for slipping and falling on the ice in the driveway…grow up and replace your own pillowcase that your cleaning person likely ruined. Don’t charge guests for things they didn’t damage. 

[Lakeisha18]

The EXACT same thing to me. Got email go leave review, host abd i both posted, both positive.  On the 14th day they sent damage and reimbursement request. I researched and found that after 14 days no damages can reported  nor reimbursement requested. But my host has “proof” of alleged damage hours after i checked out but waited until the last day to submit. Instead of reporting at that time of found damage . 

[Devyn18]

Unfortunately dealing with this myself, our stay started off weird, we arrived to a not thoroughly cleaned airbnb, and then 2 weeks into what should have been a month long stay the unit had a major leak and we reported it to them and moved out. Now they’re claiming that we CAUSED the damage and trying to make us pay $10,000. It’s ridiculous, we did everything airbnb told us we should do documenting and taking pictures of what happened, tried getting ahold of the owners who didn’t respond until Airbnb got involved, and even called their local water company to have the water turned off. I’m in complete shock that a host can falsely accuse guests for things and Airbnb seemingly does nothing about it. 
We tried to appeal the claim and were told that we “didn’t have enough documentation” to prove that we didn’t cause the leak?!

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Devyn18 My only advice is to let them sue you and allow the court to decide. To prove a negative is extremely hard but in court airbnb would have to prove you did do the damage.

The sad thing here is that hosts are sold on the Airbnb Aircover $3m cover. What they are not told is it only kicks in if the guest caused the issue. As such  many hosts are uninsured and so feel they have no choice but to claim the guest caused the damage. Indeed this is the first step in any Aircover claim.

[Devyn18]

Thank you for the reply, it is so frustrating that there is a quite obvious reason for fraudulent claims against guests based on their set up. I’m also shocked at the amount of people who have Airbnb units and are uninsured. When owning a home that I WASNT renting I always had homeowners insurance. Just makes it even more shocking to me that hosts can accuse guests and Airbnb doesn’t protect guests in any way, especially when we provided everything Airbnb specifically asked for in an emergency situation. 

[Can0]

what happened since you didnt pay? how did it end?

[Riliwan0]

I am stunned by the email I got from Airbnb that there was a damage at a place I stayed , after cleaning the trash emptying all the bin in the rest room moving then trash up front of the yard for the host . Then I got a message that a table was damaged  and can’t not be fixed ! How lucky I have a picture ,I am going to decline because I am 100% sure I cleaned every dime nothing was damage ,we even left a day before the checkout . Wasted a day money ! This my first experience is bad. I would have jst booked hotel ! 

[Joakim28]

Yes I had a similar experience today...
I didn't do my review until I got home and got settled from the jetlag and so on.

And I checked out 5 March and today 12 March after my review(she also begged me for 5 star review because otherwise she "couldn't rent it out"), she claims that I broke a lid of a saucepan, and she showed 2 towels that are dirty(they didn't even launder them ?! ) and that I took the base of a kettle (that I put on top of the fridge where it was when I arrived)...

One of the problems was that she for the first says its "Full-equiped" condo but it wasn't... Stayed there for 2 months and was doing cooking for my diet and needed to buy fryingpan(there was only a very very small and dirty one there that i didn't wanna use...), wash basket, wash stand, coat hangers(she had like 6-8 coathangers and we were 2 people living there for 2 months so needed to buy several)...

Feels more like she did it out of spite because I didnt reply to her "please tell me if you cannot give 5 star first"...
She even gave me a good review and "hope to see you again"

Sorry to pick this thread up so long after @Sandra4965 but just so **in annoyed over the petty host...

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[Ellen1160]

I am also going through something similar at the moment: cleaned up perfectly, my reviews have always been good, and we were then accused of causing damage we did not cause. Airbnb seems to be siding with the host during this process and not being transparent about how they are making their decisions. I’m very disappointed and confused. I hope you’re having better luck with your situation. Please update us here with how yours turns out. 

[Eric8002]

We are currently experiencing a similar situation after our brief stay in Florida.  The individual is claiming we bent her dishwasher door and is requesting an $850.00 reimbursement.  How one bends a dishwasher door, I do not know.

As previous hosts and frequent guests we are familiar with both sides of the coin, therefore we are very respectful of other people's property as we want to be treated with the same respect.  It's disheartening to see host's and guest's take advantage of people like this.  Having to deal with this kind of scenario makes me want to go back to booking hotels. 

[Bonum0]

Nuestras propiedades están en Florida @Eric8002  y en una de las casas, nos pasó lo contrario. Un invitado rompió una decoración y dijo que lo hicimos para quitarles dinero. Esto les sucede a los huéspedes y anfitriones. Aunque teníamos una forma de demostrarlo, preferimos dejarlo todo así.

[Cathrine31]

Same! A host in Milan is charging me for her broken shower.  The shower was broken when i arrived and now she is telling Airbnb that i broke it. I could NOT even shower for 3 days and i was in town for a conference!!!