Guest making false claims in order to try to get a full refund

[Jeremy1111]

Hello All,

We have an unfortunate story with a guest we would like to share with all the community.

Yesterday, a guest contacted us asking if he could het a free early check-in, we offered him a free early check-in.

Few hours later, our guest contacted us again to ask if he could bring a visitor, we agreed and granted permission (in the Philippines, not all buildings allow it).

At approximately 3 o'clock in the morning, all of a sudden, out of the blue, we received a message from Airbnb customer support to tell us "as you may already know, your guest contacted us..." ..."to ask for a full refund" because your sink is not working.

By the way, upon booking, we provided to our guest 2 phone numbers to contact in case of any issue.

Our building has a lobby and a 24 hours maintenance team.

Our guest knows how to reach us because he sent us multiple messages to ask for free early check-in and permission to have visitor.

We received 0 message from our guest regarding any sink issue.

We immediatly contacted our guest in regards with his full refund request and he kept silence, stop replying to us.

We informed Airbnb at around 4;00am that we are not willing to issue any refund for multiple reasons:

1. Our guest occupied the property from 1:00pm and is still occupying our property

2. Because our guest never contacted us in any manner to report any issue

3. Our guest never try to ask the maintenance team to fix the sink if there is really an issue

Then Airbnb customer service came back to us with an extra complain from the same guest "our washing machine is out of service".

Here is a really big joke/scam, our listing doesn't include any washing machine. There is a laundry shop inside the building, onthe ground floor and our amnity shows "paid laundry in the building".

Our listing is not showing any photo of a washing machine. Our confirmation message sent to the guest automatically after booking also includes a paragraph "**Laundry", we state again there that we do not provide any washing machine and laundry can be done in the ground floor.

At 10:00am we sent a maintenance staff to check the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink, all were working perfectly, 0 issue, no leak at all, not clogged. Guest did not know what to say - one of the two guests was present only.

The technician recorded a video showing our sinks are perfectly working.

Finally, Airbnb closed this case and reminded us to keep a high standard etc.

After the false claims did not work to get a full refund and after our guest ignored all our messages,he sent us a message and sayed "I apology, actually the sink was not a big deal for me, I did not realise that I contacted Airbnb customer service, I had a panick attack" etc...

Who believes this kind of guest should be banned ? they provide unnecessary stress, cost us labour fee for nothing, damage our sleep (had to work from 3am to 5am to reply to this scam attempt), damage the whole reputation and atmosphere on Airbnb.

It helps feeling better to share this kind of experience and if it can help you, we feel even better.

[Marie8425]

@Jeremy1111 

I personally because these situations happen, I give a low mark on communication.  Then word my review that lack of communication was a major or minor inconvenience.  I would say the middle of the night is major.  Then you aren't reacting to his lies.  You are being professional, but you are warning future Hosts.

[Jeremy1111]

Thank you for your message, I did exactly that, I left a negative review stating the lack of communication etc.

Airbnb CS immediately removed my review saying it's in violation of their policy.

Guest knew how to contact us to ask for requests but forgot how to contact us to report an issue.

Guest finally showed up saying "I didn't realize I contacted the customer service of Airbnb" and just after he sent another message saying"I thought contacting Airbnb customer service was the way to get helped ".

Very contradictory... By the way help for what ? 🙂

What is more hilarious is Airbnb CS clearly wrote to us and I quote "as you may already know, your guest, contacted us about some issues relating to the property they book where they are asking for a full refund because of the following reasons: sink is not working issue" ..."If you'd like to offer your guest a refund of any amount for this situation before we receive the documentation, this might allow us to solve this issue more quickly - if so, please let me know what amount you'd like to offer. I would appreciate if you can get back to me as soon as you can so that you can share your perspective, and if you have any questions just let me know"

Our guest sent us a private comment with his review "I want to clarify that I never asked for any refund ".

This is sick. Who is saying the truth?

[Dante3]

It seems this is a trend picking up as guests are becoming more cunning in knowing how to exploit these loopholes in addition to the obvious Airbnb CS bias against hosts, to get a free stay.

I reckon we'll be seeing a lot more of these type of complaints appearing on this forum and everywhere else.

Am sorry you had to experience this. At least the CS did not penalise/punish you or the guest did not accuse you of any discrimination. Otherwise things will get a lot worse for you, which is what i'm experiencing now.

[Jeremy1111]

Too bad. I hope dishonest people will get banned. They are not doing anything good to the platform.

[Zhyrgal0]

I encountered this last time. He, a man, about 35 years old, athletic build (this is important) books for 30 days. The platform made a big discount. After 20 days, he asks me to change the reservation so that he does not get a fine. I refused, showed that it would cost 62 dollars for me. Then he writes to the security service that my puppy bit him! He took a photo of some scratches and writes about a "dangerous animal". I send a video and a photo of this puppy, who was 3 months old, did not bite anyone. On the contrary, he was kind to everyone. But the platform employee decided that the owner was to blame and takes money for all the days of changing the reservation - 68 dollars, and writes that I should return this amount to them. I recently had guests, this is rare for me. They charged me much more than the stated amount. I write to the support service, they managed to write to me after 4-5 hours: you still owe me 40 dollars. At the same time, they did not write anything for what. It turns out that employees are given full authority to decide and punish the owners. Without even bothering to write: what rules, for what?

[Alexandra85]

Yes, and Airbnb supports claims without getting the host evidence or side of story. It is in Guest best financial interest to make claims for privacy, security cameras, harassment, discrimination - they will be rewarded by Airbnb that penalizes host financials.