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.

[John8385]

yes ban these types of guests ...impressed you responded at 3 am ! as always good and bad everywhere no matter what one does there will always be some bad clients ...but reviews are helpful to highlight this 

[Jo979]

I had a similar experience awhile back. It wasn't with Airbnb, but another one I'm also with. I always provide a meal for their first night of arrival. This guest asked if he could come early, and I said yes. But we would probably run into each other as I get his meal to the house. (we had already discussed his dinner and he was very happy with the idea). He said that would be just fine. He showed up at the house a few minutes before I did but was still sitting in his truck. We both went inside, I finished making the mashed potatoes and he went around the corner to use the bathroom. He said how cute the place is as he walked through. He came back and went back out and I left. Total of 15 minutes. He was on his phone with his daughter who lives in a nearby town. (stay with me, this is all important) On my way home I got pinged from Airbnb saying he canceled and wanted a full refund. The fight was on. He was saying the reason was it was a dangerous area, (his daughter told him that, I'm sure) and when he talked to me, he threatened me with a bad review if I didn't refund. And that's what he did. He said in his review that "the host would come and go whenever she wanted, and he couldn't get me to leave" "It's safer to sleep in your car than in this house" Much more but I turned in a dispute with the company to have the review removed, tons of screen shots of conversations, and I not only got the review removed, but also the damage to my status. 

[Jo979]

Sorry, I got pinged not by Airbnb, but the other one. My bad. 

[Alyx10]

Hi there,

I'm really sorry to hear about this unfortunate experience. It’s incredibly frustrating when a guest tries to take advantage of the system, especially after you went out of your way to accommodate their requests for early check-in and allowing a visitor.

You handled the situation very professionally by providing clear communication, offering solutions, and documenting everything. It’s great that Airbnb ultimately sided with you, but the stress and disruption caused by the guest's false claims are unacceptable.

It’s concerning that some guests may try to exploit hosts by making unfounded complaints to get refunds. Your story is a good reminder for all of us to thoroughly document interactions with guests and to set clear expectations from the start. Having evidence like the video of the working sinks was crucial in your case.

I agree that guests who deliberately make false claims should face consequences, including potential bans from the platform. It's essential to protect hosts from these kinds of situations.

Thanks for sharing your experience—it's a valuable lesson for the community, and hopefully, it will help other hosts stay vigilant.

Wishing you better experiences in the future!