Renter checking out late - told to leave and the aftermath...Airbnb customer support is non-existent

[Charles1802]

Hello there,

This post is about my extreme dissatisfaction with Airbnb's customer support for hosts and a bad outcome:

1. I had a renter who was supposed to check out at 11 am.

2. At 1 pm, I noticed they were still leaving and entering the property (I was on my way to clean, which was about 2.5 hours away).

3. Earlier in the day, I messaged the renter to thank them for staying and ask them to please let me know when they checked out. I heard nothing back.

4. At 115pm, I changed the combination to the lock.

5. At 330pm, my wife and I are just about at the property to clean. I work out of this location and need the unit for a few days.

6. At 335 p.m., I got a call from the renter, who was locked out of the unit and could not get back in. I explained that she was due to check out at 11 am that morning. She got agitated at me, and the conversation was very tense. I told her she needed to vacate the property, as I needed it for work. Her rental was up. She blames me for kicking her out. She chose the wrong departure date.

7. I tell her to take an hour, get her stuff together, and see if she can find another place to stay. I open the door to let her in, get her things, and prepare to vacate. My wife and I go to a coffee shop to wait for them to vacate.

8. About an hour later, she calls me to tell me she's left, never acknowledging her mistake, instead insinuating that I am making this hard for her by forcing her to leave. She hangs up on me. That is the last time we have communicated.

9. All signs were that she had been having a great stay until that point; she messaged me the day before to tell me that.

10. Her review came in and gave me a 3/5 rating. This is her review: "Very responsive host. Had a couple of issues but all was resolved." This is my first non-5 rating, so my perfect score is ruined, and I"m pissed. If I'm not gonna get a 5-star rating, I want to know I did something to deserve it.

11. I call and message Airbnb to ask them to remove this review. She violated her terms by not leaving on time and did not have the right to review her stay, as she was biased by our experience when I had to tell her to vacate.

12. Calling Airbnb is awful. Their customer service reps work in a large room with massive background noise. Their English is marginal to poor, making it very difficult to have a conversation. The same goes for trying the chat route.

13. They refuse to remove the review, saying the renter did not violate their terms and conditions. They closed the case.

I am sharing this to see if I have any recourse left. In a situation like this, where I have to remove the tenant, they should not be able to review, as they likely leave a poor review, as in this case.

So, the 3-star rating is not removed, and I'm unhappy about that. However, I'm also highly concerned about what will happen when I need Airbnb's host services for something more serious. I now have zero confidence in Airbnb customer support, and I have doubts that they will be there for me as a host when I need them.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to receiving any feedback.

CR

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Charles1802 I would blame the kooky guest rather than Airbnb. We all get one occasionally and just have to live with it. Airbnb zealously protects its review system as, to be fair to its staff, it is near impossible for them to know who is being truthful in many situations. As an example your issue was dealt with by phone with the guest so there is no record of exactly what happened.

The most important thing now is to craft a suitable review response recognising that it should be focussed on potential future guests and not the guest leaving the review. Review responses, if badly written, can do more damage than the review itself.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Charles1802 Adding to my previous response.

How can you possibly complain about a guest leaving many hours late when you leave the following review for her?

'Nice and courteous guests. Thank you for staying at our place.'

Also why on earth would support believe your story of a late check out when nothing was mentioned in your review of her?

Finally how do you expect to be protected from such guests in future if all hosts leave dishonest  (or at least economical with the truth) reviews like yours?

It seems to me that all was well until she left you 3 stars!

[Charles1802]

I totally get it. I struggled with my review but decided to leave her 5-star. She made a mistake and chose the wrong check-out date, and things turned sour. Until then, she was a perfect guest. The apartment was left clean and tidy. She did everything fine, and I would not want to penalize her for choosing the wrong check-out date.

Her reaction once I told her to leave was rotten, but for the reasons above, I did not factor that into the rating. 

I rated her before I saw what she left me, but I wouldn't have rated her low. I did not want to penalize her for choosing the wrong check-out date and having a bad reaction. Too bad she couldn't see it that way too. 

CR