The Airbnb support team is not responding.

[Sarah3087]

A guest who canceled my reservation told me that Airbnb did not cancel the reservation and asked me for a full refund, so I refunded it.

However, his payment amount did not come to me. It turns out that Airbnb paid him the full refund.

However, he does not return to me. I have asked the support team for this issue, so it does not respond at all.

[Katie]

Hi @Sarah3087 

I'm so sorry to hear you've had this issue. Did you manage to get it sorted in the end?

Unfortunately the CS team are under a lot of pressure with the current climate across the world, so there can be a bit more of a delay than usual on getting in touch with Support. 

[Helen3]

Oh @Sarah3087 

As an experienced superhost you know you should not pay a guest directly in this situation and that Airbnb handles all refunds.

This situation is now between you and the guest. I hope them return your money. 

There is nothing Airbnb Support can do which you have not already done yourself which is to ask then to return your money.

what did the guest say when you spike to them about it?

You may need to take them to small claims court. 

[Sarah3087]

He complained that Airbnb was not responding to his request for cancellation. So I sent him his money in full because I believed his payout would come to me because they didn't respond.

[Mark116]

@Sarah3087  I can't imagine why you did that instead of letting airbnb handle the refund directly, but its going to be out of airbnb's hands now and you will have to sue the guest to get the funds. 

[Melodie-And-John0]

Im so sorry to hear that @Sarah3087 , The only refunds I ever make is after Im paid and that has only happened a couple times, never before.  I fear you can count that money gone.  And unfortunately you cant leave them a review cause the booking was cancelled (I assume before they were supposed to show up) t was cancelled.. I have a question, how did Airbnb give them  refund, Extenuating circumstances or withing cancellation time period of your listing?   Did you get a notification that Airbnb had paid them or cn=celled or both?  Its very perplexing ,  ?   

[Krystal16]

@Sarah3087 

I am not sure if Airbnb has a fraud division, maybe the Anti Trust and Security division would be fraud. 

I would not count on them getting back to you in a quick manner, seems to take about 48 hours.  All the layoffs that have occurred at BnB has put a strain on resources, the case managers do what they can but I feel they are overworked at this point.  It's unfortunate, I sat on hold for 4 hours 2 weekends ago trying to get a hold of some.

I think you will have better luck with the Anti Trust Division, but you cant call them directly, one of the regular call center people need to raise a case for you.

[Manuela413]

I received a message from Airbnb asking if I wanted to approve a full refund for a cancellation request for a guest with a long term reservation.  I declined the request until I read the guests message that said his wife had tested positive for Covid-19.  I contacted the guest and asked him to cancel from his end and that I would approve his refund. He tried and Airbnb told him that I needed to cancel from my end which I did but they kept my calendar blocked for that month.  He contacted Airbnb and was told that I needed to cancel 48 hours before check in which meant that my calendar would remain blocked with his reservation.   I have been trying without success to have Airbnb remove the block so that my place becomes available for those dates. At this point they are not even responding and my calendar is blocked in a black color and until they remove it I won't be able to get reservations.  I spoke to someone and they wrote a ticket to send to another representative but I never heard from them.  It has been 4 days.  The guest also called them and they also wrote a ticket to resolve the situation.  I am so frustrated that I am ready to put this listing with another platform.  Has this ever happen to anyone and any suggestions on what to do to solve my problem?

[Mark116]

@Manuela413  So, you learned a hard lesson, to never cancel a reservation on behalf of a guest no matter what.  You could try sending messages on all their platforms, twitter, FB, the chat option as well as calling.  Your only hope is persistence, and to keep referring to the message trail that shows the guest initiated the cancellation but was wrongly advised by Airbnb, and that in an abundance of generosity, you moved to help the guest out, but you need the dates unblocked and the host cancellation removed.

[Christine615]

Honestly. I think Airbnb customer service is broken. 😞

[Lisa6801]

ive been waiting almost 2 days for airbnb support to respond to me. I am currently staying in an airbnb, and after booking, the host *messaged* the address. We had an emergency at home and were in a rush, I'll admit. Once we landed at the airbnb, I realized the address in the confirmation booking was different than where they sent me via messages. Totally different location than where we were supposed to be staying. The amenities were also changed after booking, removing tons of things that werent actually available here. Upon further inspection, the reviews were also for a different property (its obvious, people talking about a pool, balcony, etc, all things we didnt have.) So its obvious that this host took an old listing, changed the photos and description, was not able to just change the address because airbnb verifies locations, and then booked it to me. It's called a "ghost listing". I contacted airbnb support about this because I was so confused and honestly started to think maybe we werent safe here. They didnt respond after a full day and a half, so I decided to just confront the host directly (and politely) via messages. They denied any wrongdoing, saying it was a glitch. When I said Ok nevermind I'll just handle this with airbnb then, if its a glitch...and promptly i received a phone call from the host, who was initially apologetic but then was coercing me to NOT contact airbnb about it because he was worried about his super host status and its not his fault. I dont understand how if something is an airbnb glitch, why they would try to cover it up and offer me money to be quiet about it. He offered a night free (we're leaving early anyways) and I accepted it because I was so uncomfortable being pressured on the phone with him and wanted to get off. Really inappropriate to bribe me to be quiet. Very disappointed to still have no response from airbnb about this. There's not even an email address I can use, just the messages in the app. I feel completely mislead about the property and especially about the location, which is no where near where we thought we'd be staying. I honestly am not trying to get a bunch of money back or something, I just want to be treated like I matter.

[Dayena0]

I totally understand your pain .. we are going through it right now. We visited joshua tree National park for vacation and booked a house over there. When we arrived at the house , there were rodents in the house. My kids were so much scared. We contacted host about this and she gave us another house which was too dirty, had no internet, no tv, had sink leak in the kitchen, not enough hot water.. they just ruined our whole vacation. Airbnb is the worst part here. They just say that we care for our guest. THEY DONT. DO NOT BOOK WITH AIRBNB. they are refusing to do anything in this matter. No refund or anything. This is so unprofessional. 

[Jenny]

Hi @Dayena0 

Sorry to hear about this.

Contacting Airbnb was the right thing to do, as the host didn't resolve things.  What did Airbnb Support say regarding the challenges you had during your stay?

Is the conversation still ongoing?

Jenny

[Dayena0]

They did not do anything. They just said we can’t refund or can not do anything as you stayed at that house. What do they expect ? Do we had any choice at night with two young kids??? We are really disappointed with them.. will not go with airbnb again and will also write a review in yelp about this.

[Christine615]

The same thing happened to me. I’m a host so I spotted the problem early, reported it, and Airbnb said they took down the listing. But they didn’t. They blocked me from seeing it but my friend could see it and new guests were complaining about the same bait and switch.

Demand a supervisor. AirCover is supposed to put you in a better space and/or refund your money when the listing isn’t what you booked. 😞