We thought that we had heard everything...until THIS guest!

[Rich-and-Yan0]

We have been renting for almost two years, mostly longer-term rentals, and are proud of having received 23 straight 5-star reviews. We always try to go the extra mile for our guests and take pride in having met their needs, especially when they say so in their reviews.

Recently, we received a 9-day booking from a Spanish man who wanted to take his elderly aunt and his even-more-elderly grandmother to our place in Portugal. The guest insisted on us communicating through an external messaging app, which we usually don't like to do but have done without incident in the past. We agreed, and the messages kept pouring in. He repeatedly asked things which we had already explained to him, such as whether they could check in early, whether there was parking, etc. Even so, he was not our first demanding guest, and so we happily answered all his questions.

This past Monday, he was due to arrive at 11:00 Portugal time (we live in Hong Kong, seven hours ahead), and that's when all the strangeness started. First, he couldn't find our home--despite my having given him very precise directions--simply because he hadn't written the directions down. He sent about 10 messages to me and, I would learn later, to our house manager Mike, and we were both re-explaining to him how to get there. I even sent him the exact quote I had previously sent him on Airbnb showing him precisely how to get there.

Then, when they arrived, they said that they couldn't open the door with the key. This was the first time with over 30 guests (we have also rented out privately, not on Airbnb) that a guest could neither find the home nor open the door. Again, the panic messages started coming in left and right, and so Mike was on his way over there when the guest texted him to say that they had finally figured out how to open the door.

After that, the messages just kept coming: Would someone be coming by every day to change the towels? (No, this is an Airbnb. You are supposed to wash them yourself.) Why is there only one Spanish TV channel? (Because you are in Portugal. But there are over 200 channels, and so surely you can something to watch.) Where are the sponges for the mop? (In the cleaning room where the mop, broom, vacuum and other cleaning products are kept.)

And so on. And so on.

And then, things turned REALLY bizarre. At around 1:50 am Portugal time, I got a text message here in Hong Kong from him in which he claimed that someone had thrown rocks at our window and run away, that it had woken him and his two elderly relatives, that they were terrified, and that they had called the police. Naturally, we were very concerned but also very surprised. Our resort is next to a golf course and not near any main streets, bars, etc. It is patrolled regularly by security, and most of the people who live there are retirees. In over two years since we bought the villa, we have never heard a single story of a break-in or anything remotely like that. It is really a safe, peaceful and quiet community, and so we were more than a little surprised to hear this.

Anyway, the guest told us the police had come but were not very friendly or helpful, and then he started saying that they didn't feel safe, that it was our fault for not having security cameras, and that they were going to move to a hotel. In fact, they had already booked one, he said, and he asked if they could have their money back. So, I told him that I'd see what I could do about getting him a refund, but that I also needed to talk with Airbnb because we had never experienced anything like this before.

Here's where the real strangeness started. While I was emailing the condominium agency at our resort to let them know about this, the guest sent me a photo of a vase that he alleged had been broken by the rock-thrower. But here's what makes that point strange: the vase was on a table inside the house, behind a window which was covered with metal grates on the outside and which had blinds in front of it on the inside. If you understand physics even slightly, then you know that it is physically impossible for a rock to go through a metal grate, a windowpane and a set of blinds--without breaking the window glass--and then shatter a vase inside the room.

He also let it slip that his grandmother had stated that she would have preferred to stay in a hotel, and he then announced that they would be leaving in the morning. I told them that while they were sleeping, I would contact Airbnb to try to look into a refund, and he was showering me with praise about how "kind" I was and promised that he would write us a good review. 

(Wisely, I told him that from there on after, we should do all our correspondence within the Airbnb app so that we have a record of everything.)

I contacted Airbnb that morning by message and was told by a "bot" that they had recorded my case, but then the bot disappeared when I mentioned the refund. So, I decided to wait to call them a bit later in the day, when I was more sure that I could reach an agent.

But then as the day progressed, more things didn't add up. First, when the condominium agency received my message in the morning in Portugal, they immediately contacted the resort security, who then went to check on our guests. However, when they inspected the so-called 'attack area,' they found no rocks around the windows at all and no evidence of any rocks having hit the window or wall. So, when we heard back from the condominium agency, they said that the guest had changed the story to say that no rocks had been thrown but rather that some man had been outside "banging loudly on the metal grates." This, despite the fact that he had already stated several times on both the messenger and Airbnb apps that someone had thrown rocks. 

Next, our house manager Mike visited the villa after the guests had left in the morning and likewise had found no rocks near the window, and so he went around to talk to our neighbours. Not one of them had heard any loud banging that night, and the neighbour closest to us, who can see everything on that side of our home and with whom we share an entranceway, said that he had been up until 3 am and had not only heard nothing of the sort, but that he also had not seen or heard the police come.

By now, of course, we were starting to become very suspicious. And then, when the Airbnb agent and I finally spoke on the phone and I explained the story to her, she likewise seemed skeptical but told me that she would need to forward this to a Case Manager. I was put on hold for quite some time but the Case Manager still didn't come on, and so the agent told me that the CM would call me later. I waited till 11:30 that night and fell asleep on the sofa.

(Side note: The guest and I had continued texting that day, on the Airbnb app, and I just told him that I was still trying to find out what the procedure for doing this was from Airbnb--which was absolutely true. He kept telling me how "kind" and "wonderful" I was.)

When I awoke the next morning, I was surprised to see that the Case Manager had written in detail and had explained very clearly that if a guest checks in and then wants to check out for supposedly "safety reasons," then the guest needs to "provide documentation about their claim," and if the guest cannot provide any such written evidence, then THEY can cancel on their end and the Moderate cancellation policy will apply--meaning the guest would have to pay 50% of the booking fee.

Now, if anyone thinks this is unfair to the guest, please understand: they had booked the room for 9 days during peak season, had already checked in, had already stayed for one night (meaning that if we earn nothing, then we incur the 150 EUR cleaning cost as well as the loss of all the amenities we had put out for them), and had broken a lovely ceramic vase--all for what looked, at this point, like they changed their minds after checking in, decided to move to a hotel, and then created this whole elaborate story to get out of paying anything.

Anyway, I was still on fairly pleasant terms with the guest, who was unaware that we had been piecing together all this information behind the scenes, while he and his relatives were relaxing in their 5-star hotel. And so, I sent him a friendly message explaining what Airbnb had told me and quoting that part of the Case Manager's message, and I told him, politely, that if he could give me a copy of the police report or give us the officers' names and or contact information, then we should be able to get him the full refund.

And THAT is when things turned nasty.

He suddenly started sending angry messages, saying that the police were rude and didn't give them a report, and that they were "too shaken up" by the whole incident to have checked the officers' names and such. He also couldn't give me any contact information and told me that it should be the job of Mike, our house manager, to track down the officers who had supposedly visited our home.

When these angry messages started coming in, I just happened to be at work and was scheduled to be in meetings all afternoon, and so I answered politely that I would be tied up for awhile but that he could try contacting Airbnb support, and I sent him the link for it. He did contact them, and he sent me a short message telling me that he had spoken with an agent and that she would be contacting me. However, when she texted me, she said exactly the same thing that the Case Manager had said: that if the guest could not provide any written documentation supporting his claim, then he would need to cancel on his end and be subject to the Moderate cancellation policy.

I again copied what the agent had said and told him that I still wanted to find a resolution that we could all live with. But then he wrote back something to the effect of, "You are not a man of your word, and so I am going to give you a bad evaluation."

So, that's the story. I know that it's long, and for those of you who have read this far, I appreciate your hanging in there. We are about to receive our first bad review in two years for something that looks unmistakably like an intricate plan to deceive and cheat us, and so I wanted to share it with our fellow hosts so that you, too, can be prepared if any such thing ever happens to you.

This has been, without question, the strangest and most stressful week in our entire Airbnb rental history...

[Cathie19]

Hi @Rich-and-Yan0 . Like @Jessica-and-Henry0 , any contact made through another source, text message, WhatsApp etc, are always recounted on the AIrbnb message board. I may include a screenshot. As confirmation of the original conversation.

May I say I always, always use the AIrbnb message board. Sometimes a guest will approach via WhatsApp or a text message first. But be upfront and transfer the info to the AIrbnb site. State you are doing it for documentation for both of you.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Cathie19 I will keep that in mind. We have a lot of evidence to accumulate, as there were sooo many messages from this guest on both the external IM app and on Airbnb, and they were all in Spanish. We're not sure how much of the external evidence that Airbnb will consider, if any, but we think that we have a solid case. We did tell him in the beginning on that app, when we thought his claim was real, that we would try to get him a refund, but we also told him that we needed to investigate the claim. He, in turn, promised us on that app that he would write us a good review. 

So, we will have to see how it goes and what they consider. One thing is for certain, though: we will indeed be keeping everything on the Airbnb message board from here on in. Once bitten, twice shy...

Thanks a lot. 

[Susan1188]

@Rich-and-Yan0 

Your other reviews speak for themselves; This one is clearly an outlier and any guest will see that.

Also, take heart not all guests are shown the latest review.  They are shown the reviews from people *most like them*.  So this Spanish review will probably not pop up at the top when your target-client population is looking at your listing.  Most of your reviews are in English it's a good thing he wrote in Spanish.

Also since guests only see the average stars not the star review of each guest, nobody will ever know how he rated you and with 23 other reviews your average is still high.

I doubt this will hurt you, if you see a slump just lower minimum stay a bit maybe lower some last minute prices to try to get a few more bookings to drown out this review.  Might mean a few less profitable ones but overall your number of reviews will go up and you'll boost your listing.

With summer business I'm sure you'll get a lot of new reviews to drown this one out.

For me the worst thing here unfortunately is your response to his review.  It shows how clearly distressed you were and of course disproves everything he says but you should have written it in Spanish (and probably pared down 90% of it).  

By writing in English, you laid it out for non-spanish speakers, and in fact drew attention to the bad review, and made it visible to much more travellers than if you had responded in Spanish.  Your major client population would probably never seen or have taken the time to read the spanish review, it would not have been high on the list of what's shown to them,  and it would have gone mostly unnoticed.  Now when they see a host comment 3 paragraphs long they are going to notice it.

I responded poorly too with my first critical review, responded off the cuff and now it's on my profile forever.

Now I always get feedback before posting a response to a guest review because that is your one recourse to speak to future guests, make yourself look like a caring host and make the unreasonable guest look, well, unreasonable.

All the best and I'm sure this won't hurt you. especially as we are going into the summer season now.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Susan1188 Thank you again for your thoughtful advice. I will keep in mind what you said about replying in future in Spanish. We don't get very many Spanish guests, however, and we are largely booked up for the summer. So I'm not entirely sure that this will hurt us too much in the long term.

Anyway, we are now in the process of trying to have his review taken down, as it is full of untruths and may even have violated the Airbnb extortion policy. For instance, he wrote that our place is not secure because we don't have security cameras, when our listing clearly says that we do not have cameras. He stated that we don't provide emergency contacts, but I've taken a screenshot of a message sent to him days before his arrival in which I outlined where to find the emergency contacts in the house. He said on both the external messaging app and Airbnb that a rock thrown from outside had miraculously broken a vase inside, but then changed it in his review to say that he threw the vase when this attack purportedly happened.

Most importantly of all, we asked our house managers in Portugal to contact the local police for us. We learned that they did indeed come, but they filed no police report because they said there "was no crime committed." Neither they nor the resort security could find any evidence of this supposed rock attack and the police apparently did not believe the story about the vase being broken by rocks, either. So, the guest changed his story about how the vase was broken, and then changed his story again (all documented on Airbnb) to say that this alleged burglar had not thrown rocks but had been "banging on the grill outside the bedroom window."

So, this is just a series of outright lies told by someone who was trying to deceive us, the police and Airbnb in order to get a full refund. However, none of us bought his story, as it was just too preposterous to believe. And so when he spoke with Airbnb himself and they told him that he could not be refunded without written evidence verifying his claim, he immediately turned his anger toward us by promising to write a vindictive review (and after having promised earlier, when he thought he could be fully refunded, that he would write us a good review when we had never even discussed the review).

We have thus been compiling all of this evidence and plan to send it to Airbnb. I have all the screenshots and dates/times things happened, and we are just waiting for one final piece of written evidence to present, which we expect to be receiving later today. That being said, Airbnb may or may not take down his review. We are not sure, as this is all new territory for us. Nonetheless, we feel it is important, as conscientious hosts, to take a stand against such an obvious attempt at deception on the part of a guest with highly suspicious motives. 

Thanks again.  

[Susan1188]

Did you have success in getting this review removed?

So far on these forums it seems to me that outright lies, and complaining about things that were clearly described on the listing, are not reasons that airbnb agrees to remove abusive reviews...

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Susan1188 Hi again. Sorry, I didn't see this until just now. We were NOT successful in having the review removed despite having submitted what we thought was incontrovertible evidence that this guy tried to extort us by promising a good review if he got a refund and then vowing to write a bad one when he found out (from Airbnb) that he couldn't, and for telling numerous lies that were well documented, including by the local police and the resort's security. 

The agent who contacted us did not mention a single aspect of our case when he told us that the review could not be removed. It was more or less a form letter. "Dear X, Upon considering the evidence we have concluded that the guest's review will be allowed to stand. We thank you for contacting Airbnb and want you to know that we are here for our hosts at any time."

Well, we wrote back to tell this person that we were not happy with that response, and he then sent us a link to Airbnb feedback saying that we could let them know that we weren't happy with their review of this process BUT! (And here comes the "But".) He did say that we "may not necessarily get a response to the feedback we send."

So, we clicked the link and sent in our feedback. That was two weeks ago, and we have heard nothing since.

And there you have one of the bad examples of Airbnb support. As I have mentioned before on this community, we have had both good and bad support agents in our nearly two years of being on the platform. The good ones have gone out of their way to help and really seemed sincere. The bad ones have been like this guy, who is probably the worst one we have ever had. You could see that he didn't even look at the evidence. So sad, but there you go.

Anyway, thanks for checking back on us. 

[Inna22]

@Rich-and-Yan0 it sounds like the guest is mentally unstable. In the future, unless you are planning on giving a guest a full refund, they will never be happy anyway so I would suggest to not even engage. You just upset yourself

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Inna22 Thanks, and you're probably right on all counts. We expended a lot of time, effort and energy, and it was all for nought. As I mentioned just above to @Susan1188, the Airbnb agent who we sent our evidence to did not even look at it from what we could tell. 

So yes, we were the ones who got upset for nothing. I'm sure this is not the last loonie guest that we will ever host, and so when the next one comes along, we'll take your advice and try to avoid engagement. 

Cheers.