Why a Blocked message (fraudulent one - as flagged by Airbnb) has Power to affect Our Response Rates?

[Bes175]

[Long post, if you lack patience/ time/ inclination, pls skip this]

Paragraphs I'l bring below [c/paste] have no author for me to credit, however I found it in this forum under the title: 

Understanding Response Rate and Acceptance Rate, Published on July 2018.

"For my response rate, does just the first message/inquiry count or do subsequent messages in a thread count, too?

We only measure a response within 24 hours of the guest's first message or inquiry. Subsequent messages in that thread do not impact your response rate.

What happens to my acceptance rate if I answer a question rather than approve, pre-approve, or decline a booking request?

The short answer is this: If a guest sends you a booking request and you only answer a question, but do not approve or decline before the request times out, that counts as a decline.

Let’s dive in a little further. It’s important to note the difference between an inquiry and a booking request. An inquiry is just a message—perhaps asking to clarify something about amenities, dates, or House Rules. The guest may be interested in staying with you and may even ask something like: “I want to book your home; is it ok if I bring my dog?” This is not a booking request. It’s an inquiry. You can respond to an inquiry with an answer, a pre-approval, or by declining. Declining an inquiry signals to the guest that their needs aren’t a good fit for your space and encourages them to request another listing. But none of these actions directly affects your acceptance rate. If you pre-approve an inquiry and the guest books your space, that counts as an acceptance. If you pre-approve and they don’t book, it doesn’t have any effect on your acceptance rate. And if you decline an inquiry, your acceptance rate is not affected. "

*** 

Everything above is clear and very detailed, simple and precise. By chance 2 days ago, I have read exactly this one  and thought 'Now I know the difference between booking, pre-booking, enquiry and so on' Turns Out I wasn't prepared for this CASE.

- Someone wrote me last night.

Overly enthusiastic message, which I published half of it, as a print-screen [washing all details, country name etc] but Community Mods [rightly so!] did delete it later on.

*  This person was Super friendly - wondering about me and wishing me good 'things'

* ...was super Traveller - 'globetrotting around - yet, registered from 10yrs had only 2 good reviews, no pic

* ...was super Enthusiastic - by paragraph 3 'he treated me as BEST friend' that will just follow his list of demands

* ...super Grateful - offering to thank me via bringing home-made food.

*... was super football fan -asking 'if I could get him Tickets for fireworks-show in London and Football tickets, 5-6-7 of them giving me detailed dates, matches and who plays [from 29-december to 3rd of january. I' mot making this up, it was so specific, ~1A4 page long.

* ..w.as super-poor unfortunately my double room (£84) was too high, wanted a DISCOUNT and way cheaper,  so he found a SUPER SOLUTION

(A) sent me his phone - like this...1 Three, 5 etc...asked me to get in touch

(B) asked for money 'to be paid outside Airbnb. etc, etc.

I'm a new HOST, mostly have been reading here [a lot] and not posting much, detailed description above I'm doing for New Members - if they  are faced with something SIMILAR - will not 'lose 24h of research like I did' recognise the problem right away and find a solution; on the former I seen many articles about RED FLAG guests, and 'over -enthusiastic' was one of the signs [debatable, as some superhosts disagreed] on the later I'm not sure yet [solution] Being over/super enthusiastic -might not be a red flag on its own [the tone, way of expressions] however his entire message was as WILD AS IT GETS. 

Paragraphs above with copy / paste are all valid...IN NORMAL CASES.

My case DID NOT HAVE any of the normality which is described there, 'standard communications/ rules on replies' 

- Moment the person wrote, AIRBNB FLAGGED IT UP.

Message field was closed. I couldnt send him anything.

By mistake I thought 'clicking on a yellow notice below from airbnb: CAREFUL of this MESSAGE (they are asking you to leave the platform) I'm reporting it. IT WAS NOT THE CASE. I did researched. It had to be done this way:

Go to Person's Message.

Click on 3 dots top-right [some called it message flag]

Click option: REPORT MESSAGE.

I did, with 1-2-3 simple Lines: FRAUD, AGAINST RULES ETC.

This Morning AIRBNB at 7.30 send a message with 2 buttons highlighted in RED, Pre-approve / Decline [Red - Warning - Alarm] Message said: REPLY ON TIME, SO YOU WONT LOSE RESPONSE TIME <13H. What do I do??

- I have read several times, clicking DECLINE [even on Enquiry, with the Person's Message BLOCKED I had no chance or choice to SEND him 1 Line/ 1 word - Airbn closed message field] can harm Hosts, especially new Ones, without at least one initial reply-message.

Seems like catch 22.

1. Airbnb closes the message field,

flags the message as attempt to take

the Host off platform [it was in their warning, CAREFUL ]

2. You report it, then still Onus is On You to 'protect response time and use DECLINE' Isn't FRAUD by definition 'a DECLINE' (?) and why should we (after airbnb flags it, and we report it) still be 'hostages' of Normal rules when it is clear we have an ABNORMAL SITUATION (??) then we must 'WRITE to the Guest' one last time.

Since all normal instruction above [see them again - on top] do not apply, Why A FRAUDULENT message, to which (a.) you can't reply [to protect your RESPONSE TIME] that (b) has been FLAGGED initially by AIRBNB and then (c) reported By You; still has the POWER:

* to force you to click DECLINE button

[if I didn't do that, would it be neglect, ignoring?

Invite a strike, lose ranking? [no idea]

* affect your response time??

There is no doubt that it was against the rules and FRAUDULENT ATTEMPT, and I'm concerned this is a 'round robin' type of a message sent to plenty, of different wording but similar idea. This person has not read my listing at all. Not only that, HE HAD NOT EVEN SEE IT, because he wrote:

CAN YOU REPLACE your Double-Bed with 2 single BEDS???

Main photo and 15-20 other pics, all show 2 SINGLE BEDS.

I do not know the effect moderators of this forum have on total Airbnb Costumer Service, however if they want proof [details about this person] to escalate the case, verify Him further [must have done or will do this to OTHERS] feel free to contact me. Thanks, for reading this. 

Now that I pressed DECLINE button [had no choice, in few hours it'll reach 24h response-time deadline} I was given the OPTION TO send HIM only one message. i WISH I had it, 1st time to tell him to P**** Off, now I just wrote: 'Please Behave and next time be a better person' : P 

Still am thinking not only (a) how can a FRAUDULENT message affect us this way [response rate/time] and (b) force us in extremis [to use DECLINE button that can't be used willy-nilly] BUT Are those SCAMMERS aware of:

* effect it has on us and 'damage/ confusion it can cause'

* 'this loophole' that somehow FALLS OUTSIDE of standard Airbnb instructions?

For ANY/all clarification/s - allow me to thank you good folks in advance. B

[Bes175 · Accepted solution]

The reply below

is by @Huma0 on another title I

posted while the issue was ongoing

[yday-today]

Taken from there [copy/paste]

so others can see it.

With thanks to Huma for this reply:

---------

This is an issue with Airbnb's system and it's not ideal. While it's usually a bad idea to decline an enquiry because it will affect your acceptance rate unnecessarily, the response rate is important and, yes, will go down if you do not reply within 24 hours.

In theory, if Airbnb has flagged a message and asked you to report it, which you did, then that inquiry should simply be closed with nothing left for you to do and the clock stops ticking. However, I do not think that's how it works unfortunately, hence why you got a reminder to respond.

I haven't had the exact same situation, but I had a booking request that was flagged by Airbnb. At the same time, I knew that this was from the same girl I declined earlier who was now trying to book using a different, fake profile. 

I called CS and asked what to do, because I didn't want my acceptance rate to suffer. The rep told me not to worry, I should just report and block the guest and that I would not be penalised. So, I did that, but the request was still showing as active and the clock ticking. I went back to the rep who then informed me she had made a mistake and that I did have to decline it and yes, my acceptance rate would go down, and there was nothing to be done about it.

So, you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. I would maybe try speaking to CS, explain what happened, that you can't respond and you don't want your response rate to go down, and ask if there is any way they can remove this enquiry themselves.