Guest demanding refund - what is reasonable?

Emilia466
Level 2
D.C., DC

Guest demanding refund - what is reasonable?

Hi all,

This is a first for us so I can use the help of the community. I currently have a guest who demanded a 50% refund. Immediately upon arriving she complains that the house is too cold (@68degrees), asks where the thermostat is and how to turn on both fireplaces and all space heaters. I direct her to the space heaters and the thermostat which is prominently on the wall in the entrance, she claims the ac doesn't work and asks for the fireplace again. The ac works. It takes some time to crank up the heat. I explain how to use the fireplace thermostat in addition to the ac. Turns out the previous guests used all the propane and we are out. I apologize and tell her we will get this fixed asap. She sends me a message complaining about the lack of face cloths and too few towels. I tell her where to find a whole cabinet full of all types and sizes of towels. She then messages me saying that she is not happy because the fireplace is not working, she booked the house because of the fireplace. At this point I offer her a full refund if she leaves. She refuses to leave because it's Friday afternoon. I offer her to stay the night and leave the next morning, and a full refund of her entire stay. She says no, I want to say but I want 50% off. 

At what point does this become extortion? Do I report this to Airbnb? I am sure she will leave a nasty review even though we had propane delivered the next morning. Will Airbnb block a review if I report her? 

I've been hosting for a year and have had wonderful guests for the most part.  Totally taken aback by this. 

What would you do? 

 

Thanks all! 

34 Replies 34
Tamsin26
Level 2
England, United Kingdom

I had a similar experience with Airbnb.

A guest rented my property, then claimed my fridge was broken and his food had gone off.  He claimed £30 for the spoiled food.

 

Because I like to do the right thing by my guests... I immediately got in the car and drove 3 hours to the property to fix the fridge!!!

 

I asked the guest for receipts for the spoiled food as I would need this for my accountant.

He provided receipts but the food only cost him £18.... but by this time he had already claimed £30 from me through Airbnb.

 

I arrived at my property to find my guest had checked out a day earlier than expected and used 4 beds rather than two ( for 2 guests) 

The fridge was working and the food in the rubbish had all been out of date, before he claimed it had gone off.

 

The guest left a bad 3 star review. 

I told Airbnb that on his instagram pages and social media he had boasted about the lovely sea views from his bedroom!!!!

 

Airbnb would not remove this review which I believe was retaliatory due to the fact I had challenged the guests claim for his out of date food, and because I challenged him over number of guests staying as opposed to number he had booked and paid for.

 

It took me 2 months of 5 star reviews to get back to my previous rating.

I was disappointed with Airbnb on this occasion for not backing me as a host.

I actually unlisted my properties recently after abnb didn’t support me after a huge storm. Or I should say before and during. We had a winter blizzard and needed to cancel some reservations because we knew nobody could make it to the cabins in those weather conditions. Right away they charged me, so I was angry. Then the guest showed up during the storm because they did not confirm the canceled date as they agreed to do in person. Overall we had 38 busted pipes over 9 properties and things were a mess. Airbnb sends me a message telling me that I need to send them proof that I am fixing pipes. Wth? If we have no water, we have no water. Guest cannot come. In the middle of chaos nobody wants to stop and create something for them. I unlisted everything. I was really mad.

They didn’t care at all about us in -15 tempatures trying to get water. 30 miles from the closest store, not big town… nightmare… ugh

Trude0
Level 10
Stockholm County, Sweden

I find it extremely hard to understand why Airbnb would choose to act (or rather, not act) the way they do in cases like yours. Needless to say, it makes them very vulnerabIe, to have so many of their hosts just waiting for another player to come up and take over. Which I have no doubt will happen, sooner or later.

That's a very good point. They provide access to the marketplace today and are doing very well because of it. And many hosts like me have a material amount of income that is derived from marketing through Airbnb. I've come to believe that there is no way to screen for unhappy people. And I can attest that having a couple of bad reviews does not affect your bookings as long as you have a majority of positive reviews. What I find aggravating about Airbnb's Superhost program is that it is much easier to obtain Superhost status if you have only a handful of reviews. For hosts with a hundred or more check-ins, a couple of bad reviews can prevent you from being a Superhost. It seems to me that there should be a way to not count those extremely negative reviews since they tend to be part of what one expects dealing with so many different guests. For example, in the last review period, I had 121 - 5 star ratings, 3 - 4 stars, and 2 - 1 stars and I did not achieve Superhost. When I look at those figures I am pretty happy with them but in Airbnb's estimation, I am substandard. That is frustrating especially when I consider the two lowest ratings, in my opinion, had nothing to do with me, my hospitality, or my rental. I think the guests who gave those scores would have rated any place they stayed the same way - they were unhappy long before they came to stay with me.

 

Hopefully, I am making sense and not just sounding like sour grapes - that's not it. My point is there must be some way to look at a series of reviews and see that a host with hundreds of positive reviews and just a few negative ones that there is likely was no way to make certain people happy. Instead of penalizing me as the host wouldn't it make better sense to eliminate the extremes when they are soclearly in the vocal minority

A guest who does not stay can not leave a review. Another quick tidbit, a guest who did not make the reservation cannot make a bad review. So if a wife make reservations for members of her family and she never even comes- they can’t post anything negative because she never even came.