Aggressive guests asked to leave- our airbnb experience

If you’re an Airbnb user this is worth a read -our experience this weekend!

ClaireandOli
8:25 PM
We have guests who have arrived this evening, they have made us feel unsafe and have broken house rules, we have asked them to leave, they are refusing

Thanks for your message - Airbnb Support is connecting you to a chat agent. Your chat session will begin in 1 - 2 minutes.8:25 PM
Airbnb Support

Airbnb Support
8:25 PM
Hi ClaireandOli, my name is Elmer P and I’m with Airbnb support. I’ll be helping you today. Give me a moment while I look into your case.
I’m sorry for the inconvenience that you had on this reservation, can I have your reservation code please so that I can check it further?

ClaireandOli
8:27 PM
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Airbnb Support
8:28 PM
Thank you, ClaireandOli.
Unfortunately, I’m unable to resolve your case so I’m forwarding you to a team that can better assist you. While response times may vary, we do our best to respond within 24 hours. The next available specialist will review our conversation and reply directly to you here. Thank you for your patience.
16 FEBRUARY 2019

Airbnb Support
12:31 PM
Hey ClaireandOli ,

My name is Aidan, I’m a Case manager here at Airbnb, I hope all is well.

I just wanted to reach out to discuss your reservation with Leah, I tried calling however I was unable to speak with you.

I’m sorry to hear that your reservation hasn’t gone as planned, I was hoping you’d be able to tell me a little more about what happened?

If you ever need anything Airbnb is happy to help.

ClaireandOli
12:42 PM
Hi Aidan,
thanks for getting back to us. The main issue was that the guests arrived smelling strongly of alcohol and were being argumentative and difficult from the start. At the time they booked we still had a wood fired hot tub, and since we have changed over to an electric one. This is all in the email exchanges; as is the fact that we were offering special offer of ‘a free night’s use of the hot tub’. Our house rules regarding the hot tub have always been very clear (no under 16’s to use the tub) -for insurance reasons, and guests have to agree to the ‘house rules’ as part of the booking policy. They wanted to take their children and baby in the tub, and kept arguing that they didn’t see the rules. Later in the evening they used the tub, and took all their children and baby in the tub. By then they had both been drinking alcohol and when we asked them to take their children out, I was verbally threatened, with physical violence. Despite talking to them calmly and politely we felt unsafe as they were being both aggressive, and had broken various ‘house rules’. We sadly had to ask them to leave and offered to either book them a cab, or to drive them 10 mins drive to a travel lodge, which I had phoned to ensure they had a family room available. After much argument, and stress (and time to pack), we eventually agreed to drive them to the travel lodge, with all their possessions so they wouldn’t have to return in the morning. My wife has been in tears, and we’ve barely slept as a result of the confrontation, and aggressive behaviour. Guests like this should be banned from Airbnb, but I’d imaging once they have sobered up they’ll still have the opportunity to ruin our business by leaving terrible feedback; and to make matters worse get a full refund? My wife is sobbing here next to me as I type, and I really hope we get some proper support from Airbnb over this awful set of guests. Many thanks, Oliver Woolley

ClaireandOli
1:36 PM
I would also finally add that some of the exchanges were independently witnessed by a retired police officer, who can make a statement if required.

Airbnb Support
3:03 PM
Hey Claire and Oli,

Thanks for explaining the situation to me in greater detail, I know issues like this can be frustrating and Airbnb does take them quite seriously, I will be reaching out to your guest to discuss the issue directly.

My role here is to treat you fairly and to help you and your guest reach a resolution, My aim is to ensure that it’s fair for both of you. I will update you as soon as I can.

If you ever need anything Airbnb is happy to help.

Airbnb Support
9:50 PM
Hi Claire and Oli, my name is Glorija and I’m a case manager at Airbnb. I hope this message finds you well.

I’m terribly sorry to hear about your experience with Leah, and I understand why you’ve asked your guest to leave as your house rules weren’t respected. I’ve personally spoke with Leah to educate about this, and she now understands that children under 16 year only are not allowed to use the hot tub, and why and I’ve also explained this was listed in your house rules when she booked this reservation.

I understand this was a very upsetting situation for all, and we’re here to find a solution supported with our policies. As your guest was asked to leave, and they didn’t spend any nights in the property they’ve booked, they are entitled to a full refund. We have cancelled this reservation to open your calendar. This will give you an option to potentially have a new booking for the dates.

Since the check in occurred, an option to leave a review will be there for both you and your guest, and we can advise that you contact us if your guest leaves a review that is in violation of our Content Policy, or to leave your response.

I want you to know that we’re here to support you, and that if something like this happens you should contact us strait away, as we can mediate between you and the guest and try to resolve the issues and save the reservation.

If there is anything else, or if you simply have question, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’m always happy to help.

Kind regards,
Glorija

ClaireandOli
11:58 PM
just what we have come to expect from your despicable company’s treatment of hard working hosts. these guests broke our rules and made us feel threatened and yet are allowed a full refund and to remain on airbnb. this is why we shall be leaving as hosts asap.
17 FEBRUARY 2019

ClaireandOli
10:03 AM
Dear Glorija,
10:29 AM
I would like to add to my wife’s previous response that I wonder just what would have been an acceptable reason to ask guests to leave? Did we need to wait to be physically assaulted before it would be okay to ask them to leave? I’m imagine your policy would be that if they’d assaulted us and spent a night in a police cell, they’d still have had a full refund -since they wouldn’t have slept here! If this was your family home, would you be prepared to put up with abusive and aggressive guests under your roof? If this had -for the sake of example- been a hotel, and I’d checked in and had been told it was a no smoking room, but had gone to my room and lit up -breaking the hotels rules, and had been asked to leave; at which point I’d threatened hotel staff, I would have expected the police to be called and be ejected from the hotel. I wouldn’t expect a refund as I would have been in the wrong and voided any ‘contract’. This is just an example, but basically it’s just what has happened here; and yet despite ‘being happy to help’ it seems Airbnb’s policy is to only ever help guests. Hosts are less than unimportant and can be treated like doormats, and as long as Airbnb gets their money they couldn’t care less. The idea that at 11 pm on Saturday night we’d suddenly get a booking 'because you’ve reopened our calendar, is a joke as we’ve lost out on Friday night already and the possibility of finding a guest to book at that time of night is probably nil. We had an independent witness (the retired police officer), and yet you’ve taken their version of events over ours. We feel totally unsupported by airbnb yet again and the tag line of ‘always happy to help’ seems as hollow, shallow and totally meaningless as the crass ‘have a nice day’ phrase, which employees are forced to say, as they earn a pittance. Still at least they get paid, which is more than can be said for airbnb, who gives full refunds for any reason at all. As Claire already mentioned, we shall actively be looking to go with a better class of agent asap, and one that actually cares about their hosts! Perhaps a 50% refund would indicate you’re impartial, but the 100% refund these abusive and aggressive guests got is just an insult to us as hosts. Needless to say we will henceforth be active agents to spreading the word of how appallingly hosts are treated and to avoid all dealings with airbnb. Oliver Woolley
Furthermore we did contact airbnb at the time, but there was no staff available to advise or assist. What possible help is ‘we’ll get back to you within 24 hours’?? If the same thing ever happened again, I still wouldn’t hesitate to eject guests who make us feel threatened. If there is any failing here, it’s down to your systems and lack of support!

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Oliver, as a fellow host let me say I’m sorry you had this awful experience. It’s not the first such story we’ve had posted here and it won’t be the last. As airbnb gets better market penetration we will probably see these stories more often. You are right that those messages are filled with all the pre-written lines they toss out to try to soothe the host. I’m sure they use them with unhappy guests too.

As for this

I’m sorry to say that I don’t think any such thing exists. For all it’s faults Airbnb is the best at what they do especially for owners who are sharing a room in their home. You can certainly leave the platform but they don’t really care as they have supply than demand as it is. As one member here has taken to pointing out you have to consider what is the best business decision? Have you been hosting long? What percentage of bad experiences have you had. I understand if you feel that even one incident like this is too much and it’s not worth what you make from doing Airbnb.

Maybe you will be one of the lucky ones who get a second look. You should post your story on their Twitter feed. Maybe they will write back with yet another agent and say something like “because this is your first incident and the amount is not very much we have decided to pay out the amount of the reservation.” Of course the guest will still be reimbursed and remain on Airbnb in effect rewarded for the undesirable behavior.

When you are ready to write the review if you post your draft here we can give you feedback on how to do it so it doesn’t get removed…

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There is no moral victory in quitting because they do not care. What is the best thing for you? I would have done the same thing, kicked their drunk asses out.

Good luck, do not let this go end every email with I do not consider this resolved. Keep calling. Be calm and nice to the CS person as we all know they have a script to read. I think you still have a chance to resolve this in your favor.

Good luck

RR

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Drunk parents with a baby in a hot tub is an absolute safety nightmare.

If you told them to get out of the tub and they refused, i wonder if you could have called the police.

Edit: I know police don’t like to come out for Airbnb situations, but to me this is child endangerment. I’m not sure a baby belongs in a hot tub anyway, but drunk parents are not capable of ensuring that the baby doesn’t slip in and drown.

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They don’t…babies do not have the ability to regulate their body temperature meaning easily overcome by hyperthermia or hypothermia. It was child endangerment.

When adults are idiots and endanger themselves it is awful. When they endanger a child it is time to call the police.

I genuinely hate this host had horrible guests. Alcohol can bring out the worst in people.

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Hi thanks for your input. We’ve been ‘super hosts’ for a while now and renting out for 2 and a half years.We do seem to have many ‘idiot’ guests through airbnb -who look at the pictures and book -but don’t bother to read the description or house rules.

There are better agents out there like Sykes and Under the Thatch, since our cottage is old, cute and full of both period features and modern eco heating. After all the trouble we’ve had with airbnb we’d happily take less bookings with a smaller company for less stress!

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Sadly for us this is not the first time airbnb has acted in an unreasonable manner: Had another terrible experience last year; with the ‘Beast from the East’ storm. Our cottage was ready for their Friday check in (cake baked etc) -and no more than 5mm of snow here. And yet Saturday morning they cancelled and got all their money back. But it was okay, as Airbnb host support said we’d still get a booking (for the same day!) and strangely we didn’t. Absolutely no support whatsoever… To tell us it’s a legal obligation to do a refund is rubbish, as if you’d paid for the cinema and got thrown out you’d not expect a refund (or for that matter a million other similar situations). What is at fault is airbnb’s policies which fail to protect the host on pretty much each and every occasion. How you expect me to have a wonderful day when you treat us like rubbish is beyond me -but I know I’m getting nowhere with you, and won’t change your companies policy. Therefore it’s the easier option to simply take my business elsewhere, and strongly recommend any other host to do likewise.

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Like leisure centres and other places with hot tubs, our rules are clear -no under 16’s as we’re not insured for them. To ignore our rules (written and verbal) and take kids and a baby in the tub, and then get so aggressive they threatened to ‘punch my glasses down my throat’ is something no one should have to tolerate in their own home. I’m happy to hassle airbnb for as long as possible, but after the ‘beast from the East’ incident described already I feel we have lost all faith in their ability to be fair or genuinely look after their hosts! :frowning:

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Still could have been worse as some of our airbnb guests have vomited in the hot tub, which was a delight to clean out! Additionally despite their aggressive and offensive language I was never physically touched.

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Ok, great. I’m in the US (hadn’t heard of those platforms) and there is nothing unique about my place, it’s just a guest room near the major highway.

I was listed on a platform called Innclusive for about 2 years. I got one booking from them in that time. Granted I didn’t do a thing to try to promote myself there, I just set it and forgot. Then when I got the one booking I was double booked! Eeeee. So I deleted it.

I’ve been hosting for 5 years, have had about 700 guests and no serious problems. So Airbnb is working very well for me. But I know that if I do have an issue I may well have to deal with it entirely on my own. The four or five times I’ve called them for help with a minor issue they were only helpful about half the time. I expect nothing from them therefore can’t be disappointed.

Best of luck to you!

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Thanks KKC
we’ve about 130 reviews, but so often (in the UK) it seems it’s only the miserable ones who leave feedback. The happy guests just disappear without ever remembering to give you five mins to give you a glowing review.
Also the UK airbnb market seem to be just travellers looking for the cheapest place possible, and aren’t happy to pay for extras such as home baked cakes, hampers of local produce, or rare breed organic meat that we raise here on the farm. We get comment’s like we could get our sausages cheaper at Asda (Walmart)-the fact that they’re poor quality and raised in giant sheds and have crappy lives doesn’t come into the equation!

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That’s so surprising and sad. I’ve consistently gotten reviews from most my guests. Airbnb tells me it’s 81% and I think it’s improved over time, it used to be 70%. And given that most my guests are one night stays and I have a lot of reviews already (461 today) it seems it would be easy to blow it off. And with such a unique and personalized rental where they are meeting the hosts personally I can’t imagine why they aren’t reviewing.

This forum welcomes non-Airbnb hosts. Please stick around and let us know how it goes after you de-list with Airbnb.

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And guests wonder why our Hot Tub is off limits to them – nice as they might be…

Sorry to hear about your crappy treatment. I would have stayed on the phone an kept demanding to speak to the next level of supervisor until I got satisfaction.

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Except satisfaction is not likely to ever come half the time…

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Oli,

As a fellow UK host with a similar set up, I am truly sorry to hear about your dreadful experience, both with these guests, and with Airbnb support. The responses you have recalled are sickeningly appalling, particularly with the refund(s) being given and crass statement about getting another booking.

Whilst I have had a few crap guests over the last two years, they have been few and far between, and I have luckily always experienced excellent customer support from Air. That said, I haven’t needed to use them for almost a year now, and I understand their staff turnover is pretty dire. This set me thinking about why this could have happened to you and your wife, apart from the obvious reason of horrible people. My thoughts, for what they are worth;-

Did you call or contact via email? I always phone and where possible, do so after 2 pm/early evening when you are more likely to speak to someone in Dublin or Lisbon.

I would remove your hot tub from amenities listed, whatever platform you use. That would give you the opportunity to “assess” your guests, and perhaps then offer use of it, if deemed appropriate. I think that would fall under the oft quoted “under offer and over deliver” mantra.

My second lot of guests brought a toddler unannounced, despite my listing stating no children under 10. Naively, I let them stay and the two days became a nightmare of epic proportions, with the ramifications lasting several months. Suffice to say, had they been resident in the UK, I would have lodged a Safeguarding Alert with their local authority’s Safeguarding Children Team. In your case that would come under endangering the life of an infant whilst under the influence of alcohol.

I totally support putting this case out on social media, even with one of the Nationals. From what I hear, bad press would seem to be all Air take heed of these days.

And thanks for the Sykes and Under the Thatch tips. I met with Sawadays last year, but it was clear they were operating in a diminishing space, and not worth bothering with.

I feel lucky that 90% of the time Airbnb have supported me when I have had issues. I have one at the moment where the glass top to the coffee table was found broken by the house keeper on Saturday morning. Not a word from the guest, nor have I contacted them yet. He has four positive reviews but has only left one and it is quite horrid.

I phoned Airbnb, opened a case and for the first time ever I was given a “ticket number”. I am presuming this is a new thing. Normally after doing this I would wait until the guest left their review and then wait a further 48 hours so they could no longer edit it and then ask them to pay the $180. However, it seems unlikely this guest is going to leave a review.

Unfortunately, the length of time we have to leave a review and the length of time to apply for a resolution payment is the same - 14 days. So it seems as I have to bite the bullet and deal with the retaliation review down the track.

You do have to wonder how you could smash a glass top on a coffee table in a couple’s only villa? There were shards of glass dangerously left everywhere.

I’m sure I will get shouted down here… and I can certainly understand why you’re so upset with Airbnb… but. Refunding a guest who can’t travel due to storms is a standard Air policy, isn’t it? You may have had just a bit but would the guest have been coming from a location that would’ve made travel hazardous?
As for your drunk guests- I would be on the fence with that too. Air should’ve said that since they never slept there that they cannot review but that means you wouldn’t be able to either. Other hosts need to be warned of these people!! They definitely shouldn’t have gotten a FULL refund and Maybe have paid out the 1 night to you. Any other nights should be refunded because you asked them to leave. Your cancellation policy is to stop $ loss if a guest cancels- not to cover you asking jerky guests to go.

Also- CALL air when there is an issue in the future. Waiting to chat online is horrific. Superhosts get buzzed through on the phone almost immediately.

They have left us feedback - what a surprise! Thanks so much for your kind offer of checking review over; we are not allowed to mention outcome of investigation? SO mentioning that we made them leave is not allowed?? We are thinking of something along the lines of “Would not wish guests like these on any host, they were extremely rude, verbally aggressive, broke house rules pertaining to safety and left the space filthy”. Does that pass??

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ABSOLUTELY! It gives fair warning to any future hosts!

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When in doubt, look at your price.

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