Airbnb 'Expert Host' from Help Question Submission Harassing Me

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I am a host in Southwest US with great ratings and i wanted to know why I could not browse through the pictures on Airbnb in my area and see my listing. I knew I could see it if i put dates but I wanted my listing to show up in the 300+ pictures. 300+ isn’t the amount of listings available because superhost properties and commercial properties are shown at every page. But, regardless I picked through forward and then backward twice and didn’t see my property. Yes, I could put dates in but that wasn’t the reason I needed help. I wanted to know why I couldn’t see my property. I gave details about my operating system, what type of computer I was using, etc.

My question to this group is what about this guy? I am so mad that he made false bookings so he could contact me. I had to accept his prebooking or be penalized. Doesn’t see right

There is a guy called Leng Ye

who emailed me after I submitted a question regarding my listing. I submitted through the help forum and submitted a case. 20 seconds later I received a response from this guy. He wasn’t correct so I clicked the unhappy face icon and said I wanted to proceed with technical support from AIRBNB.

Since that time (last Friday 9/8/17) he has been sending me fake booking requests so that he could gain my contact information; here is what he said the first time: Note: he isn’t even a host!!! If I didn’t respond to this message below I got an email that said I only had XX amount of hours to respond or it would affect my ratings. AIRBNB hasn’t responded or tried to reach out.

This is the guy and here is what he said:

Leng
Penang, Malaysia
On Airbnb since 2015

Hi, Just to let you know. I am the only expert out of the 500 around the world that trying to help you out about your listing. The rating that you rate is for me personally and not how Airbnb system works or your the issue that brought you there.

Anyway, I am from other part of the world and I do need some sleep and Airbnb themself took over the question and I suppose they shall contact you shortly.

Appeariate if you can consider about the rating you rate me again
Last Friday at 6:52 PM
************************** Leng,Ye to me:

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I think you need to direct your question to Airbnb. This is a private forum with no affiliation to Airbnb.

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I don’t think I’ve noticed an unhappy face icon to report problems. It is possible that you accidentally wandered into a FAKE Airbnb support area? I agree with the prior person in this thread. You need to report this to the real Airbnb support staff.

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It’s not fake… If you have a question that is not answered in the ‘Help’ section Air BNB prompts you to enter the question so "Air BNB’ can contact you regarding the question. The FIRST step in the process is they send it to their team of ‘EXPERT HOSTS’ so they can try and answer it before it is passed a real ABB rep. I went through this process and it SUCKED. The Expert Hosts knew nothing, and were not even close to helpful. They actually didn’t even answer my questions but instead answered some other question. I rated them all poorly and then eventually go to a real Air BNB rep

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Thanks - just trying all channels. It is confusing to know what is what. I can close this if I can figure out how to. Sorry for being in the wrong place.

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That’s good to know! I also got the response from experts, responding exactly to what I pointed out wasn’t my question. :smiley: They were useless. Luckily I solved the issue myself in the end. It’s good to know that there s the way to reach the proper customer service after getting a response from these amateurs.

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If you want me to unlist it I can. I didn’t know about this expert thing.

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You can unlist if I am in the wrong place but the two others Inna and Azzreala are exactly correct. Just bothers me so much that after I clicked the unhappy face he created fake prebooks.

I have already contacted Airbnb (immediately) and also repsonded to this guy by accepting his prebook and telling him how inappropriate it was that he contacted me. Once you click on "Still want help from real Airbnb people (or something like that) I can’t follow up with him and he can’t follow up with me. But, when he initially contacted me I thought and thought and thought about giving him the property id. The whole point was that I wanted to see my listing in the pool of other properties.

I told him and Airbnb that I already knew how to verify my listing, yes, I could put dates in and see it. But why??? couldn’t I see it without a date range. I believe the thing is that the various search options without dates (city/anytime, city/state/anytime, are inconsistent. I have reported to Airbnb that I would like someone to test it out by confirming that any rendition of any search options show my property.

As in the past, suddenly one option was restored. I used to work in IT at a hospital and I know it was all about code sets. I am not saying I know how Airbnb does stuff but oddly (second time I have been through issues with Airbnb), it is fixed. I also know from experience that it is a lot easier to fix and forget vs. communicate. I only did that very rarely in 17 years at the hospital (but occasionally). The theory sort of is, "well, next time they log in it is fixed.

This isn’t really ok when I pay Airbnb but whatever - I am really getting off track. I just know that the other time I had a problem nobody contacted me and yet it was suddenly fixed. I try to give my operating system, the fact that I am using a desktop (this is where I really think things are challenging, the browser I am using, etc.)

Again, sorry for the rant in the wrong place. BUT, I live in an area with a lot of competiion and it is a time of year when we have two major events. Just want someone who will listen. Even the Airbnb person who contacted me at first said “well, I can put in dates, etc. and see your property”.

I reported all of that! I knew I could verify, put in dates, etc. but something else was wrong. Even when it suddenly was fixed partially (without communication) my “rare find” tag was gone. Even this looney expert gave me screen prints showing the property with the tag.

I am not in a rural area but fairly close to it. I offer a spotless place so I expect a lot.

To the person who said they can close this, ok. I am not sure about the private forum stuff because I did sign up. Plus it is my birthday!

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I think this may be good to leave open… as I doubt most people don’t know about the ‘Expert Hosts’ answer Help questions…

Edited to add I change the name of the Topic in order for it to make more sense for those who don’t know about how ABB outsources the answers to Help Questions…

@candlemaker did you post this in multiple places? That may be why @konacoconutz wants to unlist.

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No, I think we should leave it open, I had wrongly thought that the OP originally thought she was posting on an official Airbnb site. It sounded like a technical question she was asking of Airbnb itself. So disregard! :blush:

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Thanks everyone. It is getting close to dinner time and I need my blood pressure to go down. Again, apologies if it was the wrong place/wrong time. I am actually glad I found this site and will be a silent person from now on. I just have one place so it is helpful to see what other people have to offer for advice. Thank you all again.

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No need to be silent!! I think a few members didn’t understand your question, bc it isn’t something most people have dealt with, so thought you may need to contact ABB directly. That is the beauty of this forum, different people bring us issues, and then more hosts know how to handle those issues in the future. Thanks for your post.

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Don’t worry, when I was posting here about Airbnb experts for the first time most of the people didn’t even know what I was talking about and berated me for calling customer service “experts”. :smiley: It is a farily new feature so many hosts are not aware of it yet.

As for your case, I would try to reach “proper” Airbnb customer service and complain about the dude’s behaviour. You probably screwed him up a bit with your bad grade but it was his fault for not reading your question properly and answering in an unsatisfying manner. You gave him a fair assessment and it is not up to him to harass you just because he’s not happy about it. How would it look like if we would harass our guests just because they wrote something we dislike?

I think this whole “experts” thing is a poor experiment by Airbnb and they need to receive the feedback about it.

Please continue writing and update us on the situation.

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TOTALLY AGREE!!!

I also think most people would call with urgent CS issues, and only as idiots with nonurgent issues go the route of emailing :joy::joy::joy:

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This is news to me. Back in the day you could email and reach a real CR person, but they removed that and put this dumb thing in its place. I had no idea it was a thing.

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I thought I was emailing CS when I sent my email and was SO confused when these ‘experts’ started responding… I soon figured out what was going on

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Glad you’re keeping this open. It’s crazy that so-called experts (who apparently are only interested in their own reviews…) are being used to deal with host issues. Are they still directing people to the Community Forum, by the way? That was insane. EG.
Q. "My guest is refusing to follow house rules and I’m a little uncomfortable, what should I do?"
A1 "Well, are your towels fluffy? That’s probably why he’s unhappy. Here’s a good tip…"
A2 “OMG CALL THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY!!! You should not feel unsafe in your home. EVICT THEM NOW!”

I’m all for community help - people with experience helping those who are starting out - but there has to be some overall filter over who is suitable to give advice and ongoing supervision, surely? Or am I advocating benign dictatorship?

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I think in this case a little dictatorship would help the situation!!

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NO, dictatorship is never the answer! Unless I’m in charge, of course.

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Seriously though, this is an interesting situation. How can you be an expert in something when you have no experience of it? And how can you remain unbiased when you DO have experience?

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