Another host reported guest for drug use, guest blamed us

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We’re not sure where to turn with this as AirBnB isnt thus far interested in assisting…

We have auto book enabled and occasionally after seeing the guests’ reviews we can be nervous about their stay.
This guest has VERY bad reviews including intentional property destruction, creating violent conflicts with neighbors, quotes like “turned the place upside down”, “Anthony likes to drink”, demanding refunds AFTER checking out, on and on…

He was to check in at 8pm but contacted a few hours before this demanding we meet him at 3am or he would demand a full refund. I explained I could not be there at 3am but could be there at 6am.

He contacted Airbnb demanding a refund, they contacted us, i again told them I cannot be there at 3am, number of messages back and forth ensued. He agreed to meet at 6am.
He did not show up.

Contacting us at 9am he said he wants to check in at 10am. At 10:45 he shows up. All ok and I checked him in.

A day after checking out, the guest contacts us through the Airbnb interface angrily saying we caused big problems for him because we had reported his drug use (we did not and have no idea what he is talking about).
He included some photos of liquid labeled with prescriptions.
At that point his review posted.
We have yet to see this review as weve not yet posted ours pending (hopefully) Airbnb intervention. We assume it will be our first bad review for this particular apartment out of maybe 50 reviews and the current 4.9 star rating.

We didnt report him for drug use or have any idea what he was talking about so I responded that he has us confused with another of his hosts.

I contacted Airbnb explaining the situation and their response was pathetic. They refuse to do anything.
Considering it was them contacting the guest with ANOTHER HOST’S complaint that started all this, the lack of willingness to take any responsibility is glaring. Airbnb has the data showing the complaint not originating from our account yet they have informed us that nothing can be done. They can easily inform the guest we are innocent in this.

It appears judging from the guest’s Instagram that he is on a drunken tour of the world and utilizing Airbnb for the lodging.

Another host must have reported him to Airbnb after finding used syringes and he assumed we were the culprits. We did not find any evidence of drug use and he actually kept good care of the apartment.

AirBnB’s refusal on this has me spreading our volume over to other platforms this evening.

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I dunno, do you really expect a “This host reported me for drug use!” in your review? This guy sounds batshit crazy (and/or on drugs making him crazy). I’m sure that will come across in their review. I’m curious what made you allow him to stay in your home if you had these concerns ahead of the stay (and his request to meet you at 3am).
If the review is your only concern, I’d let it go and stop stressing about it. If he’s already out of your house, there isn’t much more you can do anyway. So what if you get 1 bad review out of 50? Most guests are smart enough to see patterns and would see right through that.

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As they say, “I think he is off his meds.”

I would gladly decline a guest’s booking, if there is so much pre-drama before his/her arrival.

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This is mainly a tourist market. Odd characters go with the territory. Late night flights from Cyprus, Turkey or Poland are doable as long as we have advance notice. An 8pm check in becoming a 3am check in with an attached ultimatum for full refund if unable to immediately adjust my schedule is a bit much…

Guy is just some kind of steroid junky from Arizona, hyper reactive…

I’ve now read his review and it’s comprised of ridiculous fabrications intended soley to scare away renters. And may work to some degree…until its buried in a few months.
This is purely some kind of revenge for “reporting him for drug use”.

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He didnt include the “drug use” in review. Only direct messaging through Airbnb interface.

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I hope these are really, really ridiculously obvious to readers that he’s a bad guest, if not a menace. I’m sure future readers of your listing will notice this one review standing out like a sicko’s thumb, and keep booking your place.

Shit happens as they say, and time to move on. But it’s still bloody annoying when Air are so shruggingly unsympathetic.

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…and this is the point at which I would be telephoning AirBNB to get a no fault cancellation of his booking.

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This is why to force all communication through ABB, not email text or phone

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1. This guest has VERY bad reviews
2. demanding we meet him at 3am or he would demand a full refund.
3. He agreed to meet at 6am. He did not show up.

All criteria perfectly acceptable in pre-approving a guest BUT the guest was from ARIZONA? That should have been the defining factor to CANCEL immediately.

But seriously, you have to take some responsibility here; you could not have had better indications that this was not going to end well.

As for ABNB CS, if you’ve followed this board, you also should know that their support is becoming lamer and lamer, which means that Hosts need to do a better job of taking ownership and managing risk.

I’m sorry you had to deal with this. At this point, it’s in the Lesson Learned category.

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Must be nice for him.

He’s probably going to get his account removed and I think his reviews go with it. I had a guest leave behind a bunch of drugs and his account just disappeared. I couldn’t review him or see his account anymore.

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I’m sorry you had such a bad experience @Kyiv , but I don’t understand why you didn’t contact Airbnb and ask them to cancel the booking, when you saw that the guests had such a bad review.

I don’t know what your check in time is, but again if the guest wanted to check in outside of your check in time, you could have asked Airbnb to cancel the booking.

I am not sure from your post, what advice you are looking for here on this forum. Can you clarify?

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If he had so bad reviews how was he able to IB you? Did you tick all the boxes necessary for a person to IB you (aka recommended by other hosts, etc)?
In this scenario, he should have inquired and you should have said no.
Even if somehow he was able to IB you. You still have the right to cancel on him citing you were uncomfortable with his past reviews. I think this is what IB does, right?

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Auto book enabled. He booked, then we saw reviews.

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Indeed. All was through airbnb

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We couldnt cancel booking as we would lose superhost.

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I’m starting to see the problem here. I’d bet that this guest is going around the world getting free stays by threatening hosts. He chooses new hosts who don’t really understand Airbnb, are just starting out and are desperate for money or reviews or afraid of losing superhost. And if he does get a few reviews or kicked out of some places it doesn’t matter to him, he is traveling at a discount.

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How about we come at this from another perspective? Yes, they could tell him it wasn’t you. then he contacts the next host, and they were not the ones either and ABB tells the problem child it wasn’t them, and so on and so on until by the process of elimination he finds out who DID report him and decides to wreak havoc/revenge on them. That host was told, I would imagine, that their report would be confidential/anonymous. So yes, it completely sucks that this nutcase is homed in on you right now, but if you just ignore him from here on out, it is extremely likely that he will focus on something else quite soon. Drug users are not know for having long attention spans.

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No but you could have telephoned customer support and had them cancel for you because you were ‘uncomfortable’ hosting the guest based on his demands and beaviour. They would have done a no fault cancellation which does not impact your superhost status.

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You really need to evaluate your priorities. Superhost is a nearly worthless badge. How much do you think you could lose by hosting a bad guest that is known for “intentional property destruction”?

As others have said, you can call and cancel because you’re uncomfortable with the guest and it won’t affect your Superhost status. Read this article:

Hopefully, the guest won’t leave a 1-star review that causes you to lose the Superhost status that you didn’t want to lose by cancelling him in the first place. And hopefully, the guest won’t retaliate in some other crazy way.

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Of course you can. Look at how IB works (see Airbnb Help Centre) and you will see grounds under which you can cancel without penalty. @Kyiv

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