Badly reviewed guest attempting to book w/ new account?

Super frustrating. You know the drill. My calendar is blocked for 9 hrs!! awaiting a guest to confirm ID. Grrrr! And…check out the guest “Lee” who is really “Daniel”, clearly trying to get out from under his bad review in Nov. 45 min wait to speak to CS and have no way to get this off my calendar that I know of. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: And when I looked up the other host, I found Daniel’s review and profile pic but when I click on it I get the error “you do not have permission to access this resource” (on app).

I think my only options are to:
(1) wait forever for CS or
(2) wait for the hold to expire or request to go through and then get CS to kill it
(3) message the guest. But I don’t know what to say and I don’t want to say anything that will get in the way of CS dropping this reservation w/o penalty to me. & I don’t want to waste time going back and forth. Suggested wording?

Here’s my 1st draft but totally open to input: "Unfortunately we are not a good fit for your trip, Lee. It appears, based upon your profile information, that you are actually “Daniel”. And, we do not book our house out to “1” guest. Fortunately, there are many listings available in the area and we hope you enjoy your trip to Austin."

I’m avoiding asking him to withdraw his booking request as I don’t want him not to out of spite. I’m also open to arguments why that isn’t the right approach.


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Can’t you do the not comfortable with this guest to CS due to previous poor review? I would wait until picked up

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For sure, but hate to waste one on this obvious “issue” unless I must.

I’m on hold (when I should be asleep…already makes he dislike this dude :skull_and_crossbones:).

I did go ahead and message him this. Maybe a bad idea, we will see. Either way, he’s not staying.

“ Daniel/Lee - we are unable to host your trip. We do not accept bookings for 1 guest in our 6 person house, nor do we accept inaccurate bookings. Fortunately there are many listings that accommodate a single guest if that is indeed the size of your “group” (& for a much cheaper price at that). Best”

I purposely didn’t mention his bad review. I’ll use that as the last resort for why I’m uncomfortable with the stay. With a review like that I should be able to say no w/o losing a freebie cancel IMO but we’ll see. I imagine he’s already been rejected for the bad review and that’s why he’s trying to make a new identity.

I don’t think that is the case. Lee was on a trip booked by Daniel as a named guest. It’s quite common.

JF

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You may wish to ask Airbnb CS to clarify.

It looks like Daniel booked the “cold pool” stay and Lee was a member of the booking party. Daniel was the booker & persnickety guest.

It doesn’t look like Lee received a poor review and is not setting up a fake account.

Granted Airbnb often presents information that is ambiguous but I’m not sure Lee is the bad guy.

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We posted at the same time. You said it better!

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The reviews link to anyone /all on the reservation

Meaning if I book your rental & my friend Linda who is also on Airbnb is coming with me, I can book & name her as accompanying me. The review you leave for me will appear on Linda’s profile since she was included in the reservation

Ok. Good to know. He’s still a no go if he was in that group. For all I know he’s trying to bring Daniel with him. Daniel seems to have removed his account/profile (hence the error I got and this the added sketchiness).

I lowered my prices and then I immediately got this. As soon as I get rid of him I’m putting f them back. I should have know better

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So finally got through to CS. I will have to call back to cancel it if it goes through (& it won’t impact my cancellation rate - didn’t say if I’d have to use a freebie or not)

Nice rep. He said that he could not tell me if this was a linked reservation (ie Lee was in Daniel’s group ) due to data privacy. But I’m thinking y’all are right about him being in the group but not the primary renter. I’d feel 100% sure of your assessment if Daniel’s profile hadn’t been removed.

But he’s still a pass for me. I’m ahead of my earning goal for February so I’m good to let this go. I’m not in the mood to flip a coin.

AND…SUPER interesting that it says Lee didn’t leave a review (probably the 100% proof y’all are right) but what does that mean to a host? Can everyone listed on the reservation leave a separate star rating or just a separate written review? I’ve never seen that before.

I have never used my 3 cancellations as I agree that they are so precious.
And when it is 3 per host rather than 3 per listing, even more so. I wish you could bank them!
My cancellations have always been admin ones, by the grace of the CSR, but this has been only when I have managed to speak to anyone anywhere other than the Phillipines, as tHey really don’t understand.

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Me either! I’ve been fortunate as well. If I get Dexter again I’ll be good. He was sympathetic to the cause after looking over everything.

He liked the message I sent the guest also so maybe the message will be enough to encourage the guest to look elsewhere. Since I think y’all are right that Lee is not Daniel I’m glad I didn’t mention the review.

If I were Lee w/ that bad review tagged onto my profile I’d start by messaging the host w/ a brief explanation in a booking inquiry and I’d have identified my group correctly (it’s in my booking instructions). I’d have been much more open to him at the start if he had.

Lots of guests never look/see their reviews.
I recently had one who was amazed at the awful review and ratings.
He promised he and his team would be on their very best behaviour and they were and a good review was left for them.

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Can you go into the calendar and block those days? That’s what I have done in the past but I don’t use IB, guests have to message me.

No, not once the hold is there. I tried. I event tried on VRBO also :sweat_smile: but the synch already showed it blocked due to ABB.

Me either. And I know some hosts here aren’t about vetting but “quality over quantity” for me. This guest has too many flags for my taste.

The guest, whomever he is (he never did clarify), withdrew the request this morning :dancer:t4: :confetti_ball:!

This was after saying he has 7 people (my listed max is 6) & saying 3 of the group are children. I’m marked as unsuitable for ages 2-12 & of course he didn’t give ages.

I kindly told him we do not exceed our capacity. I wanted to say, “Nor do we book to people who cannot bother to read our listing at all, read our rules or enter their information correctly. Oh, yeah, and then there’s that :poop: host review that may or may not be for you, whomever you may or may not be.:joy:

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Glad that worked out for you.

I love the response of not booking your 6 person place for one person. That will definitely weed out those who thought they could bring whomever.

For those that forgot to put in the number of their party you would get back the “whoops, it’s a party of 4, my husband and I and another couple” which you can then chose to accept if it sounds innocent, or if they respond as yours did it’s an easy no.

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I have one policy about rates, I raise them bit by bit. Never lower them.

I started my new listing in 2019 at 175 a night, it’s up to 205 now and I will not look back! $5 at a time I have raised the price.

Now if I raised it to 210 and stopped getting bookings I would likely drop it to 205 again, but so far that has not happened

RR

RR

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@aelilya I don’t understand. This was a request, right? Why did you accept it in the first place? Why didn’t you just decline when you saw his past review? Then there wouldn’t have been any awaiting payment calendar block, no contacting CS.

Unless I’m missing something, it sounds like you accepted the request before you looked at his reviews or communicated with him.

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This fella didn’t have his ID uploaded so he made the request and it blocked my calendar. None of this was done with my knowledge or approval. I wasn’t even notified (no msg/text/email from AIr).

I stumbled across it. When I saw the hold on the dates I could see the review but I could do nothing. CS said they couldn’t even remove it until his ID got verified or it expired, all while blocking my calendar for hours. :unamused:

I’ve only had this once years ago and the guest was legit and I wanted to host her. I called CS and they were worthless. Part of the problem is that these folks were on a emergency trip from UT to El Paso with long stretches of iffy service plus they didn’t even know that they didn’t have a confirmed reservation. I was able to find a work around to get my direct contact information to them by using Rover, the online dog services company. I asked them to book their dogs through there. That gave them my address and me their phone number. When they got here I explained what was going on and they just showed my an ID (military ID, DL, no problems with their ID that would cause a hold up) and gave me cash.

Airbnb lost that booking and for all I know, a customer forever. My friend in NZ was so pissed at them over her difficulty verifying ID as a guest that she will never use them again.

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He might be a “she”…Lee can be a female name, perhaps Daniels girlfriend?

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