I canceled a demanding rude guest just prior to check in on Wednesday. She wanted to have a package delivered to my address and I asked her 4 times to send it to the Post Office 4 miles away. This is a common scam to establish residency. She kept insisting so I contacted Airbnb support and they canceled her. Two hours later she and her husband showed up at my doorstep screaming about suing me and calling the police. They blocked my car in and despite me remaining calm and repeatedly asking them to leave she began videoing my house and narrating by saying "this is (my Name) house at (address) and she cheated me and I am going to sue. I finally got a short video of her screaming (the neighbors were aghast) and then told her I was calling the police. She kept screaming, ācall the policeā. A friend showed up about 7 minutes into the tirade and that seemed to wake her up. After some more shouting they got in the car and left. I told all this to Airbnb support and offered to send the video. Now I got a notice that she wrote a review. I need some advice on whether to wait until the last minute and write my review and then a rebuttal to her review or call airbnb support again and try to get them to delete the no doubt whack-a-doodle review. What would you all do?
Call Airbnb and ask them to remove the review because she never stayed. In addition, Airbnb cancelled the reservation. How can a guest review a place when they never set foot inside? Seems unfair.
No itās not. Receiving mail at a residency doesnāt establish residency nor does it make you liable in any way. I would allow a guest to get mail or a package at my house and have done so. My only measure is if it inconveniences me in some way.
Thatās not clear to me. I donāt know what she did showing up and husband and friendā¦ some kind of local booking?
@Oceanpark if she didnāt stay, you can get the review removed. There is no reason to wait, go ahead and take care of it now. Be sure you review her honestly in case the reviews arenāt removed or take some time to be removed.
I donāt know where youāre from but in most countries it takes a lot more than a few pieces of mail to establish residency. (If only it were that easy - I would have saved a lot of money).
Years ago when I started using Airbnb, I read that mail shouldnāt be allowed. So for the first few months, I didnāt permit it.
That was just for a few months though - Iāve now had hundreds of guests who have received packages, parcels, other mail with no problems whatsoever.
I would have called the police at that stage.
How to deal with a bad review? Put it out of your mind and move on.
That sounds like an extremely stressful situation and Iām sorry you went through it. As an aside I would like to point out that this was not a psychotic break. Psychosis is a mental health diagnosis. This guest was just rude asshole. It is disrespectful to mental health patients to equate them with people who are unsocialized and unpleasant.
Well, screaming at someone for cancelling a reservation and blocking their car could also be a symptom of mental health issues, diagnosed or not.
Thanks for your input, KKC. I got the information regarding mail scams here on this forum. SCAM! Beware! Don't allow guests to receive postal... - Airbnb Community. I also talked to the Post Office and they said to have her send it there to avoid risks to me. As for her showing up, she did so after she was canceled. She was on her way when Airbnb canceled her. She showed up to scream at me and threaten me.
Yes, this was not normal behavior. She wasnāt shouting, she was screaming. And it went on for 6 - 7 minutes as I calmly asked her to leave. And when she starting photographing my house and narrating my name and address it was really scary. Who knows where she is posting that? The Airbnb is next to my house and I live on a quiet dead end road next to a forest.
Here is the relevant Airbnb policy as @Ritz3 and @KKC pointed out.
It seems to me that if they never entered inside the property that in that sense they did not āarriveā but it is possible that Airbnb sees it differently, though not if her reservation was cancelled on her way to your home.
This is very helpful, thank you!
We have a thread like that here, too.
The sense was not to permit mail (as opposed to Amazon packages) sent to the listing address for a range of reasons including: using it as part of a plan to establish residency, avoiding future junk mail, avoiding someone using it to establish it as the physical location of a business for Google, someone trying to use it against Host as if they were tenant (a link was given that I didnāt click).
But the basic message was āDonāt permit it, could be a future hassle or worse.ā
Well, to be fair, in defense of these would-be guests, letās put in perspective what happened:
o The guests made a request.
o You then said āNo.ā
o Then they came to your house, blocked your car in, videotaping your house, narrating by screaming and threatening to sue you, and daring you to call the police.
You know, as people do when you say āno.ā
[Iām channeling Bill Maher here.]
is not the same as
It doesnāt really matter why you didnāt want her to do it, itās your house, your rules. I just try not to let misinformation that is posted go unchallenged. In your case you just abbreviated a variety of concerns with that phrase. If a guest was trying to establish residency using my address they would need to have the utilities changed into their name.
I took the advise of some of the experts on here and Airbnb deleted the nutty ladyās review. Thank you all for your help!
If the Guests didnāt actually stay, and the booking was canceled by Airbnb, then they canāt leave a review.
You need to both call and message costumer service and get a trouble ticket numberā¦
Insist that they remove the guest from the platform, and remove any bogus review!
Stick with it.
Good luckā¦
In California, we unfortunately have a rise on squatters (people staying in home unauthorized). If someone has a package or mailed being sent to you, it is very common that they could try and come back to claim āresidencyā especially because they know this home is not some ones primary home. This process can take months or even years and once someone is in the home, it takes the court system very long to get them out.
If someone has one piece of mail that shows their name and your address on it, it is VERY difficult for the police to do anything, forcing this situation into the court system.
I am a property manager and always recommend to any Host or property management companies, do NOT EVER let someone use your address for their personal needs. Suggesting the postal office, was the best and right choice.
I hope this was helpful.