Lorna, I am positive she wanted to get out of situation and was looking for a bunch of reasons. This is just unfortunate for you.
With that said, I kind of agree that I wouldn’t want a miserable person to stay with me and especially for such a long time.
Are you not renting the room very often? To make 2k per six month is very low number. Especially if you rent it for 100$ a day. So you basically have it rented 3-4 days out of the month . I make 4 times more on average on 1 room with 8 months out of year having a slow season.
Why are you renting so little? May be it will be worth while to seriously look into this and see what can be done to increase income: lower prices a bit make be?.
Though 2 k is a lot of money but I would not stop doing Airbnb because of just this one person. Just to think on how much income you are loosing after all these years only because you don’t want to part with 2 k and for the sake of principal.
We run our and B six months of the year. The other six months we move to our summer home and sublet the entire ground floor furnished for the other six months. So the six months income from AirBnB really helps with our weekly and monthly bills, especially if we have a long booking of 3 to 4 weeks. I cannot and will not refund the large sum of money that AirBnB refunded the guest, nor can I host guests free for months in order to repay it. Renting the room for long weekends (3 nights), sometimes four or five, is about all I can manage at my age in any case. Monthly rental is easier. Thanks for your consideration. And yes, I agree she wanted to get out and conned AirBnB into believing her…and into ignoring the fact that she was here for over three days before she made ANY complaint.AirBnB should require a maximum of 24 hours for guests to file a complaint or cancel with justifiable reasons. But apparently they make no effort to get EVIDENCE and proof that substantiate the complaint. Next time a guest could make up something else and get her money back. Apparently the host’s defense makes no difference.
So, since they collect money from future bookings to recover the money they refunded to the guest, what happens if you are delisted and never relist and they don’t have that ability? Do they then demand repayment for the debt, or potentially turn it over to a collection agency somewhere down the line?
I already de-listed my room because they intended to deduct the money from future bookings. Since I run the B and B only six months of the year it would take me months to repay the money. Meanwhile I would be hosting guests without getting any income. I refused on principle. This precedent allows guests to cancel based on any reason they can think up, regardless of the lack of proof. They take guests’ word for it and do not consider the host. It is possible that her former
Heights apartment became available suddenly and that she looked for a way out and decided that accusing our site description of misrepresentation was her best bet to get her money back.
My curiosity, though, is what will happen sometime down the road when you don’t relist. Will they attempt to collect the payout back from you in some way?
This will be interesting to follow to see if they have grounds to pursue recovery of the funds from you.
well, in a way, you would have been hosting someone for that money, right? If not this guest who just left, then someone else - does that make sense?
I’m not saying what I think you should do, just pointing out that you are not hosting people for free, you are hosting them for this money you were already paid.
I’m sympathetic, though - I would really hate being in this position. I guess it’s also a lesson learned to all of us to not spend the income until after check-out, or, the days earned. Sad, but true apparently
There is no way they can pursue direct recovery from except by filing a lawsuit, which would cost them more than the
amount recovered. My situation reveals a large hole in their policies that is difficult to close. On the one hand, there are lots of legitimate complaints and cancellations. On the other there are those who abuse the policy with impunity, especially now that many people realize that they can cancel without providing proof of the reasons. In my case the guest used the policy of “misrepresentation” of the premises, which revolves around the fact that there are no criteria for
deciding when this is the case. I suggested they send someone to inspect our house to demonstrate that the apartment is on the ground floor, but they said they do not do that, for various reasons (probably justifiably, but it weakens the host’s case). The issue of the interior stairs is that I did not mention them, not because I was hiding them but because it seemed pointless since no other guest had ever complained (even those with large suitcases!). I corrected that but since I am now unlisted it doesnt matter. What matters is that there will be future complaints about other things not mentioned on a site, or issues that arise later. For example, she complained the room was too warm, but I had shown her how to adjust it by turning off one heater or lowering the thermostat on one or both. She didnt
do this. But in a room where the heat is not adjustible at all, someone could complain it was too hot and decide to cancel and get a refund. There are dozens of unforeesable things, some of which could be dealt with if AirBnB had a firm policy demanding complaints within 24 hours of arrival. In this case they ignored this fact. I havent read their entire policy but maybe they do have such a policy and decided to ignore it. So even putting aside the money issue, I am wary of using them at all because this has set a precedent and the next guest could complain about any little thing, cancel and then I would be out the money. In any case I cant re list because they would deduct all the money they say I owe them from future bookings. That would take months. Maybe they have learned some lessons about this but I doubt it. If I were them I would take the time and trouble to address what I have said and how this can be avoided.
Another booking that was cancelled by a guest was based on a vague claim that her mother’s needs had “changed”.
I found this vague and dubious and would not refund her money; then she responded by saying her mother was
epileptic and had had surgery…and I told her that had she told me this up front the first time I would have refunded all her money without delay. She protested my decision, it went into mediation and I offered her half of the money. She
still protested. But AirBnB accepted it. All this is alien to me since I am a compulsively honest person and expect (and assume) others are equally so. I am finding out this is not true. It’s difficult to work in an atmosphere where people have different levels of ethics and different expectations. There is always a balance between compassion and fairness.
And of course many people take advantage, as the first guest did, and manipulate or outright lie. And it is hard not being believed while the complainant is taken at face value.
Think about it! They do have your social security number! I wonder if it is in the TOS to turn you over to collections on the debt.
That’s why I think this case will be particularly interesting to follow.
No, I seriously doubt they will do that. It isnt worth it. In addition, neither the government or a bank is going to
take money out of someone’s account without legal authority, i.e. a court order. Not going to happen.
Air is a bit unique in the way they do business in that they process the credit card transactions and hold the funds in their account until after check-in as opposed to having you collect funds directly.
Under other models, such as a paid listing on HA, guests can individually process credit transactions. Under that setup, it is not unheard of to see a guest initiate a chargeback through their credit card issuer.
They transfer the funds to my checking account one day after guest arrives. So it is available within two days or so. In this case I transferred it to another account as I always do with large amounts. Even if I hadnt transferred it they couldnt legally stop the transfer or get it back. People can stop checks but nowadays everything is done electronically.
Okay Lorna, so you got paid a large lump sum for a long stay which you immediately transfer to your account …the guest then cuts the stay short after a day or so claiming the listing was misrepresented. She may or may not have been bending the truth - and either way, it’s unfortunate - but that doesn’t matter anymore … SHE’S GONE ;-)!
The point is, air have refunded the money to the guest - which technically in turn, you now owe them - but you are choosing instead, to keep (on the basis that you assume they won’t be bothered to take you to court, it seems)… Is this the long and short of it or am I missing something???
Out of interest, did air refund the full amount for the entirety of the stay or deduct the balance for the days already stayed? What I am trying to accertain is just how “out of pocket” you would be should you actually repay the days the guest didn’t stay … I agree, however - it must be annoying that this has blocked of a chunk of your calendar and prevented others from booking …
Interesting thread, this ;-)!
First, the guest cancelled after spending three full days and nights, not “a day or so”. They said they would credit me for the days she stayed. I assume they refunded the balance minus those days. Out of pocket for me would have been
$2134 minus $330. And yes, I could not have gotten bookings for the four days she was here (Monday, Tues, Wed, Thurs).
But the $330 was supposed to cover those days, although had there been another long booking I would have not gotten it. It is an open question as to whether I “owe” them the money, given the lack of clarity over the facts, something that a court would probably not even consider. And if they did, there is the fact that there is no proof of her claims (no photos, no verification by any witness or AirBnB. Air BnB has more important things to think about.
I find it interesting that people on this thread have so far avoided the central issue of verification and criteria, especially the latter regarding what constitutes misrepresentation (as opposed to simply the omission by the host of some
features of the room or of the premises or design or whatever. And of course since AirBnB does not do inspections, in the end it is virtually impossible to know whether complaints have any basis in fact.
Perhaps you have some other comments on the other issues I raised, mainly the lack of criteria as to what constitutes misrepresntation, AirBnB’s policy to accept the guest’s complaint without question, ,etc.
Notwithstanding that your guest was an unpleasant and difficult person, you only hosted her for three nights (for which Airbnb would pay you if you accepted their offer of payment), not 22 nights. You didn’t provide the lodging for the full 22 night time period. So you owe Airbnb hosting service for 22 nights less 3 = 19 nights. Plus, after the guest left, the room was then available for others to book for the remainder of the time. Why do you think you’re entitled to reimbursement for services you didn’t provide?
If I have an unhappy client in my computer consulting business, I don’t charge the client for incomplete work and may offer a reduced fee for work already done. The old adage in a service business is that the customer is always right, even when wrong.
Airbnb is paid by the customer and will try to keep the customer satisfied, particularly if the listing was not completely accurate, which, as noted above by Lia (my partner) and others, it wasn’t.
It’s good to know that you are having your own internet service installed. Many people are entirely too casual about sharing internet service. A person with a modicum of technical knowledge can capture the activity on a network to which s/he has access.
Would you like some unknown person or entity to be capturing and reading your e-mail, harvesting your correspondents’ e-mail addresses, and sending them viruses and spam using your name and e-mail address as the sender? This is not theoretical — it really happens and is why I never use public internet access from Starbucks, Gogo on aircraft, etc. etc.
A friend who is an Airbnb host had a guest download copyrighted music. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) traced that activity back to the internet provider and requested them to provide the name and address of the account that downloaded this music.
The provider gave this host the courtesy of warning him instead of turning his information over to the RIAA, The host immediately cut off the internet service to this guest by changing the wifi password and gave him a very strong warning. He would have been justified in kicking out this guest. If the guest had been using someone else’s internet account, things could have spiraled out of control very quickly.
Garry
Woah! That might be something to add to my rules!
How do you know? Have you checked the TOS? They might try to collect on this debt. It would be easy to do!
Lia is actually correct. You did not provide the service the guest paid for and you were reimbursed for the nights she did stay. If it were me, I would have endeavored to return the entire amount to Air upon cancellation instead of spending it. Don’t hate me, but I have to agree it really was not your money to spend!
I have “No illegal activity” in my rules. I am hoping that will cover illegal downloading, if it becomes a problem.
Well after reading this, I think it’s prudent to put it in writing! Some people think they are entitled to torrent and download, especially the younger set!
Just added this: • No illegal activity. This includes torrenting and downloading copyrighted property from house wi-fi.
Lorna, what was your cancellation policy?
I am surprised nobody has asked about that yet. I realize your main point of contention is that Airbnb took your guest’s word over yours. But let’s say the guest just wanted to cancel and didn’t give a reason. If you had a flexible cancellation policy, the refund seems right in line. And yes, they’ll take money out of future earnings to make up for the huge chunk they already gave you up front. (You have the money in hand. You can’t think of it as having to work to pay back Airbnb – they already paid you.)
It seems like there were a lot of communication problems. And communication problems are often the fault of both parties hearing what they want to hear.
You say you didn’t promise internet, but then you also say that you said there “should” be internet. If I were a guest who was told internet “should” be available, I would take that to mean that internet is available.
The lesson there is even if you think you’re saying one thing, the guest might hear another, so it’s best to be super, super clear. Better to say: I don’t supply wifi. Some of my guests have been able to use another tenant’s wifi, but it isn’t guaranteed to be available.