Lying guest sneaks in extra guest and requests early leave

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— update —

I checked CCTV today and found the guest has discovered and changed the position of it. Now I can only see it facing the wall. I don’t know if the guest discovered it by himself or ABB CS was so cool to inform him…
I then made several calls.
One said I have the right as this is stated clearly in my listing. I definitely can ask the guest no to block it on purpose and leave it in working condition.
One said no I can’t do it. If the guest is worrying about privacy issue then I don’t have the right to make any surveillance device on.

The CCTV is set at the internal side of the main entrance. Mostly only for checking how many people are in my room. However, it would also show a small corner of the living area so it has captured some footage that the unauthorized female guest wears underwears only and wandering around there. I don’t know if it’s something relating to privacy.
Really confused…

Oh yeah, finally I’ve got the first difficult guest. Sorry all for the long rant but I do need some place to speak out.

I’m renting out 2nd bedroom on ABB while I’m in Sydney. When I’m away I locked up my own bedroom and still renting out that guest bedroom but as “an entire place”. I’m now on a journey. So the story is about a guest booked my entire home.

He is a single guest who stated as relocating to Sydney and booked a month-long stay one month in advance. Good review history, nothing special until his arrival. However, he started to complain from the very first minute.

He said there was disruptive noise at an unbearable level coming from upstairs. Very loud thump noise, like someone stomping around on the floor on purpose or moving furniture all the time.

I was very surprised. As actually this is my home and I had never found any noise to be so terrible in the last 3 years. (And per my all 5 star reviews, my other guests had not either) Upstairs do have timber flooring so I sometimes can hear footsteps above but it would mostly just be footsteps.

Anyway as soon as I received his message, I contacted upstairs in no time. 10mins later upstairs replied they just arrived home. So I asked the guest if he still heard anything and he said “no more at the moment”. Then about 20mins later, he messaged me again about the same problem. Then I contacted the neighbor living next door asking if she heard anything unusual. She replied nothing special as well. The guests kept complaining about the noise for the last 2 whole days. However each time I asked if I should send my cohost (another neighbor living in the same building) down and have a check, he declined “weird I just don’t hear it right now, but I swear it was noisy for the last 20 minutes” It happened 2 times and even ABB CS noticed it from transcript and said it’s a bit suspicious.

Then I decided to check my CCTV at the main entrance (of course I have this listed clearly in my listing). It’s sound & motion sensitive, so if anything loud happened it should be triggered on. To my surprise, the guest was not traveling alone as he said. He’s got a female partner with him all the time. She even stayed over-night. He didn’t notify me at all.

On the 3rd day (today), he said he’s finally enough for all the bad experience and requested to cancel the rest of his stay. My guess is he actually has got somewhere else to stay (new female partner’s place maybe). But as this is a long-term stay and he would not be eligible for any refund. So he was just lying and making excuses that he can leave early without compensation.

However this is my home, so I don’t want to irritate him to make any potential malicious damage. I called ABB CS and asked for mediation. I asked CS not to raise what I have discovered to the guest. Even he’s lying all the time I’m still happy to exempt most of the rent and let him go as peacefully as possible. I asked ABB CS to request only one week’s rent. However ABB CS replied the guest was asking for a full refund and just sent them a long list full of bad factors of my place which he had never raised to me at all.

I was beyond furious at that time. So I did some small witch-hunting and found he’s just started his new career in a world-famous travel website’s Sydney office (thanks Linkedin). So obviously he’s been in the travel industry for long and might even be more familiar with all the ABB tricks or loopholes better than me. And I’m also surprised to find actually I know someone working in the same company (thanks Linkedin again). I’m now having an urge to tell this wonderful story to that friend of mine.

Yes I understand I should never say anything to the guest including I see your behavior via CCTV or I know someone working in your company. As this may be considered as some kind of threat and would set myself fall into an even passive position.

He’s still in my place. I would truly appreciate any advice about how can I solve this dilemma as quick and peaceful as possible. Yes also about the coming retaliate review.
Thank you so much

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Oh man, that is terrible. I’m sorry this bad actor is causing you stress!

Just so I understand, ABB claims that because of the list of reasons, they are eligible for a full refund? Can you ask CS to provide proof of your “wrongdoing”? Otherwise, ask what recourse you have when wrongfully accused.

I’ve never had this issue so I can’t offer much more. I’m curious what others have to say too.

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Thank you jpiety for your kind input.
ABB CS replied my initial mediation request with that long long list. I then made explanations one by one. I also attached evidence including CCTV footage of that unauthorized guest in my place.
Now I’m still waiting for the further outcome.

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Let us know what they say!

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Sure I will. Thank you

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in my opinion the guy is a scammer. he stayed with you for a few days pretending to leave because of made up conditions without having to pay a single cent - he asked to be fully refunded.
he might want to pull the same trick on other people. I’d say be careful and get him to pay for the time he stayed. let him go and put all these discoveries into the review so that the future hosts are warned.
He’s an idiot if he’s a world traveler and tries to pull out these fraudulent schemes. Because they are: ultimately he’s trying to stay with a babe in your own home, and them move on to the next sucker.

And yeah, one can always find a list of things to complain at any given time in even the most posh place. that’s up there with one can always find a list of reason to divorce at any given time, ok?

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Thank you Adrienne,
Your reply does remind me. Yes when he made the booking, he claimed that my place would be his first temporary residential place and he was planning to find another regular long-term rental for his new job. However, one day before his arrival, he requested early check-in as he would be checking out from his previous place that morning.
I should have had paid more attention to these red flags…

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You say that you have a co-host so I’m wondering why the guest was contacting you instead of him/her? When the co host did the meet/greet/tour was the woman with the guest then? I know that you’ve got the CCTV to confirm but the co-host’s evidence will help too (although Airbnb might wonder why he/she let them in).

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Thanks Jaquo,
Actually that was not really a full time cohost. She’s just a neighbor living upstairs. She’s mother of 2 young kids so only can help with some cleaning related job. Most of my check-in / check-out process are self-service. Before this guest, everything has worked smoothly so far.

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I see. Thanks for letting us know. If you’re going to be out of town it would be a great idea to train her to be a real co-host. It could save you loads of hassle.

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Any complaints worthy of refund or otherwise are supposed to be brought to you within 24 hours time. The fact that he never told you any of the complaints leads me to believe they’re all false. Stay on top of ABB. You shouldn’t need to be out every penny and suffer a poor review from him as well. Maybe ABB can block him from reviewing?

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Thank you MissSwan,
I don’t know what ABB will do. But as far as I’ve learnt from their official forum, ABB won’t do anything in this situation.
Actually I’m no more worrying about the money. I think I’ve calmed myself down. I can accept him leaving ASAP and I refund every cent for his remaining days. The guy’s office is close to my home which means he would be a local and he knows where exactly I’m living and when would I be overseas (via checking my listing)…

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His being a local also means for him that you can share your experience with him to others in his field and in the neighborhood in general. Definitely goes both ways!!

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I’d give better odds on it snowing in Phoenix tomorrow (July 30).

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I am sorry this happened but hopefully you can learn some lessons from your experience and handling of it.

  1. You need an actual co-host rather than a neighbour who can sometimes come in to clean

  2. If you are hosting remotely always check CCTV on arrival - and checkout - and intermittently throughout the stay. (or it’s rather pointless you having it)

  3. When he complained about the noise you should have arranged for someone to go and verify it/ask him to record it the first time it happened.

  4. Personally I would be asking customer services to keep the long term booking cancellation fee and charge him for the extra guest. I really don’t understand why you state

What is the point of you having CCTV if you aren’t going to use it to reinforce your house rules.

And finally why on earth are you letting him stay at your place - if you are going to refund him for the remaining days, then get Airbnb to kick him out now for having a guest who hasn’t booked and paid staying there (I am presuming this is against your house rules).

It doesn’t matter whether he is going to be local, leave him an honest review and make a claim for the extra guest.

Don’t get into game playing with his employer.

Interestingly I looked back at your post from nearly two months ago when you asked for advice on hosting remotely and I can see I suggested to you

Sounds like my advice fell on deaf ears :frowning:

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Hi Helsi,
I appreciate your input very much. Thank you for your suggestion, again. I’m sorry I was not turning a deaf ear to that. I was just too naive. I thought cohost = cleaner at that time.:cry:
I’ve got too much concern as that is my home. That’s not a holiday home or any occasionally unoccupied premises but my only residential place. I have small collections in the display cabinet which I’m sure won’t be covered under insurance. So I do not want to irritate him to cause any malicious damage.:cry:

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Something else which I would be wary of is that as he knows you are away for an extended period and has already lied - what if he is trying to obtain a full refund but thinks he can stay free of charge anyway as you’re not around to enforce him leaving?

Also if he does leave is your cleaner/co-host able to handle making the place secure again by collecting keys or chaning the code on a door lock in case he decides to return for any reason?

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Thank you Snowdon,
My cohost confirmed she would collect the key from guest in person on the day of check out, check thoroughly before the guest leave, and retrieve the lockbox then change the code.
And yes I would occasionally check CCTV as well.

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Get your cleaner to go and move your display cabinet to a secure room, once you arranged for the guest to be evicted @cyjoy

Change the locks in necessary and make sure you prioritise getting yourself a co-host.

If you won’t act for fear of guest retaliation you are giving your guests carte blanche to party, bring in extra guests and damage your home without fear of you taking any action against them.

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After 3 days I was finally managed to let him go. I refund every cent for his remaining days (including tonight) but I’m still happy it’s over.
OK so I’m now preparing for the upcoming retaliate review. I assume he would also prefer to keep his review history good, so chances are we’ll play that “hold on until the last minute” game.

Just need advice if review as below would be any breach of ABB’s content policy?
Thank you all

I’m sorry to say but the guest was evicted from the previous stay.
He’s been complaining about unbearable noisy neighborhood all the time. I contacted several neighbors but none of them ever heard anything unusual. He also declined each time I was actually sending cohost down to help him out in person. He was behaving so weirdly that I had to check camera on the main entrance but only to discover he had sneakily brought in UNAUTHORIZED GUEST and even STAYED OVER-NIGHT. He was just playing a drama in order to terminate rental early without penalty. There were numerous lies and cheating involved and I have every piece of the evidence.
He knows the game well. He asked me to initiate cancellation process. As I declined and told him it should be raised from guest’s side, he didn’t do that, instead, he sent me a money request directly.
So hosts beware. This is an experienced hunter. Think twice about if you are smart enough before you host him.