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After speaking with the detective on the case, my guests no longer feel safe and want to cancel the last 25 days of their stay.
My goal is to refund them 100% of their unused days AND get them refunded some of the Airbnb fees, without getting dinged by Airbnb for canceling.
How do I accomplish this?
• Do I initiate the change? EDIT: Airbnb website will not let me change! They need to stay at least 30 days and with the cancellation they are only staying 28…
• Do I ask them to initiate the change?
• Or do I have to involve Airbnb (uggh) to handle this for me.
I would ask them to request a change in reservation dates, then you can approve it. If you gave them a 30 day discounted rate, they will lose the discount. Up to you whether to use “Send Money” feature to refund that.
Curious that they were willing to stay while the perp was at large and now want to curtail their stay after he’s been apprehended. I guess they really like that hotel you sent them to!
Try these:
Alteration request for shorter stay; change pricing to reflect unused days. Airbnb will refund the difference & your calendar will unblock the unused days
Or:
Alteration request /send money to reduce the amount charged
No cancellation no date changes
Any idea what was said that makes them cancel AFTER the arrest made?
They can send in the change, but warn them that they will get a message that they are not owed a refund. Once it is complete and you have approved the change, you can send them any refund you like through the resolution center.
Thanks @dpfromva , @Annet3176@mica555 . I ended up calling Airbnb because I wanted to make sure that they received a refund for the service fees from Airbnb, not me! I could not initiate the alteration because legally, I can’t change it to a reservation of 28 days - I’m not licensed as an STR - so I was getting an error message and could not proceed.
Surprisingly, the call was painless and I think they accomplished all I needed to do!
Hahahahaha! No doubt! Very strange, but whatever. Now I just have to wait for the review. I’m crossing my fingers that they don’t mention the peeper! That would really stink. I’m already working on my reply to the review in my head.
@muddy, unfortunately, I have a little firsthand experience which might shed some light. Long, awful story that I will spare you, but there are some peeping toms who escalate to committing worse crimes. It’s a common starting place for sexual predators, and considered high risk behavior. In the case of my family member, the peeping tom was caught, released on bail, and then broke into her house.
Funny you should ask…I just got off the phone with him and apparently the charges were dropped due to a clerical error at the D.A.'s office. He’s working to figure out what went wrong, and get the charges reinstated. As a result of this he is free, and the protective order has been dropped! Ugh.
As he only spent 24 hours in jail before being released on his own recognizance, I’m sure that he warned them and they freaked out and decided to leave. I can’t say that I blame them, but they really didn’t seem to care much about the whole thing until talking to the detective.
What a nightmare! I hope the charges get reinstated, as this criminal may be aware that there is a rotating cast of potential victims at your rental.
I had a house under contract once and a scammer actually broke in, changed the locks, and rented it out between sale agreement and closing. After the police booted the poor unsuspecting renters out, I hired a local, beefy guy as security to randomly pop by and check on the house until closing.
Well, having dealt with a number of different LEO in the case I was referring to, my experience is that they don’t always offer up information unless you ask directly.
You would think he would stay away, but they get off on the risk/danger.
I’m putting a camera in the window tonight, so if he visits this Friday he will get caught ACTUALLY PEEPING in the windows, in addition to the NestCam footage of him on my porch. Apparently they need this is order to charge him with a sex offense. (Prior charges that were dropped were 4 counts of “Criminal Trespassing”.
Next time I speak with the detective I will ask him directly if he has past convictions of any kind.
They might decide not to leave you a review, so you might want to wait it out. Don’t review them unless they review you. If you review them now they will surely review you and they might mention the creepy guy.
I think that’s what I have to do. They had a bit of an attitude with me after talking to the detective. I would feel weird approaching them again, as my last correspondence with them went unanswered.
I will probably review them, but wait until the last possible second. They were good guests as far as I know, I’ll know what kind of shape they left the place later tonight.
I’m also hoping that they were not expecting a full refund. I just refunded them for the days that they are not staying; a portion of the airbnb charges were covered by Air.
Seems like you did all you could to try to make the situation better including asking them if they wanted to leave, night in a hotel. Hopefully they’ll have some time to realize none of this had anything to do with you.
I feel badly that this drama is not over and that through a technicality the perv’s charges were dropped.
If your camera shows him back again, then you know he is an official wack job.
Let us know what happens.
