Please help me decide if refund is warranted after guests complain and checkout immediately

,
1

This is the first time I’ve had an issue with a guest and its left me flabbergasted.

This is an upscale penthouse condo, and my second home, so its kept pristine. I have 100% perfect 5 star reviews up until now. I have an exceptional cleaning lady and the building has pest control monthly, just to give you a little background.

My cleaning lady left only a few hours before the new guest arrived, turning it over from another guest, who incidentally gave a 5 star review after leaving that morning.

This new younger person checks in spends I suppose 5 minutes or less and texts me with complaints below.

  1. Sends me a picture of an owner who lives down the hallway from our unit who has 3 or 4 small Terriers that had them in their cages and was bringing them in.

Says she does not want to stay in a place that has “dog hoarders”. I was surprised I had a neighbor down the hall that had dogs, never heard them before but I said I would call security and be sure it’s an owner because guests are not allowed to have dogs. Still, how is this bothering her? I state in listing OUR unit is NO PETS ALLOWED, but nothing about the rest of the building.

  1. in her walk through she says she “sees bugs on the walls”. Wow…huh? I ask her to send me pictures, and she does. It was one single sugar ant so tiny I had to zoom in to see what it was. One tiny ant on the living room wall. The other was the same, a tiny sugar ant on the bedroom wall. I said I’m sorry but there had been a lot of rain the previous week and it sometimes forces in ants, the building has monthly pest control and just was serviced, but I can call the office and get someone up.

  2. this is an odd one, she said the neighbor next door to me was peeking in the window. Now let me describe the scene. The neighbor’s balcony comes up to the front corner of my unit and they would have to lean out on their balcony, risk falling 12 stories to do that, but they could see the far end of my unit through a side window that floor to ceiling about 2 feet wide. But really not much difference if you are in any building with adjacent structures. Ive never seen this as a problem and the windows have a reflective tint where you cannot see though during the day. But we could have put something against the window.

She didn’t even give me a chance to address any of this, just sends a text message saying she is uncomfortable to stay there and says she is checking out. Total time spent in the unit about 5 minutes.

A day later I get my proceeds, its a 3 day stay, and I get a call from Airbnb support. They tell me that I have NO OBLIGATION to refund her anything, but tell me the following

“in the spirit of Airbnb community we would recommend refunding her something, but its your decision and whatever you decide we will call her and discuss the decision with her”

I told them I needed to think about it and said I would contact them in 24 hours, they said fine and thank you for being a Super Host.

So here I am always trying to be the best host I can, and all of this is going over and over in my mind, and I just cant see what I did to warrant this.

I will lose 3 prime days for something that I feel is ridiculous, and even if I were to give them a partial refund, they probably will leave me a terrible review.

So usually its me that’s giving advice, but now I need YOUR help to try to figure out what is the right thing to do.

Pictures below

Thanks!

condo 1
condo 1792×971 256 KB

2

You are very lucky that they only spent five minutes there and left. This would’ve been just the beginning of your troubles with this Karen. Outside of going in and making sure that the pests are dealt with you have nothing to do cleaning wise or anything.

I’m unsure what was meant by them saying they were checking out, but technically that is their space for the next few days and if they don’t cancel, you have nothing to refund.

I would ask Airbnb’s CS what they suggest as a refund; personally, I would not, but if you want to go ahead.

3 Likes
3

Thanks Rolf, i just want to be sure that I’m not being unreasonable and too close to the issue to see any wrong. Airbnb at first suggested I give them a 100% refund in “the interest of the Airbnb community”, but at the time the thought I could reopen the days, but I said that there is only 1 day left so I cannot recoop anything. They then went on to say well what about 60% refund or so? I said let me think about it. Thats where they left off.

As for them leaving, when they said they were locking up and leaving, I texted back “what do you mean? Your checking out and not coming back?” they responded thats correct we are checked out and not returning.

You’re right, thats what I thought when this was going on…what do I have here… a Karen???

I’m not wealthy, that money is now spent, its part of my income, so this would be pulling it out of my pocket. I am a bit sympathetic, I always want to please people, but I honestly am having a hard time understanding what I did to have this happen.

4

I was thinking of offering them rebooking new dates and a $100 refund, but then I was thinking how could I ever trust them in my unit?

So now Im thinking Refund them the cleaning fee, my cleaning lady went over and says nothing looks disturbed, so she will do a quick refresh for 20$.

And perhaps one day refund at $325.00 and I suppose Airbnb would give them back 1/3 of the fees.

I think this is OVERLY GENEROUS and I know they will STILL leave me a BAD REVIEW!

5

That is standard Airbnb- they have the same script for everyone when these situations occur. Funny thing is, they don’t refund their service fee “in the spirit of the Airbnb community”.

2 Likes
6

I’m with Rolf on this one. I have had guests check in and immediately decide to leave for spurious reasons and I did indeed refund them - but only because they had been a last minute booking in any case so it wasn’t quite the loss it might have been. They didn’t leave a review at all. I would not refund just because Airbnb CS suggest you ought to. If the guests haven’t actually cancelled, you can’t actually be sure they won’t come back. If they start messaging you for a refund it may seem harder to refuse, but you could then just make a partial offer in the interests of goodwill. But you know, they can still leave a bad review if they choose to even if you give them a refund.

3 Likes
7

Yep that is about where I sit. I’ll offer something as good will but not 100%. I’ll stipulate its conditional upon them not leaving any review, but of course they still could.

8

Don’t do that, at least not until you research it. Guests can’t offer to take a bad review down for money - it’s against the terms of AirBnB and their review can (supposedly) get removed for even suggesting that. Your offer is basically " I will pay you to not give us a bad review" which is not allowed.

1 Like
9

I sent a message to ABB asking them if I could.,

10

Make sure you come back here and tell us what they said when you ask them if you could bargain with a guest over leaving a review, we are all anxious to hear what they say.

11

will do. I’ll let you know exactly what I do and the results.

12

I wouldnt mind getting a few more inputs from my fellow rental crowd just to reinforce my decision on this. Anyone else want to give an opinion before I make my decision? Thanks!

13

This person has OCD or something. That’s pretty obvious. They would have found numerous other imaginary atrocities.

So you’re better off letting them go.

Refund? They didn’t stay. So technically they’re entitled. Yes they prevent you from receiving income from another more normal guest. That part is unfair, but since even has life been fair?

I’d strongly push back on Airbnb for whatever this OCD sufferer accuses. Airbnb needs to understand that this has nothing to do with the apartment being unclean or unsuitable. It was the sole choice of an OCD sufferer. That’s not your fault.

14

I have a strict no cancel policy 7 days in advancee. Check out early or no show, they would normally not get a refund just like a hotel. Thanks for your comment. I guess today I will deal with this. Still wrestling with the amount if any.

15

I think I should mention that my interest in seeing what Airbnb says when you tell them you’re going to make a deal with a guest re: review was sarcastic, not honest.

Extortion is frowned upon at Airbnb and they will shut you down for this.

Please do not try to make a deal with your guess this way

1 Like
16

If they write a poor review, you can counter it with your reply, which will be seen immediately below it. Potential Guests will get the idea of what happened. Naturally, your review of them should provide “heads up” info for us - possible future Hosts!

1 Like
17

@rick99 - Has the guest contacted you asking/demanding a refund or just AirBnB asking you to give the guest money (while holding on to their own)?

18

Hey guys. I sent the Airbnb CS rep a reply yesterday asking questions including if I can request they not leave any review if I give them a refund but there has been ZERO response so far. No the guest has NOT requested ANYTHING from me, I have not heard from them since our last message saying they were leaving and checking out, 5 minutes after arriving. It was Airbnb CS that messaged and called me to say the guests were asking about a refund, and then ABB passed that along to me saying that its totally my decision but “think about the ABB community”.

I’ll wait until tomorrow, but the longer this goes on the more likely I am NOT to give any refund except for the cleaning fee since they did not touch anything in the unit and my cleaning lady said she just needs to check it all over which she will do for nothing.

1 Like
19

The most I would consider refunding is the cleaning fee.

The key issue here in my mind is you don’t consider the guest’s concerns as valid, and from what you’ve told us, I would agree. Further, they didn’t give you the opportunity to consider or address them. Given that, you have every right to decline the refund request.

1 Like
20

And also, the guest has not even contacted you directly regarding cancellation and/or refund. This is just Airbnb pushing.

2 Likes