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My wife and I have been hosts for the last 2 years and Superhost for a while, but new to this site! Hoping to get people’s thoughts on something a bit odd!
We currently have a guest with us who initially booked for 1 night, with a lengthy explanation about how he required a place to stay for several weeks for work-related purposes, saying he was a researcher working on COVID-19. He changed the dates of his booking to extend his stay for the next few weeks, but since checking in last week, he has barely been at the property at all and has not left any belongings whatsoever. We also haven’t received his payment and a few days ago, all the messages between us disappeared from the Inbox. We spoke to support and all they could tell us was that his account was “frozen” and “no longer active”, but couldn’t explain any further. They said that the issue was transferred to a different team and we would hear from them, but haven’t heard anything for a few days now.
There are a variety of other odd inconsistencies with his profile and booking that we hadn’t noticed either (i.e. his profile says he lives in USA, but his verified phone number is a number local to our city in Canada).
Has anybody encountered something like this?? We’re at a bit of a loss as to what to do, since he technically hasn’t broken any rules yet, but things just seem increasingly fishy!
Thanks for replying again! Sorry for cross-posting, just wanted to reach as many hosts as possible
It would seem that way, but his “booking” is still active in our calendar and blocking the next 2 weeks! Would you suggest that we just change the entry code to our door?
I also read elsewhere on other threads about payments not coming through for a while, until they just suddenly do one day with no explanation.
But how are you so certain he hasn’t paid? Normally, when it’s a payment issue, the booking doesn’t get confirmed and it says “Awaiting Payment” instead, but that didn’t happen here. This makes us think that he did pay and that something else happened to his account to cause it to be frozen. In another thread here, other hosts have been having issues with late payments as well, which we thought might be happening here too.
The guest also told me on the phone today that he did pay and received confirmation, so maybe we will ask him to show us that confirmation…
But how did he make the booking in the first place? Our understanding is that his account was frozen after he made the booking, we just don’t understand why.
@noblesavage8 Airbnb will never tell you why. Forget ever getting paid for this booking. Change the door code. As far as you know, he’s a drug dealer and just wanted a place to stash all his drugs. I’d advise you to stop tring to second guess what’s going on and follow the advice you’ve been given here. Unless the guy can send you a screen shot of his booking and the fact that he paid, (a copy of his credit card or bank statement), I don’t know why you would just let this go on.
I’m genuinely confused. Not sure why I would be making any of this up…
The sequence of events was as I said. The guest booked (clearly with an active account), the booking was confirmed (which, unless I’ve been mistaken all along, can’t happen unless there is payment), the guest checked in, then extended the stay (which was also confirmed), and now we’re here. His booking still shows as confirmed and the payment as upcoming! Don’t understand any of this…
Anyways, I’ve gone ahead and changed the door code, as many have already suggested. Asked the guest to provide proof of payment, which I’m not optimistic about.
Sorry if I’m just being unclear or totally moronic…my wife usually handles all this Airbnb stuff and I’m just trying to help her out!
If you currently hold superhost status then you should be able to get the # from them via chat/email. The usual # could be used but may have very long wait times.
Not necessarily. They could charge the guest’s credit card, then have it not go through. Or the guest contacts their credit card company and stops payment. Non-payment seems to happen more often on same day or close to check-in day bookings.
