I had one of the worst guests ever stay at my Bed and Breakfast on Oct 31 for one night. She arrived clearly intoxicated. She was only registered as one person but had a “boyfriend” with her when she checked in. They went out drinking as soon as the checked in and came back very late at night, long after bars had closed. The boyfriend claimed that they just met and she is crazy and left. The guest then through a fit for the rest of the night and woke up all the other guests by screaming, knocking on other guests doors and asking them for drugs and if they would have sex with her. When everyone turned her down she started throwing things in the common area and in the room. And moved all the furniture around the room doing a total of $2,300 of damage to my property. In the morning when her boyfriend returned I told him what happened and that I would be filing a claim against her for the damage and disturbing other guests. I called Airbnb as soon as the checked out to report the issue. I was told I would receive an email to file the claim but it never came. Instead, what happened was a nightmare even worse than the guests actions: AirBnb temporarily restricted my 4 listings but would not tell me why. After many calls to Airbnb over an entire week I eventually found out that this horrible guest wrote a review that was PURE LIES. I again called Airbnb and was told that the Trust and Safety department only communicated via email but they could not give me the email to contact them, I would have to wait for the Trust and Safety department to contact me. So I waited and waited and waited. Another week went by and I had lost two weeks of income from my 4 listings. When I finally got an email I was told that Sebastian from the T&S department would call me in 4 days at 8 am. I waited again while still suspended. Sebastian did not call. Instead he called 24 hours after the scheduled time. I explained to him that this woman did $2300 of damage to my property and disturbed all the other guests that night. I told him that all the other guests agree to give statements to Airbnb about what actually happened. Sebastian, who barely spoke English other than a few phrases he has memorized like “I am your case manager” and kept calling me “Mister Jim” due to his lack of command of English. He said that he had to investigate and it would take a week because he would be off. I asked if someone else could work on it while he was off because this was costing me a lot of lost revenue as each day went by. He kept saying “I am your case manager” to every question I asked. When I asked to talk to his supervisor he again said “I am your case manager” He was by far the worst customer service manager I have ever dealt with but there was nothing I could do because he “was my case manager”, He never contacted the other guests to get their stories. He did not read the hundreds of positive reviews I had over three years of hosting. Instead he just sent me an email a week later saying it was his final decision to eliminate me from the Airbnb platform permanently. No explanation of how he arrived and this decision and no specific explanation of exact what policy he believed I did not comply with or why he did not talk to any of the eyewitnesses or why he believed this horrible guest who I had immediately reported in the morning after she checked out. Sebastian said his decision was final and permanent and there was no way to appeal it.
So after investing over $100,000 AirBnb shut down my business based on ONE GUEST’s lies instead of looking at my history of three years of mostly positive reviews. And there is NO WAY to contact anyone in the Trust and Safety department… My account is simply gone and the three years of history vanished. I have lost a month of revenue and it looks like I will need to shut down my Bed and Breakfast completely and lose my $100,000 investment because I can’t ramp up quick enough on any competing platform to pay my bills. This is (was) my sole income. I quit my job and work at this business full time (18 hours a day, 7 days a week). An ONE NASTY GUEST destroyed four years of work, and outweighted three years of positive reviews.
WHAT CAN I DO?? Any suggestions?
Try reaching out to Airbnb via social media, Twitter or Facebook. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the social media team are better to deal with than random CS staff.
JF
I know you’ve been screwed by the Air CS agent. BUT. A some of the fall-out is on you.
- You should never have “waited and waited” for T&S to contact you. You should have been proactive and kept calling and escalating the issue – every 6 hours – until you got satisfaction.
- You should never have settled for a T&S agent who did not speak grammatically correct English (or your native language like a native). There are worldwide CS agents, many of whom are native English speakers (and native speakers of other common world languages).
- After 4 years you should have known that Airbnb does not care whether you invested $100,000 or $100. That’s not what you hire them for. Their job is to advertise your listing and to handle money transactions – period.
- After 4 years you should have known that Airbnb does not care that you lost a month of revenue. Relatively speaking you are a drop in their bucket.
- After 4 years you should have known that Airbnb does not care that this was your sole income. Foolish you to put all your eggs in one basket. Never heard of diversity??? Shame on you!
OMG, that’s truly awful. I’m so sorry that this happened to you. I agree with the post advising you to use social media. I had the worst luck with Airbnb through the platform. I had better results sending them a text through messenger in Facebook. As for your horrific guest, do you have a last name for her? You should get a police report. Did you take pictures of the damaged property? I would submit pictures to Airbnb when you message them through Facebook, as well as written statements from other guests. You need to provide them with evidence. Hope it works out for you.
Some hosts have reported being reinstated after some period of time, maybe you will be one of the lucky ones. If running a B&B is your sole income and Airbnb was the sole platform on which you promoted your listing you are indeed going to have a hard time financially. You should have all the contact information for your upcoming guests so by now you should have contacted them all to explain and re-book the stays directly with you.
I’m having doubts about this story.
- Where was the host or co-host when this guests was supposedly creating mayhem on the premises? The OP says that she went crazy (or ‘through a fit’ in his words) 'for the rest of the night. Why didn’t the host or co-host deal with that?
- The OP waited two weeks to be contacted ‘and I had lost two weeks of income from my 4 listings’. Were all existing bookings cancelled by Airbnb? If so, why wouldn’t the host get bookings elsewhere? And did the OP contact future guests to book with him directly? It seems not.
- No-one would invest $100,000 in a business relying solely on one single website.
- The OP would not have to close his business simply because he couldn’t use Airbnb and saying that he would have to is showing that (if true) the business wasn’t on a stable footing in the first place.
- If the OP really works 18 hours a day, 7 days a week then he has contacts, repeats, referrals etc. that enables him to get plenty of business without either himself or the guest having to pay Airbnb fees - a good thing surely?
- We all get a dumb or stupid or downright horrible guest from time to time. It’s how you deal with it that matters. We all get them and we don’t sit around wringing our hands and closing our businesses down
- Read Airbnb’s terms of service and get started on the arbitration process.
- Determine what other methods/services are available to advertise your listings and start using them.
- Give up on the B&B and find another occupation.
Based solely on the financial data, option #3 might actually be a good choice. If you worked 18 hours/day, 7 days/week, for 4 years and this was your sole source of income, and you haven’t accumulated enough savings to get you through a few months of tough times, then it’s not really a financially secure business for you. What would happen if you had become sick and unable to work for a couple months? What if tax or business regulations in your area would suddenly make it impossible to run your business? It seems like you consider $100,000 a lot of money for you to invest, but your only business plan to protect your investment is to “work hard”. It’s noble, but very naive.
@jwfrance This is truly awful and I’m sorry you’re going through it. It’s not the first story of its kind. However,
For anyone else reading this, the most important takeaway is that Airbnb should be called immediately if a guest is being so disturbing and causing damage. This would have helped the host get ahead of the issue.
Not a good idea to “show your cards”, just pursue it with Airbnb. At this point there should have already been a case opened by the host. I truly believe the host would have come out better on this if he’d opened the case.
Ken,
-
When I say I waited and waited to hear from TS I didn’t mean I sat idley by waiting. I called AirBnB customer service Over and Over but Everytime I called I was told that the Trust and Safety department does not accept telephone calls ( I assume because both of their hands are always busy with one hand on the ink pen dipping it in the ink jar to write vauge correspondence in calligraphy in their native language which is not the language of the customer they are serving and the other hand placed firmly up their butts) and not a single Airbnb customer service rep could give me the email address of Trust and Safety - apparently the email and phones are only OUTGOING - they can’t be bothered receiving telephones calls or emails.
-
I only included the part about the investment about and this being how I make a living to distinguish this matter from a host who is an empty nester that has decided to rent the kids childhood rooms out just for shits and giggles, not really with the purpose of paying the bills.
-
I asked for my case to be assigned to a different agent - one who at least has a basic understanding of the English language - at least 50 times and each time brain-dead Sebastian repeated the only English sentemce he had fully memorized: “I am your case manager”.
-
I don’t give a rats ass if I’m a speck of salt to AirBnB. The less they care about me the easier it should be for you to give me a solution. They obviously do care about EITHER their hosts OR their guests. I’ve been on both sides so I know how little they care about anyone but their shareholders. They are in for a rude awakening post IPO.
-
So Ken, you have told me a lot of what I should know (which by-the-way I did know all that crap). I just want to know the work-around or loophole or chinck in their armor to get this mess fixed and try to salvage some value from my investment, which while I KNOW Airbnb doesn’t care about, I am asking YOU the other hosts to hypothetically care that this is important to me and I need to get it fixed fast!
Thanks
Thanks Rita. I’ll try contacting AirBnB through messenger. I did take pictures and submitted them but Airbnb deleted my account and the app doesn’t even work any longer. So I can’t get her last name even. Which means I’ll just have to sue Airbnb and let them join the horrible guest into the lawsuit
I don’t think you quite understand my story. I don’t know what you mean by OP, but I am the owner, operator, and host. The 18+ hours a day working is because my Airbnb is also an antique store I’m which everything in the Bnb is for sale. At least half of my time is devoted to that. Sorry I didn’t get into that detail. Also I do use other platforms and rent directly but because AirBnB bought most of their competitors my business plan doesn’t work when the largest vendor or supplier is removed. I had Airbnb guests on automatic booking and all other guests on approval necessary. So I didn’t chose to shut down. Actually I’m technically still operating but Airbnb lack of respect for a long term host with multiple listings is going to make this business impossible to survive in the short term.
Why not?
Its not that hard. And plenty of good alternatives that will fill your rooms fast.
I think one call would’ve been all that I needed to know that they didn’t accept phone calls and I would need to pursue another means of contact. Just a curiosity, why would you call them over and over knowing this information?
Perhaps you might want to list your home on VRBO or Booking.com until you get your Airbnb account running again.
I don’t think it makes a great deal of difference. You are adamant that you’ve done everything absolutely right and that you’re totally faultless and spotless.
The problem lies, you say, with the people who … what was it?
And this is well beyond comprehension…
Why on earth should @KenH give you a solution to the fact that you had a bad client, didn’t deal with it well, (or are you going to say that I’m wrong about that too?) and are therefore closing down your business simply because one website no longer lists you.
Now I agree that you might have not told us the whole story and that we may not understand exactly what went on but joining a forum to rant and rave about something that we have no control over is a little extreme to say the least.
And that’s not to mention being unpleasant to hosts here who, by the way, are not in this business for, as you so delightfully put it…
This must be a typo. No one here owes you anything. Airbnb doesn’t owe you anything.
I’ve never heard of such a thing existing. Some hosts seems to have better luck with their cases than others but there’s never been a seemingly magic bullet that anyone can use. I know at least one member here was reinstated after 1.5 years. Another after a few months. There have been so many similar stories to your I’ve lost track.
Are you aware that you can’t do that? And if you try you are unlikely to win? At least one person here has attempted it and although the judge was sympathetic he basically said his hands are tied due to the TOS you agree to. One of those terms is that disputes will be settled by arbitration.
You don’t have a record of the guests first and last name? You just had everyone online on the Airbnb platform? Not that it matters now but we always advocate making a record of the guest’s name and contact info so that you can reach them in case the site goes down or an internet outage.
Means original post or orginal poster… meaning you and your post.
Exactly correct.
As for the rest of your insulting demeanor and language, it’s not necessary. We aren’t responsible for your dilemma and while we try to be helpful, we aren’t going to sugarcoat it. All of your complaints are well known to regular members here and people who are dependent on STR income know not to depend on Airbnb.
If you are this rude to guests and customer service agents that’s probably contributing to your problems.
Wow, harsh! This forum has a lot of folks slamming other folks. Seems unnecessary.
Man, the SNARK on this site. Geez, I’ll just keep quiet so it’s not directed towards me. Shouldn’t the moderator be a little more… i don’t know… moderate? I thought this post had a few iffy details too, but shouldn’t we give one another the benefit of the doubt? Speak with kindness?
This is not a thing. You cannot require that your CS agent speaks your primary language “like a native”. Besides, redneck is not a language.
Irony much?? Shame on you.
That wasn’t addressed to me but since I’m also a moderator I’ll say no. We are just forum members. Also we are volunteers and contribute our time to be helpful. I’ve read and posted 1000s of times and some of my posts are very helpful, some are really snarky. Some people here can’t stand me, some are my friends IRL. It’s just an internet forum. It’s not as bad as reddit, not as sterile as Airbnb community.
I didn’t give up my right to an opinion when I accepted an invitation to be even more helpful by being a moderator. Moderators do try to keep things running smoothly, delete spammers and even sift through the pretenders who post here trying to make Airbnb hosts look bad. We deal with flags, and try to present alternate points of view. I refer posters to prior similar cases or other threads. Our role is not to be the most moderate members of the forum.
However, we’ve recently gotten a couple of new moderators and I’m sure they will be much more moderate (at least at first…
)