I’m sorry to read this has happened to you. I would absolutely slam them in their review - wait till the very end of the review period though. They’ll never use Air again.
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Just like my most recent bad guests found an old bug trap on my property and sent that into Air as evidence of an infestation. Yet you can’t take photos of guests behaving badly. I agree with cabin. Call the cops or threaten to!
I would see if you have any laws in your area about “theft of services” and let them know if they refuse to accept the additional guest fee then you will be calling the police to make an arrest. And tell them if a conviction will result in a misdemeanor or felony, etc. I understand of course if calling the police will only make trouble for your rental. My state has a couple of laws that I would call the magistrate about to see if they fit this situation:
§ 14-110. Defrauding innkeeper or campground owner.
No person shall, with intent to defraud, obtain food, lodging, or other accommodations at a
hotel, inn, boardinghouse, eating house, or campground. Whoever violates this section shall be
guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor. Obtaining such lodging, food, or other accommodation by
false pretense, or by false or fictitious show of pretense of baggage or other property, or
absconding without paying or offering to pay therefor, or surreptitiously removing or
attempting to remove such baggage, shall be prima facie evidence of such fraudulent intent, but
this section shall not apply where there has been an agreement in writing for delay in such
payment. (1907, c. 816; C.S., s. 4284; 1969, c. 947; c. 1224, s. 3; 1985, c. 391; 1993, c. 539, s.
48; 1994, Ex. Sess., c. 24, s. 14©.)
Obtaining property by false pretenses.
(a) If any person shall knowingly and designedly by means of any kind of false pretense
whatsoever, whether the false pretense is of a past or subsisting fact or of a future fulfillment or
event, obtain or attempt to obtain from any person within this State any money, goods, property,**services, chose in action, or other thing of value with intent to cheat or defraud any person ofsuch money, goods, property, services, chose in action or other thing of value, such person shallbe guilty of a felony: Provided, that if, on the trial of anyone indicted for such crime, it shall be proved that he obtained the property in such manner as to amount to larceny or embezzlement,the jury shall have submitted to them such other felony proved; and no person tried for such
felony shall be liable to be afterwards prosecuted for larceny or embezzlement upon the same
facts: Provided, further, that it shall be sufficient in any indictment for obtaining or attempting to
obtain any such money, goods, property, services, chose in action, or other thing of value by
false pretenses to allege that the party accused did the act with intent to defraud, without alleging
an intent to defraud any particular person, and without alleging any ownership of the money,
goods, property, services, chose in action or other thing of value; and upon the trial of any such
indictment, it shall not be necessary to prove either an intent to defraud any particular person or
that the person to whom the false pretense was made was the person defrauded, but it shall be
sufficient to allege and prove that the party accused made the false pretense charged with an
intent to defraud. If the value of the money, goods, property, services, chose in action, or other
thing of value is one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) or more, a violation of this section is a
Class C felony. If the value of the money, goods, property, services, chose in action, or other
thing of value is less than one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000), a violation of this section is
a Class H felony.
(
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They are crap guests to have. Send them an invoice, change your rules now and try not let it upset you too much, you are much more important than an extra fee and adding stress to you is not good. I know the money is necessary but your stress levels are much more important.
You know they are lying, report it to airbnb again and write them a crap review. Put it in place so it won’t happen again. We have all had guests that make us change our rules or add more, I know its annoying but I would put it down to experience
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If you can’t provide the surveillance tapes as evidence themselves another way to use a surveillance is 2 have another person view it with you and then have them act as a witness against the perpetrator. Hopefully the guest has some kind of picture on there profile or perhaps the witness can describe the person on the surveillance in order to prove the identity of the guest.
Trying to think like law enforcement. When law enforcement people want to surveil inside your home they will recruit someone who goes in and out of your home regularly. Those people are then called confidential informants. Therefore law enforcement is able to investigate with in your home without using a warrant. See what I mean? In this way they work around the necessity of a warrant by simply using another valid method.
So just ask yourself - what is another valid method? And of course I’m sure you’ll be disclosing the surveillance on your listing going forward. This suggestion would be for those who are in the position of having not mentioned the surveillance prior to becoming aware that they must.
Just a quick update -
I went over again in the morning, and the two guys insisted that there was no one else there. They left for the day. In the interim, I heard the water running in the house and am now currently with the girl who HAS been at the house. I have emailed my guests letting them know I have caught them lying, and asked them to return to the house ASAP to sort this out.
Now I’m going to email Airbnb to let them know about this. I’ll keep you updated.
This is so bad, and reminds me of the the adage “the cover up is worse than the crime.” Had they just admitted to an unregistered guest and paid up for they days she was there, instead of continually lying, this would have been over without incident. Now you have people in your home that you have literally had to confront physically about a bald faced lie. I would not want such people in my home. I don’t care how much I lose, I’d want these losers out immediately!
Hi all,
So my guest, having been caught for last night, is refusing to admit more than one night despite the fact that I have said I have seen the 3rd guest since their arrival. Airbnb has promised a call back shortly, and I am waiting. It’s like they don’t know when to stop! They’ll only admit to what they’ve been caught for in person, inspite of the fact that I have told them I know they continue to be dishonest with me.
I’ll be pressing to have these guests removed with a full payout because this is unacceptable. Their lying is documented in writing, even if it is not the whole situation.
First, there were no additional guests, then a female friend came over on two nights to help with luggage they had left at her house, now she was only at the property yesterday and last night because her lease was up and she had nowhere to go, and knowing their situation they offered to help. URGH!
Precisely! I don’t know what good it does for the OP to “sort this out” unless she means to have them pack their things and get out. Anything less and there’s a chance they will sabotage the place before they leave at the end of their stay. They could stuff down drains to cause a clog-up, pee on a mattress or carpet…any number of things to show their distain and “I’ll show you” to the owner.
Addendum: I guess the OP’s reply beat me to my two cents input. Honestly, I don’t know what it takes for some people to act when the writing’s on the wall.
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I’d be done arguing. Out. Get out. NOW!!!
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Believe me, I want to say this. But given their extensive history of lying I need everything to be documented and to go through Airbnb. I don’t care that they’ll have nowhere to go, they’ve wasted my time and lied to my face repeatedly.
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Update:
Airbnb is cancelling their booking. The full payout will be honored, but not the additional guest fee for the nights spent. No review can be left. If they damage something on the way out, I am covered by my security deposit and the Host Guarantee. They must leave within the next 2 hours, or the police will be called.
Glad this is over! Hopefully everything goes as smoothly as possible from this point, onwards. They have a lot of belongings, so they’re going to be horribly stressed about leaving within this limited time frame.
Thank you everyone for your messages, and shared outrage (which has been tremendously comforting!).
As an aside, despite warnings about photographing my guests to prove the number of people staying at my listing, I’ve had two other CX representatives tell me to do this. When I mentioned their surveillance policies, they acknowledged their requests as possibly being in violation.
I think that it’s very clear that security cameras etc. should be disclosed, but saying a guest may be photographed as evidence for Airbnb if they are caught with more guests at the listing than stated/in the act of loading their car with all your possessions (!) is a bit of a grey area that Airbnb has difficulty defining. It could go either way, depending on who you’re speaking to.
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This is so weird and runs contrary to what happened to @Zandra. She had guests come, say the place wasn’t what they wanted, and leave, even though they did not stay. And they left a terrible review. I think they canceled too, but I can’t remember.
Guests being kicked out within two hours should not be allowed to leave a review. If they do, I would escalate.
Also… Why did they have so much stuff?!! Were they local and planning to stay much longer? They already mentioned the girl was homeless.
Hope the police thing would work but these types of matters are usually considered civil and not criminal so the police may it have any jurisdiction.
They stated - today - that they were international students, who had just moved to our state and were waiting to move into their permanent accommodation. We had been under the impression that they were tourists. This explains why they haven’t been going out much - they’re only leaving to attend lectures. The girl, I was initially told, came to stay with them after her lease ended. This sounded odd. I was then told that she had booked another Airbnb place, and they were willing to provide documentation to show she had accommodation there until the other night.
My home has become the storage facility for all their belongings. In addition to piles of clothes and other items, I saw a large TV. I imagine they will have difficulty packing everything up. Fortunately, they have two cars!
I don’t expect the police to help, but I hope that AIrbnb saying that they would be called if they failed to vacate by a certain time is incentive enough for them to leave quickly.
This sounds like BS too. As the mom of boys who’ve studied abroad three times, they don’t just let exchange students hang and find their own housing. There’s always always housing arranged as part of the exchange. IN most places international students are not usually left scrambling for housing. Something seems off about their whole story. If that is true, why did they lie and tell you they were tourists?
I am sure you wouldn’t have allowed them to rent if you knew they were bringing all this stuff. And that’s another thing. Exchange students travel light because they are only going to be there for a short time. Something isn’t adding up here.
I don’t believe them.
Adel said they were international students which are not necessarily exchange students. I was an international student from the US to England for a number of years. Like domestic students, I opted to stay on campus the first year and off-campus the remaining years.
We have heaps of international students in Perth, and they have to either live on campus or sort out their own accommodation. One of our longest bookings was a masters student from Mongolia with his wife and child in tow. They stayed at our AirBNB until they found a LTR. We were cool with this and they were great (and grateful) guests. They did bring a lot of stuff for the child.
The odd thing is - I don’t know in what part of the world would March be the start of a semester…
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As we all know there isn’t a single place in the world where that would be the case …
I have an international student that moved in as a LTR in January. He had stayed in someone else’s ABB until he saw my Craigslist ad for the room. My other international student stayed in campus housing for the first 2 months after he arrived and hated it (it was overflow housing in a sketchy part of town) until he took another one of my rooms as an LTR. One of them had several boxes of his stuff shipped to him from the East Coast where he’d recently finished another degree program.
So my experience is that even international students move around a bit after arrival until they can find a place to call home for a while, and they can have a bit of “stuff” with them too.
If their story is true then I feel sorry for these kids.
Why feel sorry for them? They could easily have been open with the host and arranged to pay the extra person fee. Instead they chose to lie and try to cover up the truth. I see no reason for sympathy
Speaking as someone who has been an international student on two continents, we don’t usually have much stuff. For one thing, we don’t have any money. For another, you cannot move stuff long distances inexpensively. And if you are coming from overseas, you’d typically arrive with next to no stuff; just what you could fit into a couple of suitcases.
For example, I once moved from Chicago to North Carolina. I left most of the stuff that I had in Chicago because it wasn’t valuable stuff (I couldn’t afford to buy anything nice), and it would have been quite expensive to transport. As I recall, I loaded up my car with what I had and drove it to NC. Which was a bit of an adventure, because I had never driven cross-country in the US (or anywhere else) before.
Anyway, the point of this rambling is that wouldn’t expect international students to have much stuff, unless they had been international students in the same place for a long time. And even then…
But all the above doesn’t apply if the students are (say) Saudi princes or otherwise privileged. But that’s comparatively rare.
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