Were you ever paid more money than you were due?

1

I am curious to see how carefully hosts look at what they are being paid. I just had a situation where Airbnb mistakenly generated the wrong price for a guest who wanted to adjust her stay by one night - still a seven-night stay but arriving one one night later and leaving one night later. I OK’d the change and the guest wrote to me asking why iwas going to cost an additional $242. (The new night was in a slightly higher price but the change should have been about $60 or so counting the additional night and a slight bump in Airbnb’s fee.

First, I’m wondering how this could happen and second, I’d like to know if anyone had seen something similar.

2

I’d say “things happen”. Computer glitches, thumb-fingered CSRs, stupid mistakes.

Someone else recently had the same issue, IIRC.

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3

You should send your guest a new change request with the correct price, but first do the math as you need to add the total in. Then you can send a message to guest …

4

You have to watch reservation changes like a hawk.

There’s a box for you to enter the new total. Just below that, it will show the price difference between the original and updated reservation - pay attention to that!

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5

Thanks for the replies but I know what to do. That wasn’t what I was asking. It’s a bigger issue than ‘how should I fix it’?

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6

@mdornari, I edited the thread title to correct the one missing and one doubled word. If that’s not what you meant, let me know.

7

Hi and thanks. I guess I didn’t proof-read it very well. Your correction is what I meant to say.

8

I am still in confusion why someone pay more money if he had proper listing.

9

Because Airbnb miscalculated the amount and told the guest to pay the wrong total. The guest ended up catching the mistake and we worked it out.

The thing about this that makes me uncomfortable is that Airbnb said they would check into the issue to see if other hosts had this happen to them. In less than 24 hours they reported this had not happened before. It was only this time that a mistake was made.

Really? Ever?

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10

I’ve been paid more than I was due on Airbnb and I refund guests where possible. One situation where I couldn’t is where a guest threatened to give me a bad review unless I made an exception to the refund policy and give them a full refund. They had only received a 2/3 refund. I gave them another 10% but then later realized they actually only got a 1/3rd refund in the first place. I wanted to give them back at least 2/3 because they only used one day, but if I gave it to them, I’d be cooperating with extortion. I’d be as guilty as they are of violating ToS. So in that case, I had to keep the money.

Another time (non-Airbnb) I bought a kitchen appliance off of ebay. I received a delivery notification but it wasn’t there when I got home. I checked the time of delivery and the security cameras just showed the truck driving right on by. So I figured they delivered it to the wrong house. I contacted UPS and they couldn’t find it so they gave me a full refund. In the meantime, I had contacted the seller to make sure it was addressed to the correct address. The seller immediately gave me a full refund no questions asked which is odd. About a week later, the microwave shows up being delivered by my neighbor. I opened it up and realized that it was an open-box damaged return. I figured the seller had bought this, received it damaged and got a replacement free so they just sold this one. Thats probably why they didn’t mind giving me a refund. Well at this point, the seller had basically deceived me in the original sale and the item wasn’t new like they said. So I could’ve repaid for the item and then asked for a partial refund because the item wasn’t as described. They never said anything so I kept the refund.

Another time, I sold something on ebay and the buyer received the item broken but wouldn’t post pictures or proof of what happened. I told him to hang on to it and I would start the insurance claim with eBay. He got impatient and escalated the case which got him a full refund. Well before he got the refund, he shipped the item back to me somehow by doing a return to sender after having it for a full week. The insurance policy, like any, says you have a duty to protect the item from further damage in case of a claim. He didn’t and just shipped it back in the same old busted up box. Now I had a box full of busted parts and I didn’t even know how busted they were in the first place. So the insurance got denied and ebay gave me my money back. The insurance company later inquired about exactly what happened and for some reason eventually gave me a full reimbursement for the damaged parts. So I got paid twice for the same thing and I still have it even though its smashed up to bits. It could technically be repaired so it sits in a box under my stairs.

11

Exactly, it happened so many time that guest gives bad reviews when we do not follow our policy rules.