Today I discovered that a female Airbnb guest had sneaked a male into our home unannounced without paying for him. I discovered this by taking clean towels, toilet paper and water to the room when she left for her “photo shoot”. I was confronted with an unknown man who claimed to be a “boyfriend” although the female guest told me she lived in and had just flown in from LA. The male guest eventually slipped up and said he had just arrived from NYC.
I contacted Airbnb immediately to report the violation of the rules, false booking number of guests and to express that this was a potentially unsafe situation of a guest leaving an unknown unapproved unverified person in my home without so much as even a text message to let me know, let alone not asking permission. While I was on the phone with an Airbnb supervisor who was supposedly recording the event and confirmed she in fact heard the male guest and heard me ask him to leave (I asked the super to stay on the phone with me for safety while I asked him to leave), the female guest returned, came into my home and started yelling at me that she was a 32-year-old woman, could do as she pleased, and I had no right to go up there or confront her “friend.”
There was no reasoning with these people; that was evident and why I asked the super to contact her and cancel and handle the reservation because I didn’t want nor did I feel it was my place to safely confront guests under these conditions. The super advised me that she was escalating this to the Trust & Safety department immediately. She said she also needed to speak with the guest. I advised her that was fine, but have someone else call and for her to stay on the phone with me for safety and documentation. She hung up.
The guest and the male “friend” started yelling in my home. The female backed me into my home office and blocked the door. I was totally out of composure and had to threaten to call the police. They spilled out into my driveway (I live in an upscale urban neighborhood) and of course the neighbors were not watching. They eventually left but not after the random male invited me to step out of my home to deal with him in my driveway and calling me a racist.
I went back inside and went back to my office to deal with clients and calls. About four hours later when I had a break I contacted Airbnb again because I had not heard from anyone. There was no ticket in my Airbnb mailbox and no return phone call from the company as had been promised. When I called back, the new customer service agent and his super said they “had no record of this event, no notes, no ticket and no recording and would need to call the guest to get her side of the story.”
I lost my grip with them. The guests last words leaving were, “you’ll get yours.” As I’ve reached out and as of the writing of this event six hours later, there has been no follow up. I had one email from a customer service agent that wrote me after the third call. I’ll attach the three replies I’ve sent in and not a one has had a response.
This is not the first issue I’ve had with Airbnb. I’ll post the others now that I know about this site. I’m all in about supporting some serious collective effort among hosts to bring change and safety to both hosts and guests. Airbnb alone does not seem to indicate they have the incentive to do so without some serious movement from those of us who have experienced this sort of stuff.
I called Air BnB to get the address of the man that was threatening (guest) me in my own home so I COULD call the police and get a warrant. He also stole 500.00.
I was told that private information and cannot be shared. WHAT.
So I google this horrible couple only to find
THEY ARE 6 TIME FELONs CONVICTED OF CHILD Molestation/INCEST/ AND THIEF’S.
I call Air bnb 32 times over 100 emails all the way to attorney general. This has to STOP. They NEVER do background checks. All I did was Google the Name!!!
Update: Brittany Bosco returns the next late afternoon more than 24 hours later with local police attempting to file an assault charge against me:
Local precinct supervisor knocks on my door and says he has a woman claiming assault. Sure enough, It’s Ms. Bosco. The officer explains that Ms. Bosco is citing a scratch to her face and that she has paid for 4 days and now been thrown out. I explain to officer that Airbnb has refunded 1/2 of her money to which he turns to her and says, “You got a partial refund?” She now admits she did. He asks me about the “injury.” I said, “I never touched the lady and that scratch wasn’t on her face yesterday.” Officer looks at me and says, “wait, this all went down yesterday?’ “Yes sir, she’s back more than 24 hours later – and by the way (I point up to driveway Nest Cam on side of house) “Have you explained to her that making a false police report is a felony?” Officer and Ms. Bosco talk at curb. Soon both leave.
To add to this: Airbnb has failed to pay my account for all three previous guests where those funds were in “processing” when they cancelled my account for pressing them on where that phone recording went to and then telling them I had my own and accusing them of systematic cover-up. They went dark – and have since refused to even acknowledge any email or request for accounting of the payments due. Amazing. I’m totally done with this company
Bradley, I didn’t expect Airbnb to play police. That’s a very myopic viewpoint. I expected Airbnb to manage their shared guest. They aren’t trespassing. [she] was booked to stay. The very first thing a host is supposed to do is contact Airbnb if there is an issue. That was done. The same is true for a guest. Guests and hosts should not be confronting each other for exactly these reasons – safety and documentation.
The point here is really that Airbnb not only failed to effectively handle the situation, they also left a host unattended in a threatening situation and then erased the phone conversation and claimed they never had the call. Fortunately, I do have the call. When I informed Airbnb that all calls from my IT office are recorded they hit the ceiling and said I had no permission to do so at which point I informed them that GA. is a state that doesn’t not require notification or permission to record conversations as long as the party doing the recording is a member of that conversation.
You expected an Airbnb call-centre agent to play police officer? Why didn’t you call 911 straight away? Trespassing is illegal.
Did you call the police? I don’t believe that that should be AirBnB’s responsibility. If someone is threatening you, you need to call the police.