Lay My Hat

Guest claiming 3 days rent of £270 due to no cooker. They had hob and microwave. Another threat of bad review. Another bullying guest.

apexblue wrote:Guest claiming 3 days rent of £270 due to no cooker. They had hob and microwave. Another threat of bad review. Another bullying guest.

Good heavens! What is happening to you?? We need to have a collection for you to go away to a health farm to recover from these terrible experiences !!!

Ok seriously, let’s take this logically. Did they tell you straight away that the cooker was faulty and what did you do? Is the cooker actually faulty, or couldn’t they work out how to use it?

I would have probably subbed them for a pub meal (main course pp plus a few £), and had a discussion with them if I couldn’t get the cooker repaired the following day. (AO will deliver a new cooker within hours.)

If they didn’t tell you straight away, as I’m sure your TCs say they should, then what do they expect?
Will the review be on the same listing site as the last complaint? That is more worrying.

Do you give guests a telephone number to contact you by if there are any problems? It isn’t something that gets abused in my experience.

I agree with Zebedee. If your cooker, or any other appliance fails, it’s how you react that matters. That’s where you get brownie points or bad reviews, people accept that stuff fails, but what do you, the owner, do about it?
By way of example, the fridge half of our fridge-freezer suddenly stopped working, but the guest was diabetic and needed the fridge to store her insulin. She raised this with our house-manger (we were remote owners) who phoned me, I authorised him to go out and buy a new fridge and instal it straightaway. Within two hours of her raising the problem it was solved. We got glowing reviews. (And I still use that fridge on my terrasse to keep drinks cool, it’s very handy!)

So the moral is, think of a positive solution, that’s your job.

Mols

The problem is the guest issued refund demands on instructing us of cooker.

Passed on to owner as we do not manage this rental.

apexblue wrote:The problem is the guest issued refund demands on instructing us of cooker.

Passed on to owner as we do not manage this rental.

If you are not owner or manager, why is it your problem?

Sorry, perhaps I’m missing something.

Mols

Trip advisor have asked us for a review concerning the holiday, depending on the outcome of your enquiries I will wait for your reply before doing it.

The guest is making it our problem Mols.

Owner says no refund as oven ordered on day of failure but without for 3 days. It's the 3 full days refund demand and stinking attitude of guest that owner has said no.

Never had so many bullying guests this past year.

apexblue wrote:

Trip advisor have asked us for a review concerning the holiday, depending on the outcome of your enquiries I will wait for your reply before doing it.

The guest is making it our problem Mols.

Owner says no refund as oven ordered on day of failure but without for 3 days. It's the 3 full days refund demand and stinking attitude of guest that owner has said no.

Never had so many bullying guests this past year.

Well, at least you can be prepared to respond to any review. This is a good opportunity for you to show future guests that you behave responsibly and professionally (ordering new oven same day)..

However, to be fair, your guests are “self catering”and it can surprise me when guests have no intention of eating out during their stay. It’s easy for me not being on the receiving end of the rant, but from an objective point of view, I think the guest is entitled to something by way of an apology - but not the full rent for those days.
See this as an opportunity to showcase how well you respond to a crisis.

You may need to remind them that they had full use of the rest of the house for the 3 days they were without an oven so it's unreasonable to expect 3 full days refund. The worst case is that they had to eat 3 meals out instead of cooking themselves (that's assuming they wouldn't use the oven for breakfast or lunch). So I would be thinking about suggesting the owner makes a goodwill offer to refund an amount roughly equivalent to 3 restaurant meals.

Are they still there? It might help to send them something before they leave if that's still possible.

They left last week.

No way will owner refund as they had hob and mwave. We would but not the full 3 day rate. They are trying it on.

Thanks all.

I am curious; I don’t want to be nosy but do you act as an agent for the other owners, or alternatively manage greetings, changeovers etc?? Just wondering what your relationship to the difficult owner is??

Zeb we are their booking agent only.

apexblue wrote:Zeb we are their booking agent only.

Ah, that explains why you find yourself in the firing line!