Follow-Up: The Guest Who Wanted a Direct Refund After Check-In
A continuation from this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk/comments/1rv2jgm/guest_complained_10_minutes_after_checkin/
Basically:
- Guest book my property via OTA
- The guest complains on the room 5 minutes after check-in and we fix it right away.
- Then guest demands refund, ask us to PAY THEM DIRECTLY despite booking THROUGH OTA.
- I already told the OTA that the refund is accepted, but the guest have to contact the OTA on their part as well.
- I refuses and they keep saying that they can't do it, and pressure me to pay directly.
- Keep threatens to review bomb us and demand free stuff in the property saying "they deserve it.
- Stay for one night and the next day they shouted at me and the staff for not saying good morning and just smile so I kicked them out.
That's the story from the previous months/post
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And after they got kicked out, they still keep asking the staff online on the refund process, in which we are like a broken record at this point, tell them to contact their website directly.
But they still keep messaging us, one message even ask us for a letter in which we send it to them that we approve the refund.
And every time they message us, we contact the booking website that how's everything going and they said that if there's any update I will let them know. However, they do note that I have accept the refund.
But this booking is like a joint booking thing, where guest book from one OTA, but it shown to me in other OTA.
However, about a week ago, the guest threatens us to SEND MONEY DIRECTLY TO THEM WITHIN 3 DAY and provide their banking account, threatens that and I quote: "I believe this can still be resolved in a STRAIGHTFORWARD and FAIR way (and again, without any evidence like Booking website denied or stuff).
In which our team still stated no, we will only do it via OTA and we keep in touch with them.
And so the guest review-bombed us saying that I'm not supportive with the refund process.
...
..
..
.
Like its been a month,
I've been keep in touch with the OTA for a long time and they don't get any update on the other side.
I've confirm with the OTA several times that refund is accepted.
But the guest are saying that I'm not helpful?
TBH in a long run I don't really care about 1 star as this is the first 1 star out of 40 5 stars. And in this case I also write a review in third person talking to other reader that might read this review rather than talk to this guest as he probably not gonna understand anything at this point.
At this point I’m honestly just amazed by both the OTA process and the guest to some extent.
We’ve been confirming the same thing for weeks:
The property approved the refund already.
Yet somehow the situation kept looping back into us being asked to bypass the OTA system entirely and send money directly ourselves.
EDIT: Now the guest make multiple account and review-bombed me lol