Cross words with Airbnb owner see police evict Scrabble player
Tony Charlton had just climbed into bed when there was a knock at the door of his guesthouse room.
It was the police: they had come to evict the 77-year-old Scrabble player.
‘‘They just burst in, they kicked the door down,’’ Charlton said.
It was Queen’s Birthday weekend, and the Nelson man had taken the train to Hamilton for a Scrabble tournament. Weeks earlier, he had booked a cheap Airbnb, paying two-thirds up front to secure the room.
What Charlton didn’t know, however, was that Airbnb had cancelled the reservation days before his arrival.
After he’d made the booking, Charlton had entered new credit card details on to the site. However, despite Airbnb confirming via email that the new payment details had been received, the payment didn’t go through.
While Airbnb had emailed Charlton to let him know about the cancellation, the emails had gone to Charlton’s wife, who had opened the Airbnb account.
She hadn’t noticed them, so the first that Charlton knew of a problem was when he arrived at the guesthouse.
‘‘[The owner] asked if my name was Ben. When I said no, and I was Tony, she said my booking had been cancelled, and I would have to leave,’’ Charlton said.
‘‘I told her, ‘No, I’m not going. I’ve paid for this room’.’’
The owner left, telling him she was calling the police.
Charlton closed the door behind her. The room was cold, with no heating, he said. To warm himself up, he got into bed.
‘‘It was so cold . . . I got into the bed and put the electric blanket on.’’
Then the police turned up. They knocked before ‘‘kicking the door in with an almighty crash’’, Charlton said.
‘‘They just burst in. They were really nasty about it, saying, why didn’t I open the door? If I knew it was the police, I would’ve opened it.’’
The police told Charlton he had to leave. They had contacted Airbnb, which had told them the booking had been cancelled, he said.
It was 9.30pm, and Charlton had no transport, and nowhere else to go. The police dropped him at a cafe, and he began to phone hostels and hotels.
‘‘It was pretty nasty of them to turf a 77-year-old guy with no transport and a suitcase and backpack into the street with no hope of finding anything else,’’ he said.
However, the Scrabble community came through, with a competitor from Queenstown offering an airbed on a kitchen floor.
Charlton said it was Airbnb that was at fault.
‘‘I’d paid for two nights, and yet they still chose to cancel it. Their policies need to be looked at.’’
Airbnb had tried to make amends with a $350 voucher. But it was too late: when he’d needed help, it hadn’t come through, Charlton said.
A police spokeswoman confirmed that police were called to the guesthouse.
‘‘We did receive a report of a dispute incident where a person refused to leave an address. We assisted the individual and gave them a ride into town. We also followed up with the individual to check they had been able to secure appropriate accommodation. No further action was required by police staff.’’
Airbnb’s head of public policy for New Zealand and Australia, Derek Nolan, said his team had worked to support Charlton, ‘‘including by providing personalised assistance and information to help them avoid this issue going forward, and we hope they’re able to enjoy positive travel experiences in the future’’.
Nolan did not respond to a question about the payment error.