I have a story for everyone in the Airbnb community. I am a superhost with over 180 glowing reviews and have listings – had, actually – in Quito, Aruba, and Miami. Last month I received a request from a group of first timers: no reviews; two women, one man. The interaction during the booking process was strange but I figured someone has to give people their first chance. They requested one night. They arrived at 6:00 AM when check in is 3:00 PM, spent all day out, and left early the next morning. The following week one of the women wrote to me: “Hi, your father touched me inappropriately. I am offended. Refund me.” Mind you, my mom and dad are in their 70s, married for 50 years, and there is a full-time maid at the house. I contacted Airbnb customer support to ask them to handle the extortionist and I did not engage with her anymore. The guest kept asking for money several times.
I received a message from someone at Airbnb saying something along the lines of: “I am a neutral third party, an innocent and nice person. Oh, and we are canceling all – yes, ALL – your bookings for the next month while we investigate.” I wrote back and told her such action was not neutral. I really dislike hypocritical polite statements. I work for a large airline so I know better. I kept calling for updates; they claimed they were having technical difficulties and I should call back. I wrote to the representative telling her it does not make any sense to shut down listings in different parts of the world; if anything, I could understand they might remove the listing where the complain happened “while they investigated.”
Nothing happened for another week and I called some guy at Airbnb’s office in Ireland and gave him a piece of my mind. I told him they failed to protect their most valuable assets, a host like myself. I demanded the issue be addressed immediately as I was suffering undeserved consequences. I asked to what degree the extortionists were being investigated. The next day I received an email saying: “We are now canceling all your future bookings, removing the listings of your properties, and preventing you from contacting guests.” Fortunately, I had already printed all booking details and told my guests we were in the middle of a dispute with Airbnb; there would be a chance we would migrate elsewhere. It was the smart thing to do given the very strange behavior of the people in charge of our safety.
One representative wrote: “We are under no obligation of explaining our decision to you. Goodbye.” Fine, I am taking my bookings with me, and I have already recovered over $12,000 of what they canceled… and counting. I’ll make sure my guests have a fabulous experience. It is surprisingly easy to take my guests back… it must have something to do with Airbnb not being the owners of any property, not being the hosts nor the talent. They have no product. We are the product. Anyways, I will just take my $50,000 in bookings elsewhere… a couple places actually, as a precaution. It’s not good to keep all your eggs in one basket.
My advice to people after this glorious experience is to list your properties on sites other than Airbnb in case you host an extortionist or any other vindictive person. Happy hosting.
I’m a Superhost currently embroiled in a potential extortion . My guest “lost” first key and refuses to return 2nd key. My home security alarm went off last night so the police came. I told them what had happened with the key thing and the best advice they could offer was to rekey my locks. I texted her and said I’d spoken to the police and her response was, “I’ve also spoken to the police and I’ve got my own concerns. I’ll spell them out in an email tomorrow ” It’s been three days since checkout. When she was booking she claimed Airbnb “couldn’t read” her govt ID so I, like an idiot, unchecked the Verified ID Required box for her. Can’t wait to read her email tomorrow and see her “terms”.
I had an extortionist as well. Airbnb manipulated me and told me not to cave and not to give her the money. They told me they had my back. Oh no they did not. They allowed her to give me a bad review even though I recorded the actual unveiled extortion attempt. Then they acted like I was making it up because I got a bad review even though they knew all along what was happening. Suddenly they got amnesia. This company is so corrupt and so illogical. I always take screen shots of all my booking and I right after that I paid $1500 to get on Home Away. I hate airbnb. That was not the last story. It gets worse. It amazes me that they are still in business. I wish I could go direct with all my guests and not have to deal w them, but I am prepared in case the day comes when they do to me what they did to you. I make all my guests buy Property Damage Protection, give me IDs, and sign a contract that says any disputes will be handled by a real arbitrator or judge. I had to deal w a guy named Kevin T. who did not know what there terms of service and guest refund policy said. I recorded the conversation. When I have time, I will put it up on youtube. It will be call something like Airbnb “Arbitrator” and possible high school drop out Kevin T. lies, and steals $1500 dollars from honest Super Host or something like that.
Superhost here as well : worrying to say the least.
It makes you think it’s probably not worth the risk to take on bookings from new guests or those that don’t have good feedbacks, even if this means reducing the income.
On the other hand….I found Airbnb competitors could really boost your bookings BUT I recently cancelled anything but Airbnb as elsewhere there is even less control/no feedback system and I found it’s more likely to receive bookings from guests that do not take good care of your property. I had to claim twice for damage in a small period of time : that’s why I decided to simply just stay with Airbnb.
One more note….Isn’t this a case of one version vs another ? I know for sure (shown on a UK tv program) that in a similar situation Airbnb reacted exactly like that on a very similar complaint.
As a Superhost as well I find this worrying. And really don’t want to multi list. But I may have to.