Airbnb Zero Tolerance and Account Suspension

Looking or thinking of setting up Airbnb as a host? You need to be careful, as your account and profile can be deleted within one second by an Airbnb case manager even if a guest lied about you. Thinking of the amount of time, money and resources you have invested in setting up an account as a Airbnb host, you can be taken granted and may not count as a valuable member of the community within a second.

Let me give you an example of my hosting experience as a case study. As a host with over one year’s hosting experience and also a Superhost, I received a call from Airbnb customer service about my availability for hosting a guest at the last minute. Please think twice before you accept any reservation over the phone from Airbnb as your safety and well being is not as important as getting a customer a place to stay.

In my own case, I confirmed the reservation and advised the guest to check in within two hours as I noticed they were already available on standby to check in within ten minutes of booking. After accepting the reservation over the phone, I notified the Airbnb customer service person to confirm the reservation with the guest and make sure the number of people on the reservation was the same at the time of check in. She said yes and also advised me she would inform the guest.

Surprisingly at the time of check in, two guests were booked on the reservation, while four guests showed up. This was not a problem at all, as it could be corrected by the next day. The major problem was as follows.

Within an hour of checking in, three unauthorized men came in and out of the apartment at 15-minute intervals. Within two hours, I was able to count about ten different men coming in and out of the unit. After investigating, it was confirmed that the guests had been using the unit for business with men and also smoking drugs which could easily be smelt in the entire house due to the central heating and cooling system.

Evidence showed all of the above and the case was reported to Airbnb. The guest needed to vacate the unit due to this reason and considering infants were also in the upper unit whose health could have been risked because of the smell and odor of drugs used.

Can you believe that Airbnb suspended my account due to this reason, claiming zero tolerance and health safety issues, while the guest in question still has an active account?

Well, as a host or someone planning to be an Airbnb host in the future, you need to be very careful. You can be treated as a nobody, may not have access to any of your profile information which you have worked hard to build, and may not even be able to use an Airbnb account for any other hosting purposes. If you think you are currently doing good on Airbnb as a host and you want to expand and add more units or spend more to invest on the business based on your current outcome, you need to be careful as you can be taken for granted within seconds.

To my surprise, I do not expect any resolution and treatment from Airbnb, as it was shocking. A guest can ruin you in half a second and nothing will be done to you. I do not see any host protection at all as anything can be said against you and so shall it be via Airbnb.

If you are a host and reading this, you need to ask why you were not considered a part of the community as well, and that there is zero tolerance against the damage of reputation against hosts in their own home. With all this, is it worth having to set up an Airbnb?