In the past year I had signed up for using airbnb and had done a very large amount of business with them. ALL transactions were handled in less than 24 hrs, all fees and money handled according to policies and every request airbnb made for any verification, etc was completed in 1-2 business days. ALL feedback was extremely positive from guests. There was no reason for concern whatsoever. Suddenly I noticed that even though my listing was the only one in town my listing would not come up when that town was searched for. Instead the listings from all surrounding towns would show up and my listing would finally come up on about the 3rd or 4th page. I continued to get business so I did not try to address this. Then about a week ago I received an email that I needed to verify my account. So in less than two business days I uploaded my information… They wanted passport or ID and I received a response than my verification was complete. However that same day my account was froze and $4000 of bookings all received cancellation notices from airbnb. They were also told that if they booked with someone else on airbnb they would get an extra 10% refund for staying with airbnb. I can still to this day sign into my account and even message the people that were cancelled however the messages do not get delivered and my listing no longer shows online. After tons of calls to a terrible customer service department one person said Samantha was our airbnb agent and she quit that afternoon. Eventually we were referred to another so called division and Mark and Noah were supposedly working on it and that there were internal troubles that were getting worked out and we would get a response in 24-48 hrs. The 48hrs lapsed and not one contact was made to me. So I started calling again. This time I was told my account was terminated and was given false dates of emails that were supposedly sent but they do not line up chronologically with the sequence of events. I insisted that I be given a reason for termination and airbnb refused to give any explanation. They kept saying you have been terminated and we are no longer going to talk to you. I demanded to talk to a supervisor and was again told “no, your account has been terminated”. I was also given the game of if getting too pushy they put you on hold for a few minutes and then come back, and if you get pushy again they do it again… This is a new trick all customer service departments are turning to. Gone are the days of a company giving any credence to good customer service. I have one guest who stayed the weekend while things were transpiring and airbnb is holding their money and will not release it to me because they say they terminated my account… which according to them did not happen until 5 days later… I have managed to contact some of my cancelled bookings and they are extremely grateful for my efforts and they will never use airbnb again. Some of them use other sites and will not use airbnb again. Ironically a fellow host had an independent review agent who reviews several of these sites stay at their property and is disgusted with what happened. That person is going to try to at least get to the bottom of things. Hopefully that will help get the word out. This has apparently been happening for years with airbnb and one may wonder, with the other legal troubles they are having, what is really going on. My advice is RUN FROM AIRBNB AND TELL EVERYONE!!! This needs to be made known. If there are any efforts to pull together support to do something about this PLEASE let me know. I had a very upstanding cleanly ran relationship going and was terminated with no reason given. Dont think for a minute it had anything to do with the “video verification” they are pushing. Are they steering business? Was I too successful and they shut me down to play favortism? I have no idea, but I know other host accounts that are getting extremely uncomfortable with airbnb and will soon be leaving. That is one way to resolve this… Air their dirty laundry HEAVILY and leave them squandering in their legal issues they are already struggling with.
Maybe they can’t tell you if they cut you loose instead of ratting you out. They would be implicating themselves if they did that. That might be the reason. If I talk to my lawyer, I will ask him, although I think he is a bit sick of all the Airbnb questions.
My lawyer told me that instead of outing airbnb hosts to the powers that be they just cut them lose. For example, if the city government demands to know the names and SSNs of the people doing airbnb, they will cut you lose instead of outing you. Where I live Airbnb is illegal, so maybe that is why, but if that is the reason, I do not see why they can’t tell you.
loose
Correction, it isn’t illegal. It’s illegal to post certain listiings, and landlords who turn their entire buildings into make shift hotels is a big no no. They are really after some little guy trying to make ends meet. It’s not illegal to rent a room in your home if you are there or to rent a place out long term, but short term rentals when you are not there are not ok. Last year, Airbnb, cut loose some of their top earners. Big landlords w a bunch of buildings. Now, you can only have one listing per person.
Thank you Jeremy. I have some stories for you too! See below and that is just the beginning. Do you live in the UK? My extortionist was from the UK. Michelle Lucien aka Michelle Mich or Mish.
I have already started my quest to phase out Airbnb. In the beginning I thought they were this great company who would stand behind what they said, but um…. no…. I quickly found out that this is not the case at all. My first negative experience was when I was contacted by a guest with no photo or profile about renting my apartment. In retrospect, I should have realized the reason for this could be a criminal record. This was about the 5th month that I had been using airbnb. So, she ask ed me if the dates she wanted were available and I told her yes. So, then she tells me, okay my friend is going to contact you with her account. The friend contacts me. Also, no photo, but a photo of something else. I asked her to fill out her profile and put up a photo, but she tells me she is just to busy with work for that. So, I tell her that everyone in her party will have to give me a photo ID. Then she asks me if they have to pay everything up front which for some reason gave me a weird feeling, and I said yes she did. She said she would email the IDs. Then she books and no IDs. She then tells me they will give them to me when they arrive.
When they arrive they tell me that they went on Google Earth and search the area inch by inch to make sure it was safe. Again a strange feeling came over me, and then excuses about giving me the IDs later when the rest of the group arrives.
So, next thing I know I am eating Thanksgiving dinner and I get a call from her with this fake hyperventilating sound asking me if the cleaning lady had keys to the apartment. The answer to that question was no, because the company I was using at that time did not allow the employees to have keys. I am sure she had pulled that scam before because she was shocked when I said no. So, I turn to my friends and I say, this girl is going to ask me for money, I guarantee it. Then after dinner, I call Airbnb to tell them what is going on and they tell me to go over there, but not to give them more than 5 minutes notice and not to go alone. I brought a camera because I was afraid they were going to steal my stuff and I wanted to document the condition of the lock.
I get over there with the handy man from the building down the street in case the lock is broken. Upon arriving I see there has been no damage to the lock, and no evidence of a break in. When I get inside, there are piles of brand new merchandise and at least 10 wigs all over the apartment. At this point, I am really scared they are going to steal my stuff so I take photos of all my things in the apartment while they are boozing it up. Then they tell me their story which changed later, and I say okay lets call the cops so you guys can make an insurance claim(they had said they had travel insurance) suddenly the doom and gloom that had been hanging over their trip since this alleged $650 had gone missing was replaced by optimism that it would turn up. Then I remind them that I need their IDs and they tell me that they have decided not to give them to me.
During the entire time they stayed I keep getting messages from her saying that the missing money has really put a damper on her trip. Which I could already tell meant give me $650 or you are getting a bad review. This was not the only hint foretelling the actual extortion attempt that was coming, but I do not remember all of what she said now.
The first time I went there, I forgot to turn on my tape recorder which had a brand new tape in it, but the second time, I did not and the story of when and how the money went missing was changed. The handy man again was with me and he picked up on this as well. One thing I gotta say is these girls were very charming and impeccably dressed so watch out for the charming con artists.
Anyway, she keeps emailing me with the subtle threats and about how I needed to help them solve the mystery and problem of the missing money, and how this missing money is putting a damper on her “experience in my apartment” I told her that I was not a detective and she needed to call the cops.
The entire time I kept Airbnb apprised of what was going on and they told me not to cave and not to give her the $650. They expressly told me that they had my back. However, later they told me that she had told them that if I did not give her the money she would give me a bad review and they told her that was okay as long as she followed certain guidelines. What? They told her she needed to call the cops and not me about the money. She refused to call them, and then they tell her it is okay to give me a bad review. Way to go Airbnb.
So, then she starts demanding to talk to me in person on the Airbnb message thread. This is when I knew the actual unveiled extortion attempt was coming. One of the days she demanded that I come, I could not come and she became belligerent about it. I told her I would come on check day to assist her in making a police report. I went on check out day and again she refused to make a police report. This time I had my tape recorder with a brand new tape in it going before I even got into the place so I got all of it.
She proceeds to tell me that if I do not give her $650 she will give me a review that will ruin my reputation and destroy my business. Then she goes to lunch after check out time and leaves her friend there who will not pick up her trash. So, I start asking the friend questions which were also recorded. I asked to show me any proof that the money ever existed and she tells me banks in St. Lucia do not give receipts. Okay, how about a receipt from the money exchange here in America. Nope, we would not have kept that. Alright then, no proof this money even existed. So, by this time it is way past check out and the cleaning person is having to clean around this girl and their stuff. The extortionist comes back and I notice that they have not given me both sets of keys back, and I have to run down the stairs with her to make sure she gives me my keys and she starts screaming about Airbnb in the lobby of my building. After she is gone I call airbnb. The rep agrees that the messages leading up to the actual in person extortion attempt already look like extortion, but they cannot listen to the tape because it could have been altered. Really, this girl told your employee that if I did not give her the money she would give me a bad review, and they can’t listen to the tape? Not, to mention it was a brand new tape and could be examined forensically.
After this my BF tells me probably nothing will happen and with the help of an airbnb rep, I decide not to give her a review unless she gave me one and if she did, I will do it at the last minute. I asked the rep when the last minute would be (and this is also in writing) and he tells me 11 am on a certain date. The morning of the date rolls around. I wake up and see she has given me a review, but I cannot see it. So, I quickly write one up and try to post before 11 am, but the system tells me it is too late. Then I see she has given me a pretty debilitating review. She has done this before I am sure. So, I call Airbnb and tell them that the time they told me was incorrect. Well, guess what? They did not care and would not change it, even though the time and date they gave me was in writing. They also would not delete the review even though they were the ones who told me not to cave and not to give her the money. The next guy I appealed to read the messages and said he did not get it and she did not have to call the cops. It was as if he had no idea what had transpired, and did not know that they told me not to cave and not give her the money. It was like he thought I was making the whole thing up because I got a bad review. I would have been better off to give her the $650 and I would have gotten a great review. I lost almost 2 months of business after that. So, the long and the short of it was that they told me not to cave and that they had my back, and it was really all just talk. One hand does not know what the other hand is doing over there.
I was so disgusted I paid $1000 to get on VRBO. So far, I have had no problems with VRBO except their guests book a lot more in advance so it took awhile to start filling my place with their people. I actually have many more horror stories about Airbnb including being lied to over and over again by their employees, and I think their website is messed up and they will not admit it, but this is enough for now. I really cannot wait to completely phase them out.
I’m a journalist, and be interested in hearing from anyone who has had experiences like this. Please email me at airbnb@wagstaff.co
Thanks