Suspended From Hosting After 5 Years, Then Reinstated?

Posted on August 19, 2022

Airbnb notified me that my account was suspended after a criminal record was found on a consumer report. The only criminal record that was on that report was a misdemeanor for writing a $300 bad check in 2012. I reached out to the third party Airbnb used to obtain the report and they instructed me that I had to dispute the suspension with Airbnb.

When I contacted Airbnb they told me I had to dispute the suspension with the third party but then on July 20 Airbnb emailed me and said it was an error on their part and my account was fully reinstated. However, two days later my listings still showed as suspended so I reached out to Airbnb again. They didn’t read my email which contained the previous email from them stating my account was reinstated and instead they just sent back a blanket email again stating that I had to dispute it with the third party.

It is evident that Airbnb is acting as judge, jury, and executioner but their customer service approach of not actually reviewing issues means people wrongfully suspended are permanently banned from the largest short-term rental site in the world. It is a discriminatory practice that creates an underclass of society filled with people who are not a threat to the Airbnb community and have paid their dues to the public. The misdemeanor I had was 10 years ago for $300 (currently in the process of getting it expunged), my wife and I own four properties we purchased just to rent on Airbnb, and I’ve been renting our properties for five years without any issues and without complaint.

My Account was Suspended then Cancelled without Notice

Posted on July 14, 2022

My current Airbnb guest arrived and he wasn’t the person in the profile picture who booked the house. The next day another car pulled up with two extra guests bringing the total to ten people in a three-bedroom house. I complained to the guest who immediately verbally attacked me so suggested he call Airbnb to sort it out and find alternate accommodations for them.

He did ring Airbnb and told them I entered the property illegally, which was untrue. After sending all the information they asked for — including photos of the guests proving the ID was fraudulent — my account was suspended without notice. Tonight my account was cancelled after five years with over 200 five-star reviews and Superhost status. I still do not know why.

The guests are still here but my account is cancelled and Airbnb will not give me any information only that my account is cancelled and I will never be able to open another account again. I had bookings in two properties up until October, all cancelled.

Has anyone else been through this? How did they handle it?

Host Cancelled My Reservation One Hour Before We Arrived

Posted on June 14, 2021

I reserved a nice house two months in advance and had everything confirmed with the host. We arrived in the city and while attempting to grab an Uber, I received an email that my account had been deactivated and that a refund had been issued to me (this left us homeless for several hours). The email showed the reason for cancellation was for a criminal records, but I have a clean record.

I attempted to call customer service and was on hold for over 30 minutes just to speak to someone foreign and with virtually no power to do anything. I then reached out to customer service via email. The only response I got was from multiple “ambassadors” saying the same thing: “We have forwarded this to the correct department.”

Later that day I received an email stating they were messaging me in the app but unfortunately I cannot open the app because my account was terminated. This continued for days and I did not hear back from anyone. I simply emailed them one more time to ask if they could temporarily activate my account so I can give them a card to refund the money back onto. There was no answer.

I then took to Facebook to comment on my experience. After maybe 20 minutes, I tried to get back on the page to find out they blocked me from their public page, so they weren’t even visible in a search. Days went by. I still had no response from their team, so I decided to call my bank and initiate a chargeback to reverse the transaction.

This is robbery in plain sight. This company is so arrogant in the way they handle customers. After looking at all the reviews similar to my experience, I will be boycotting Airbnb. I also would like to get together with others to begin putting together a class action lawsuit against them. They messed with the wrong person and I will do everything in my power to deal a devastating blow to them. If interested please comment and we’ll connect.

Guest Lied, Airbnb Shut Superhost Down

Posted on May 13, 2021

I have been an Airbnb Super host since my first review in 2015. In April, two men checked in saying they were twins in town to meet sisters they had never met. I rent a lower level apartment in my home. Their three-night reservation began with a loud, drunken bash until 3:00 AM that included young women who apparently stayed that night.

The next day I warned them and asked that beer bottles and cigarette butts be removed from the back patio. Strangers began showing up on day two including a man and two young women. A young girl of twelve or younger seemed to be staying in the apartment with one of the men. I spoke with the guests about these issues. That night they were entertaining in the apartment including cooking dinner at 10:30.

When they checked out, I wrote an honest review, but when I read the guest review which was filled with lies, I reported it to Airbnb. Of course, whoever answers the phone has no authority. My next guests came, went, and left glowing 5-star reviews.

A week or so later, I tried to open my account to communicate with an upcoming guest and couldn’t. I called Airbnb, and the people who answered could not help. I called several times and finally learned that Airbnb had cancelled my guest without notifying me and was investigating me for safety issues. I got a threatening email from Airbnb staff who never followed through with contacting me as she said.

I called to question what was happening and got another threatening email from a different Airbnb staff person. It was stressful and chaotic, and later all my reservations were cancelled and my account blocked without any notice. I still do not know which guest said what, I can only assume it was the men who were so disrespectful and lied in their review, who were entertaining underaged girls in my apartment, who left the place a mess including the mattress off the bed, and food in the sink.

I’m wondering how to arbitrate this situation because as a retiree, the income is important, but also, the total disrespect of me as a money-maker for Airbnb is shocking. It seems that hosts, even excellent hosts, are easily disposable.

Politically Motivated Account Suspension from Airbnb?

Posted on January 15, 2021

I just received this cryptic email from Airbnb:

“We’ve determined that your account is affiliated with someone not permitted to be on Airbnb. The types of affiliations we consider to make this determination include things like your location and the email address associated with your Airbnb account. As a result, we have removed your account from Airbnb and you will be unable to use the platform in the future. To protect the privacy of the Airbnb community, we can not provide details about this user’s account eligibility.”

So a phantom is magically associated with me that disqualifies me from the platform. I have paid all fees and have had compliments from hosts for the business given by me and my family members. We have booked multiple times and never left a negative review. No complaints from any host or from Airbnb. Suddenly… complete suspension.

What is this? I suspect it is politically motivated, given the timing of the suspension.

Airbnb Account Suspended Without Notice

Posted on December 29, 2020

We have three different properties and are Superhosts with 250+ reviews. We started on Airbnb three years ago and have added a new property each year. This morning we woke up to guests blowing us up wondering why we cancelled their reservations. We came to find out with our own research that we had been suspended.

Airbnb has not notified us in any was as to why. They just cancelled all our reservations and refunded the money to the guests telling them they need to rebook with someone else. When we called to see what happened we were informed that the trust group who suspended us will reach out to us in the future. They do not know why we were suspended and that our only option is to wait until someone reaches out to us.

They even cancelled and refunded three active reservations, so people are staying in houses for free. Saying I am so frustrated isn’t close to describing what I am going through. Does anyone have any advice on what to do now other than wait until they get back with me?

Airbnb Account Suspended for No Reason

Posted on September 28, 2020

After spending thousands of dollars in Airbnbs in Europe and the U.S. my account has been suspended with no explanation. I have had many positive experiences with Airbnb where I wrote positive reviews for hosts and they in turn wrote positive reviews of me. I tried to get on my account and was asked to upload a photo to match my ID. I did this and after that every time I tried to get on I received messages the Airbnb team was investigating and then subsequently I was suspended. They are supposed to contact me, but I have not heard anything.

This is so weird. You can not contact them over the phone. No telephone numbers are being answered by a live person. This has to be one of the worst customer experiences I’ve ever had… just terrible. I would like to book other vacations, but am unable to for no good reason. I would have been someone who told you the majority of my Airbnb experiences were positive. No more.

My suggestion to readers of this post: if you are looking for accommodations do not look at Airbnb first. Look into the other sites like VRBO and HomeAway.

Airbnb Host Beyond Frustrated with the Company

Posted on March 24, 2020

We have listed our vacation rental on Airbnb for ten years and always had a five-star rating. Recent policy changes seems to be paired with horrible customer service and you cannot get past the person that answers the phone but can never help you. Phone calls are answered by apologetic people who cannot resolve issues nor can they pass you on to someone that can.

Our listing was disabled two weeks ago. It has taken many calls to find a reason with the same answer: that there is a specific department that deals with that and they only communicate via email. Apparently neither they nor you can email them; you have to wait for them to email you and that never happens.

I have repeatedly asked to speak to a supervisor or someone in a position that can help me but they just say they will notify them of my situation. We are a highly popular rental and have lost thousands in recent cancellations due to the pandemic and the lack of being able to get an answer to our issue via a simple email is outrageous and costing us even more as we sit unpunished.

What does it take to get someone at Airbnb to actually help you?

Banned by Airbnb for Fraudulent Activity

Posted on March 23, 2020

I used Airbnb for about five to six months before getting banned for fraudulent activity linked to a reservation. Now because I have not done anything like that, Airbnb would not tell me specifically what activity they are referring to. I’m looking for some assistance on who I can talk because they said that I cannot appeal this matter and it was their final decision.

I have a significant amount of credits — roughly $800 — in my account that I can’t use from previous stays, refunds, and referral credit. For the reservation they said the fraudulent activity was linked to, the host was a very nice guy. I was his first guest and he seemed really excited and happy to have be there. He sent a lot of messages to my Airbnb account. It was mostly greetings like “What’s up?”

Here’s the last email Airbnb sent me in regards to my second attempt requesting for more information on the fraudulent activity they banned me for. They won’t give me anything but a copy and paste of this email which I have already received.

The decision to remove you from the Airbnb community was made after gathering and carefully reviewing all related documentation and communication from the parties involved. We won’t be able to assist you further with any account issues. We’ll contact you if anything changes in the future.

Airbnb Zero Tolerance and Account Suspension

Posted on January 23, 2020

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?