Need Help with Arbitration Against Airbnb

Posted on March 30, 2022

I got kicked off Airbnb on Dec. 22 because a guest who booked with me for a maximum of five people filed a false racism complaint after I asked his group to leave. He showed up with eight carloads of people (at least twenty people and more would have likely come later) and when I went to ask him what he was doing, his videographer told me they were shooting a music video on my property. I said no and made them leave.

I sent videos of all eight vehicles clogging my driveway and some even parked on my lawn. I sent Airbnb videos of the numerous people on my property. I even sent them videos of my interaction with the guest. While I was mad and very stern, nothing I said or did resembled any type of racism.

I started renting a tiny house in my backyard on Airbnb in March 2017. I live here and meet all my guests. In almost five years, I amassed more than 600 five-star reviews, had a 4.99 rating and was a Superhost continuously. I was one month away from getting my “brass key” Superhost award. I had also been offering an “experience” and had 103 five-star reviews on that in about one year’s time. I host every race, creed, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

Airbnb booted me without even letting me know there was a complaint or anything. Not even a heads up or reason. I found out when an upcoming guest asked me why I cancelled her booking. I told her I did not and then when I checked my calendar I found all my future bookings were cancelled and my Airbnb listing and experience listing were permanently paused.

When I reached out to Airbnb I got the runaround many times and finally a representative said “they had a complaint from my guest who I’d asked to leave and I might have said something that was racist.” That was pretty much it.

I started on fairshake.com and Airbnb ignored Fairshake’s contacts and please for resolution. So I’m now going through arbitration alone and really have no idea how to fight Airbnb’s three lawyers.

I made $61,000 on Airbnb in 2021 (with my 1 STR) with 60% occupancy. I’ve asked for compensation of $161 for each day they’ve banned me and asked to be put back on the platform. It totals about $15,000. Airbnb has started out by asking the arbitrator to dismiss the case and give me nothing due to the terms of service I signed when starting to use Airbnb.

I would love to have some advisors on my side if anyone wanted to help.

Airbnb Guest Attacked my Dog, Deleted from Airbnb

Posted on December 17, 2019

I’ve rented a few locations in Prague on Airbnb in the past two years. I had 107 four-star reviews, until a frat group from Israel arrived to get me kicked off the platform. Due to manners I greeted the guests in person at the place. They booked for seven days. I showed them everything.

Within the first five minutes, I got called “ata homo” multiple times which I think is Hebrew for “you f%g”. I’m not the kind of guy who receives much disrespect unless people are of the utterly stupid kind, so I told them in English that I do understand them and they should show some manners. We got along great from that point on. It was fine when they were noisy or caused minor damage. They are young; they lack the respect that comes with responsibility. Not everyone has basic manners that are the basics of my life.

I live in the same district as the Airbnb. One Saturday night I walked my dog, seeing the group in front of the place. I walked by, asked if all was well with them, and if there were any issues. Suddenly one of the guys started to call me a racist (they were all just as white as me), saying that “people like you kill Jews” to which I replied with “my great grandfather actually served at Waffen-SS as a officer but those days are over, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”

This resulted in them leaving to a Vietnamese shop nearby. I was just thinking “holy crap, these f-ing tourists”. Right next to the place is one great Pizza place (and Russian food). I stopped by there, and talked with them for a bit. My dog got free food and some water… all good.

Then I heard a bottle smash into the wall next to me; the frat boys from hell threw it, shouting English and Hebrew gibberish from across the street. I just told them to be quiet – normal people live here too. They crossed the street, and some highly aggressive talking starts from them. I had no idea what was up with them.

One of them kicked my dog who was just standing beside me not giving much a s&%t about whats going on. Like he actually kicked a dog in the chest. I replied “attack” and the dog defended himself by attacking the attacker. What an absolute mess: the pizza place owner came out of his joint and threatened us with the police. The guys tried to hit him and instead earned some fists.

The police arrived, took the guy who attacked my dog to the hospital – he lost two fingers. One other guy had a mildly broken nose, nothing too bad in my opinion. All were arrested but let go the next day. I immediately contacted Airbnb over this incident and wanted them to cancel the stay of these idiots. No. I was supposed to host them a few more days until they left.

Instead, the next morning before they left the police station, I went into the apartment to pack their stuff together. A legal person (a student lawyer of my lawyers) was around to provide “neutral opinion of the situation” so nothing got stolen or anything. I bagged everything and placed it in front of the door.

The place was not really damaged but a lot of the furniture was ruined. The total costs for repairs was 427,000 CZK, almost 20,000 Euro.

The guys arrived, picked up their stuff without any issue, and left to go somewhere else. I wrote them a long one-star rating, which after five days disappeared. Airbnb deleted my account within three days, after some s&%tchat with support over three months. They sent me a letter that I am not allowed to discuss this matter anywhere else.

Now I think I will sue them, because after all, Airbnb is involved in heavy tax avoidance schemes here in Czechia. Hosts never have to pay taxes unless they do so on their own accord. Airbnb never pays taxes to the city around here because hosts are supposed to pay taxes, but Airbnb won’t even forward them to the cities in which they are renting.

Sure, it is an easy way of making money, but the people are deteriorating fast. Other hosts I know of also complain more and more that people are an utter disgrace to society. It makes one wonder: how are we supposed to get a sense of society when scum and scams never get punished?

Locked Out After a Late Arrival at Airbnb

Posted on June 12, 2018

We traveled from Indiana to Iowa for a friend’s wedding that I was the personal attendant for so we were ready for a busy weekend and only planned to use the Airbnb to sleep. The hosts texted us about an ETA and sent a detailed message about wifi and the room, but failed to mention anything about the keys or doors.

The door was unlocked when we got there so we walked in. The hosts were there and were welcoming when showing us the room and bathroom accommodations. We set down our stuff but quickly had to leave for the rehearsal dinner. The host had texted if we had any questions to let her know but I didn’t think to respond since I had a lot on my mind and didn’t have any questions at the moment. We didn’t talk to the hosts much because we wanted our privacy, knew we would be gone most of the weekend, and didn’t really know what the “social rules” of Airbnb were since this was our first trip using the platform.

We arrived back on the first night around 10:30 PM. The door was unlocked but we didn’t see the hosts. We were practically gone the whole entire next day due to the wedding and didn’t arrive back until almost midnight and we found the door was locked. We were exhausted and tried calling the hosts because we didn’t see their car in the driveway. The back door was also locked. Finally, one host answered the door (in his underwear) saying they had fallen asleep.

At this point we were not comfortable staying there since our things were still inside and we were without a place to stay for a while. We had to drive two hours away to find other accommodations around 3:00 AM. The host texted us the next day saying she heard everything turned out okay but I never responded because I wanted to go through Airbnb for a refund. I later messaged the host through the Airbnb Resolution Center to see if I could have a half refund since we only stayed one out of two nights.

She proceeded to say I was extorting money from her, got back late, and that we were unfriendly, racist, and rude. I’m not sure how we could’ve been all those things if we didn’t talk to the hosts much other than to text them about the door being locked multiple times. There also was never a rule saying we had to be back at night at a certain time or keep in constant communication with the hosts. It was a busy weekend and we were just looking for a place to sleep at night.

I have read other reviews of this host where guests said the accommodations were wonderful but the hosts were kind of loud and that was frustrating. The host replied back to this review calling them racists as well. This is slander and defamation of character and a host should not be able to throw that word around lightly.