Whenever I transfer funds from my investment account to my checking account, I have access the next business day. Not so with Airbnb. Airbnb does a good job of “playing the float”. Even though they say they will pay hosts the day after the guests arrive, it usually takes several business days to actually receive the money in your account. Airbnb is making a fortune by holding hosts money and investing them for an extra 24-48 hours before release. Most of the times my guests were long gone before I ever saw a penny of my money. I cannot even begin to imagine how much of the hosts’ money Airbnb gets to play with by behaving this way. So yeah, hosts, you’re not only paying Airbnb for the “honor” of doing business with them, you’re also acting as uncompensated lender giving them an interest free loan. One host doesn’t amount to much, but think about hundreds of thousands of hosts acting as “Bank Airbnb”.
Tag Archives: payment
Advice for when your account is hacked
I am yet another host whose AirBnB account was hacked and whose payout was sent to an unknown bank account. My advice to other victims: call every single day until the situation is resolved. Do not rely on email. I did both. No one ever responded to an email and, every time I called, there was something else holding up the investigation process. Here’s the long version:
12/12-called and reported the problem
12/14-called for an update and was told that I had done everything I needed to do and the case was being marked urgent
12/16-called and was told I accidentally hadn’t been sent the email outlining the steps I need to take to start the investigation process (including changing my AirBnB password–this is important for later). Also told to upload a picture of a government-issued ID on my profile. She was going to mark my case as urgent (again, I guess).
12/17- called to make sure I had done everything correctly the day before, and to say that there wasn’t a place to upload my ID, so I had emailed it. Told that everything was done correctly, and the emailed ID was okay.
12/18-called and was told the emailed ID wasn’t okay. They changed my account so I could upload my ID.
12/19-wrote a long email detailing all the calls and emails (I had sent several–no response). Called and asked the representative to read the email and decide what to do next. He told me I needed to change my password. Told him I had, but did it again anyway. Apparently he couldn’t see the change on his end, and this was also holding up the process. As I was on hold I saw that they deleted the false bank account (I had left it on my profile so they could see it), and had paid me the stolen money. I received an email apologizing for the hack, but also saying that it was probably my fault. Apparently I had received a message with a link in it on November 27 and, if I had clicked it, this is how the hackers got into my account. 1) AirBnB hid the link they are referring to so I couldn’t click on it even if I wanted to and 2) I NEVER click on unsolicited links. Ever.
If I hadn’t called daily, I never would have received the email of next steps, found out that there was a problem with my account and uploading the ID, and that they couldn’t see that I had changed my password as per their request. AirBnB would have legitimately thought that I just wasn’t taking the appropriate action.
Call every day. Call every day. CALL EVERY DAY!