I made a big mistake when I used Airbnb. I have had three tenants staying in my apartment for two months. While I know Airbnb is offering a very bad solution and not protecting its hosts when it comes to actual long stays , I took tenants who I made sure needed to leave the apartment within a time frame.
Towards the end of their stay, I was shocked one day to discover by accident that Airbnb cancelled the reservation and refunded the guests $12,000 without contacting me — not a single email. They gave them back the money for their entire stay, despite the fact that they stayed two months without even approaching me.
I went to the apartment to check what was going on, and I was in shock to discover that the tenants were still in the apartment, despite the fact that the reservation has been cancelled a few days ago. They immediately called the police on me and I was kicked out of my own apartment by a team of the police, a complete shock. I contacted Airbnb and have been on the line for hours. Calls are disconnected, transferring me from one representative to another. I realized it is a s%$t show.
Airbnb created basically a situation where I have people using my apartment for two months without paying a dime. I have no protection from this terrible company and I need to take out of my pocket money for lawyers to evict the tenants and rectify this situation.
I’ve just changed my host settings regarding accepting longer term stays. Thanks for the heads-up. And straight to the media if things go awry. Good to know. To date, things have been ok. But judging my the stories on AirbnbHell, I won’t be surprised if that changes.
And that is the conundrum of Airbnb in 4 paragraphs. If hosts only knew how vulnerable they are to professional squatters, credit card scammers etc they would never host on this platform.
The thing is Airbnb has heard every scam in existence but pretends not to, to avoid alarming the host community as a whole. They prefer to act wholly unaware and will gaslight the host completely until you go to the media.
Attorney’s letters, media is the only language they fully understand.