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.

The post Suspended From Hosting After 5 Years, Then Reinstated? appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

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?

The post My Account was Suspended then Cancelled without Notice appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

I deactivated my account and so obviously stopped getting requests. Then a few months later I started getting requests every day (which is normal when my account is active) For the first few people, I wrote them back and said I’m not sure what is going on, but this is not an active account (no, I had not simply blocked my calendar).

Soon I was frustrated by the constant barrage of requests, but I no longer even have the app on my phone, and had one problem after the next trying to get through to guests on the phone or by text or email: not getting the “code”, getting accidentally cut off, not getting a human, not getting return email. Just one issue after another and I’m busy and feel like they are relying on me to do their work for them.

I let Airbnb know that I have been doing them the courtesy of denying requests, but only for the guest’s sake, and that I am no longer going to continue to do that. They tell me to deactivate my account and I tell them I did that months ago. I requested that a tech person look at the account and tell me how this could have happened. I say that if I deactivate my account, what is to say it won’t suddenly become “active” again, and I’ll have to go through this all over again. They say they are quite literally unable to deactivate my account and that they are going to fine me for the two reservations that have just been auto booked.

I ask them to please scroll through my messages and they will see that I have been trying to make them aware of this problem, and that guests would soon be auto booking, and that I was no longer doing their admin for them and responding to guests on an inactive account.

Finally they refund my “fines” and deactivate my account (after swearing this was impossible many times) when I push for a tech person to please look into what has happened. They have been so capricious, awful, and misinformed, that I was unwilling to deactivate my account for the second time, but they did not back down until I insisted a tech person look into it.

Here is my question though: is it possible that they “accidentally” reactivate well performing accounts in hot markets where they are low on available lodging in hopes that people will just accept the reservations? Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but they have done such shady stuff that I wonder.

The post Deactivated Airbnb Account is Suddenly Activated appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

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.

The post Need Help with Arbitration Against Airbnb appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

I was speaking to a representative when I received a call from them. Now I’m generally suspicious but they were able to tell me the other host’s name and the exact amount I wanted to transfer: basically they had access to the system. They explained that there was a problem with the other host’s account which was why I couldn’t send the money easily. However, I could do it with the assistance of Airbnb. It sounded a little strange and I insisted I wouldn’t do it over the phone, that there must be a financial transaction trail and then he said he would send the request through PayPal from Airbnb.

I logged into PayPal and saw that it was a personal account request and nothing to do with Airbnb, so I said “This isn’t right; I don’t think so” and hung up. I tried to log back in at that point to discover my account no longer existed, completely wiped from Airbnb’s system.

It’s been almost two weeks now. The problem is still not resolved. Airbnb customer help is basically nonexistent. I have been hosting since 2016 (a Superhost with all 5-star reviews) and as recently as the middle of February had someone staying. I have provided reference codes of those stays in order to help them “find” my account which I was able to access from my email but still have had no success.

Either their system has been hacked or they have some very unscrupulous people working for them and they do not do any kind of background checks. I no longer want to even host with this company after this experience as the trust factor has vanished. The client care is completely nonexistent. Most chats through Facebook and the live chat have been with bots. The general public needs to be warned, especially as people are handing over their financial information for bookings.

Someone from the same number called again today pretending to be Airbnb with a baby crying in the background — definitely not a call center. Airbnb has lost my business for good.

The post Airbnb ‘Staff’ Tried to Commit Fraud Around Situation in Ukraine appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

I had a guest damage the washing machine making it completely inoperable. After submitting every single thing required as listed under the reimbursement process on the host damage protection page, I was told that wasn’t enough and they needed a “damage report from a reputable company.” They then told me that the first one submitted wasn’t good enough because it didn’t say with “certainty” how the guest broke it.

It took me almost a month of going through every repair company in the city to find one that was willing to guess with “certainty” how the guest might have broken it. Most companies either told me that wasn’t their job, or they didn’t want to guess in writing due to liability issues with the third parties involved. After getting a sufficient damage report submitted, I was told “we will proceed with the payout.”

“Oh great,” I thought.

Five days later I’m told because the washing machine was ten years old that it has no value and they will pay $0 for its repair or replacement. Why did they jerk me around for a month to get a damage report if they had no intention of paying in the first place? Then said they contacted their supervisor and will pay 20% of the repair.

Basically the fine print under host damage protection means for my listing that, with the exception of the new fridge and hotplate, the guest could destroy every other appliance and piece of furniture in my unit and Aircover would pay me $0 to repair or replace the damaged items because of the “proper deduction for obsolescence and physical depreciation.” This wouldn’t have bothered me so much if they were just honest up front about it, instead of telling hosts lies like “host damage protection covers you if your place or belongings ever get damaged by a guest during an Airbnb stay.”

In Canada I could not find a home insurance company that would cover anything to do with Airbnb. I had an almost impossible time trying to find insurance that would cover just me because of the Airbnb rental under the same roof. I finally did, but they won’t cover anything related to the rental. I foolishly thought that would be fine because Airbnb offers and brags about their “$1M damage protection,” which doesn’t actually exist for hosts.

Lesson learned. I will keep looking to find insurance to cover my listing. In the meantime I’ve taken down my listing and am trying to decide if I even keep using a company like this that lies up front to their hosts. I will probably end up switching to another company that is at least honest up front about what they cover and don’t cover.

The post AirCover: Pretty Webpage, No Substance or Truth appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

I came back two hours later and the lady was extremely drunk in her car. She drank an entire box of wine cooler and appeared to be going through some kind of mental breakdown. Rather than going to her cabin down the hill, she had got a ladder and climbed my fence and ripped off my doorknob, trying to crack open my door, breaking the plywood. She swore at me and told me she had paid to stay in my house.

I told her she had to leave the property as I could not risk her damaging my property further. I assured her I would refund her. It’s a kind of yoga retreat and there is a “no drugs or alcohol” policy. There is a gas stove in the cabin and we are surrounded by world heritage forest — it’s too dangerous to have a drunk or unstable person around.

She became irate and said she was too drunk to drive away and that her dog was lost (we ask people to keep their dogs on leash at all times). I could see she was in crisis so I offered her a cup of tea and to drive her down the road to a free campground with a sleeping bag I would donate… more abuse followed.

I saw that this woman had a knife in her car. I no longer felt safe. The woman refused my help and refused to leave. I was left with no option but to call the police, which I have never done in my life. I went to my neighbour’s and called the police who took 40 minutes to arrive. They were very understanding and did not escalate the situation.

The woman suddenly became very agreeable, although it was clear she was still very drunk. They escorted her to town to sleep it off in her car and they took her keys for the night. I did not press charges as clearly her life was falling apart from her bad decisions.

Now I feel unsafe in my own home, have to change my gate code and buy a new front door. The help Airbnb has offered? A bot with whom I can register my complaint and a threat to my record if I cancel bookings.

The post Guest Turns up Drunk Having Nervous Breakdown appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

I am a Superhost with Airbnb. I had a guest cancel a reservation on me the day before her arrival, by saying she had COVID. I called to see how to proceed from an Airbnb representative. I was told the guest needed to provide medical certification or proof that she indeed had tested positive in order to receive a full refund.

The representative then reached out to the guest and “supposedly” received this proof. He then called me back and told me he had received the required proof. I asked what kind of proof and he told me a certificate showing the proof, although it was in Chinese. I was leery and questioned this “proof”, as he had informed me a certificate with the date and her name along with the positive results was required and he had received such. I then reached out to the guest and asked her to forward to me what she sent to Airbnb, which she did.

I was shocked as she sent a picture of a COVID home kit box, certificate that apparently came in the box (in Chinese) and picture of the actual test: no names, no dates, no medical certification or doctor’s note or proof it was her test result. What she sent was a joke and would not be accepted by any company in the U.S. requiring such. I then reached out to Airbnb again and asked for a supervisor.

I finally received a message from Airbnb three days later saying “I have reviewed their case, we can confirm that the guest submitted valid documentation that verifies that the guest qualify under this policy. ”

I replied and said I was still waiting on a phone call. They then called me that same day. After explaining that I knew exactly what the guest provided as far as “valid documentation” as she had provided the same documentation to me also, and that the guest did not provide valid documentation. Airbnb then went on to tell me that actually no documentation is required and that a person can just say they have COVID and get a full refund and thus the host is basically screwed.

I then told her that two other representatives had said otherwise (and every other representative since has also said) that valid documentation was indeed required. She was supposed to look into it more and get back with me. I sent numerous messages after she did not get back to me: six, to be exact. After she did not get back to me, I called in again and was told the case was closed. It was never resolved. I asked for another supervisor to then call me.

I have called in several times since and have asked for a supervisor to call me back. Each time I am told one would call me back. To date, over a week later, I have still not received a call back from any supervisor. I have spent so much of my time and effort on the phone trying to resolve this or trying to get someone to look into this and call me back. There should be accountability for these employees.

So beware, apparently a person can just call in one day before their check-in and cancel by saying they have COVID and get a full refund. No proof required. No help from Airbnb for its hosts.

The post Can’t Get Airbnb Supervisor or Anyone to Call Me Back appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

I contacted Airbnb four times to get this resolved. They always say, “regular support cannot handle this, it needs to be handled by a special team. I will forward this to them.” Then they close the support ticket. Here’s the furthest I got:

“My department conducts all of its correspondence via email, since we deal with sensitive issues and written documentation of our communication is required. We closed this message thread, and we will answer your request by email. I hope you can understand the need for this caution.”

It’s been two weeks with no reply. I’m a host of three years with 450 reviews and bookings of $60,000 last year, so Airbnb probably makes $15,000 per year with their cut while I do all the work. This is the service and support I get. Screw you Airbnb.

The post Airbnb Shut off Bookings over Local Registration Error appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

We received a booking in December 2020 for check-in on Dec. 25. The guest messaged us a few days before to say that they were nervous to come down as the COVID numbers had been increasing. We offered them a keyless check-in and to keep to all the COVID protocols strictly.

On the day before check-in, they messaged to say someone in their family passed away from COVID and they would not make the booking. Our cancellation policy is 14 days and strict. We offered to move their dates and they agreed. On the 25th, they said they could not make those days either (2 weeks later). So we lost on multiple bookings due to reserving these dates a second time. The guest then requested we refund him in full.

Airbnb got back to me to say that the guest does not qualify for extenuating circumstances after their investigation of the matter. The guest kept harassing us so we refunded him 50% through Airbnb and I notified the support consultant. We got a new booking in December 2021 and Airbnb deducted the full amount of the previous booking off of our payout. After knowing that they said he does not qualify and after knowing that I had also decided to refund him 50% as well.

The guest now ignores my messages requesting my 50% be paid back. Airbnb is pushing me from one consultant to the next on messages. I called them and they have the same story: pushing me from one consultant to the next. They did not notify me until a whole year later once my payout for my recent booking was processed, that they had refunded this guest.

This is daylight robbery and fraud in my opinion. If the guest was refunded, why would they have my account in a negative figure? What if I never got another booking or closed my account? This makes no sense. Someone at their accounts department is highly confused.

The post Airbnb Refunded Guest After Telling Me They were Ineligible for Refund appeared first on Airbnb Hell.