No Payment Following 12-Day Airbnb Stay in Italy

Having hosted someone from Italy for 12 days in our Australian apartment in January we are still waiting for payment. We received an automated email saying we would be paid on January 23rd. We have been on Airbnb’s books for four years now and have Superhost status. Despite numerous calls to their call centre – the staff of which point blank refuse to pass you on to the management level and if you persist with the request, cut you off – nothing has happened. All they do is pass a so-called ticket to their non-responsive team. Despite many emails to this group no one comes back and now my emails are bouncing back saying they are not deliverable. I wonder what filter they are using to do this? Is it fraud? The work of the FBI or maybe Brian Chesky? On top of this, someone within their organisation has switched my daughter’s bank account details back to those of one that was closed in 2014. So despite receiving money being deposited in 2015 and 2016 now it has been changed back. Hence my use of the word fraud. I can’t help but notice articles in Forbes Magazine where this is now a worldwide issue regarding non-payments and the behaviour of their call centre. It also mentions that the company is worth $25 billion, which clearly adds up to a lot of non-payments. I also noticed that they had a TV ad shown during the Super Bowl. What’s the cost of one of those, three million dollars?

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10 Comments

  1. We have a guest in our primary home- payout should be $9215 to us….it has been 48 hours since we checked them in and to their contract and NO payment initiation to us notification from AirBnB….we get the run around from everybody including he Phillipines call center. This smells like a ponzi scheme of sorts—-they take the guests money when they reserved 2 months ago, and hold it as long as they can…maybe until they get enough funds to payout the next groupof hosts?

  2. As I told Airbnb early on – NO ONE gets into my home until I am PAID IN FULL. And if the money did not arrive 30 days prior – then my caretaker would simply turn any Guests away at the door. Period.

    At first they ‘balked’ at this idea. “This is not how our Platform works” – Well, it’s how MY platform works and if you want MY house in YOUR database – YOU play by MY rules. They finally accepted that (after MANY higher-ups called me repeatedly to negotiate) – I also demanded for the strictest cancellation policy- which they gave me. My bank was then instructed early on that NO debits will be taken from my account without my prior approval (and that is the JOY of working with SMALL banks.)

    This ‘We pay you AFTER a Guest checks in’ is the MOST ludicrous thing I have EVER heard. And I’ve been a landlord & Property Mgmt Company owner
    for 22 yrs – I have heard just about EVERYTHING~

  3. Hi Brian, we commiserate with you as we too have exactly the same situation, Australian apartment, non payment after 2 weeks and airbnb unwilling to escalate to talk to a manager or the finance area “who does not take or make calls”, or the case manager that we apparently have. We are superhosts too. We are pulling our listing down the minute this gets resolved or at the end of our current guests stay whichever comes first. This experience tells me that I cannot trust them if something worse ever happened during a stay. I’m grateful the issue is only money right now and not guest safety. It’s not worth the risk if you cannot trust them to deal with issues properly, efficiently and openly. Back to the property management rental market for us.

  4. Don’t waste another second of your time or thoughts over this Mark Beard guy – he’s a troll either hired by Airbnb or he does it because he has no real life of his own. He made a nasty negative remark on my story posted earlier today also.

  5. Thanks Mel and Chris for your support. Was thinking exactly the same thing with regards Mark Beard…if that is his real name. Why else would you wait on a website like this unless it was to try and counteract what the Company is actually doing. Have just visited the airbnb facebook page in NZ and it is full of people delisting because they havnt received their money for a hosting that has finished.

    • Hello fellow host here.. airbnb are scum aren’t they? (even if they are I still choose to do business with them 😉 for now)

      Here is some suggestions.. obviously it sounds like their computers screwed up somehow.. (cause payments is all automated as you know for 4 years use?) based on them moving you to old bank data..

      1. maybe close your account. (if you can?) and then open a new one if you wish to keep doing business together to ahh at least get paid right?

      2. The only way I’ve ever heard airbnb gives good customer service is when you embarrass them and the platform that embarrasses them is twitter.. (that’s what I heard) 🙂

  6. How rude is this Beardy fella? Seriously, what kind of response is that to what sounds like a genuine issue? Wonder if he works for AirBnB?

  7. If you think it’s foolproof then more fool you. They changed my bank account details to an old closed account (that had been removed from my Payout preferences 2 years ago) then sent the payment. Not me – I hadn’t touched my payout preference. Not paranoia – fact.

  8. I think you are being paranoid. Post back here when you have been paid. Check your bank details on the Airbnb platform. It’s foolproof. If you chop and change default bank accounts to be paid into on various occasions then check which one is still functional and is still valid and set as the default account.

    • AS the article stated WE didnt chop or change the bank account details, Airbnb did. Paranoid???? Have been waiting over 3 weeks for the payment. What do you think is a non paranoid timeframe?

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