finally after losing all my bookings and recovering 75% of them, it was confirmed that the error on my profile of my birth year was the problem. a day later, I happened to check my profile, as the “support” person in the “trust” department told me it was my fault, I made the error, should have been more careful, etc. sure enough – I am still 12 years old in my profile, and it’s locked, and I can’t change it (they have a government i.d. pic so they said they verified and corrected yesterday when they brought the account back up. but, if their internal bots check again, I will be shut down again. the rude attitude that the host is to blame is bad enough, but, i’ve never been asked to verify anything until i was a paying guest for an experience and needed to upload my i.d. it is odd that you cannot correct your own profile, but inexcusable for them to re-make the error and continue to blame the host/guest. i should publish the email exchange here.

just happened to me in the States also. they had my birth year wrong – maybe they blocked because they don’t let twelve-year-olds host, thought i was logging in from a new device, and maybe didn’t like that when a bride wanted to supply her best man’s info for point of contact during the wedding stay, i could not see it in the details, so used the email airbnb supplies to contact her. the person on the tollfree # 1 855 424 7262 pretty much admitted that is a “gotcha” – they assume the worst about their hosts and assume if you contact it is to do an end run round them for bookings. I got a case # and they claim 24-48 hours is appropriate for a case escalated as ‘urgent’.

re blocking accounts en masse, why would they be doing that, I wonder? Their lack of response is certainly bad for your mental health. Someone was telling me their ‘customer service’ seems to have become especially hellish over the last year. I wonder what is behind it all. Are they just deluged with problems/complaints or do they delight in disturbing people?

Airbnb have disabled my account in error four times now. They have disabled and reinstated my account each time when realizing they have made an error. I had a guest checking in tomorrow at 12pm which would finally give me and my family our months income after being severely disrupted by Airbnb’s awful service.They have caused nothing but stress for me and my family when I have made them thousands of dollars of income from mine and my guests service fees over the past 8 months. I was promised for my account to be reviewed within 24 hours. It took: Five phone calls, four twitter messages and three emails for them to unlock my account but not tell me this on the third time. This is really messing with our mental health now. These b*stards need to be taken to court.

I voted with my response review and by blocking my calender. I was penalized for cancelling a booking I was not comfortable with within 12 hours of check in. There was an alert on my listing that I cancelled within 24 hours of check in. They allow the host a place to response and I did by saying that the safety of my property and guests is of the upmost importance to me, blah, blay, blah. I then blocked my calenders and told airbnb that my dates would be blocked until further notice. Despite their boasts of transparency, my review disappeared and I was refunded the $100 they charged me for the cancellation….but of course no reimbursement for the lost bookings. This company is not worth the time, the trouble, the risk. All decisions made are for their benefit when the hosts are bearing the risk.

Thanks Jacqueline, I have just started a very similar experience- only (!) 26 hrs in. I complained about a guest- It’s almost as if they think hosts are the enemy or something! Wouldn’t mind but I have a lot of excellent reviews etc. As you say, there is obviously something wrong somewhere. As with other internet companies, we note to vote with our wallets!

Alexis sounds very uninformed. That is why Alexis well probably never be responsible enough to be a land owner. In fact one of the only paths for working class people to be a land owner is using one of these shared economy jobs/gigs for extra income to afford a mortgage payment. It has to be someone that knows how to work hard, like an airbnb host or cleaner, and not a lazy person with a college degree funded by mom and dad. I know of dozens of young couples that either save more for that down payment, or make things more affordable by hosting an airbnb.

Most of the tax collections issues are a result of the local gov not supporting the shared economy. When a county of city negotiates with AIRbnb to do automatic tax collections, they get taxes AND huge amounts in reduced enforcement costs and collection fees.

Alexis is also clueless about what a residential usage is, and how airbnb guests are not the same category as the commercial retail type walk/drive by traffic at a hotel. The high numbers of occupancy in maybe a hundred plus rooms also have additional egress and safety requirement sdue to being more of a pubic gathering space.