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.

I called customer service three times. They kept giving me the runaround and said that someone would contact me in 2-24 hours. This did not happen. By the end of 24 hours, I had read many a forum response about numerous others who were banned permanently from Airbnb. I learned that the best way to get a response was via their social media, so I contacted them on Airbnb Help via Twitter.

Someone responded promptly to let me know that a Support Ambassador would reach out to me via email. Someone from the Trust Team later reached out to inform me that Airbnb could no longer support my account, and that I would not be able to create a new one. Meanwhile, my partner informed me that he received an email from Airbnb’s background check company Inflection that there was a criminal records’ match to his name and account. He was banned because of a conviction from 20 years ago… that he had already recently received a pardon for.

The crazy part is, we have traveled for many years on Airbnb with no problem. It was likely that going through the hard work of obtaining the pardon had triggered a change in his report, which ended up showing up on his Inflection report. I, therefore, was banned by association. I was banned because I booked a trip that included him.

We had not gone on the trip yet, I had simply paid for it and put his name and email down to receive the itinerary. I haven’t so much as missed one single day of school between Kindergarten and 12th grade (I kid you not) and I am now banned permanently from Airbnb.

As I stated before, we have traveled with Airbnb for years and have only received positive reviews on both of our accounts. We are Chicago children’s party entertainers (jugglers, face painters, and balloon twisters) who strive to bring positivity to the children, family, and world around us. Airbnb has allowed us to do this in an affordable fashion. We booked our first ever Airbnb for our first ever gig where my partner married two people as a nonspeaking mime.

It is incredibly disappointing that Airbnb would treat us or any people this way. I keep contacting them on Airbnb Help and have even gone so far as to email Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia personally. My partner has uploaded all of his pardon paperwork onto Inflection. We are both still banned. I am waiting to see if someone else responds about my appeal, but I don’t have high hopes considering all of the things I have read about other people who have been banned for outrageously smaller things.

I would like us all to come together to enact change. It might be easy to ignore a few small voices, but if we speak together as one full voice, perhaps we will be heard. No one should be punished for taking a positive action in their life, and it doesn’t feel right that a periphery person is punished also as collateral. This feels discriminatory.

If I cannot get some movement via this post, I would like to look into contacting the press to share my story. Please reach out to me if you have any contacts or ideas.

The post Banned from Airbnb over Background Check appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

My account was deactivated and I couldn’t figure out why. I only have received good reviews from the places I have stayed at. I called Airbnb’s customer service line and they also could not give me any information. They just stated they would have it escalated and I would receive an email with more information.

When I received the email it was only referring to a past email I had never seen or received. Finally after contacting Airbnb support through Twitter, they were able to get the email I was missing resent to me. It stated:

“We’ve recently completed an evaluation of your Airbnb account, which included a consumer report generated using the Inflection SafeDecision API product offered by Inflection Risk Solutions, LLC. We regret to inform you that Airbnb, Inc. has decided to permanently deactivate your account due, at least in part, to the following information contained in that consumer report: Criminal Records Match.”

Let me be clear: I do not have a criminal record. Never have I even been arrested. Worst I ever got was a speeding ticket and I also got a failure to stop ticket when I was making a right hand turn on red without fully stopping. Nonetheless these tickets are not criminal so how I got deactivated for a criminal record is beyond me. I would be curious if this is an opportunity to see a lawyer about.

The post Airbnb Falsely Accused Me of Having a Criminal Record appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

I recently went on a business trip. My company usually uses Airbnb but we have to use our own account to get reimbursed. This is my first time traveling for this company so I have never used Airbnb before. I went on the app, searched for the perfect spot for three nights and then signed up and completed the reservation. After that I got an email asking for my photo ID, which I sent rather quickly. It seemed like everything was fine.

A day before I was scheduled to leave town and arrive at the host’s place, I got an email stating my account had been permanently deactivated and my reservation cancelled and refunded. Now I was in a bit of a predicament. Sure, my company knows about my criminal history but I still had to contact a supervisor and get approval to use a different OTA to book a hotel. I don’t know who within the company knows about my criminal history, but I know that the supervisor I had to contact did not. The revelation did not sit well with him, but that’s another story.

The embarrassment of having to tell someone (a coworker) I couldn’t use Airbnb was devastating. I find it ridiculous that they can do this. I completely understand that the “hosts” are sometimes renting out their own homes and there is a certain risk that comes with this. But if Airbnb actually did research when a questionable background check presented itself, they would see that they are punishing some people beyond what they should be.

The post Criminal Conviction Ten Years Ago and Still Being Punished appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

I reserved a nice house two months in advance and had everything confirmed with the host. We arrived in the city and while attempting to grab an Uber, I received an email that my account had been deactivated and that a refund had been issued to me (this left us homeless for several hours). The email showed the reason for cancellation was for a criminal records, but I have a clean record.

I attempted to call customer service and was on hold for over 30 minutes just to speak to someone foreign and with virtually no power to do anything. I then reached out to customer service via email. The only response I got was from multiple “ambassadors” saying the same thing: “We have forwarded this to the correct department.”

Later that day I received an email stating they were messaging me in the app but unfortunately I cannot open the app because my account was terminated. This continued for days and I did not hear back from anyone. I simply emailed them one more time to ask if they could temporarily activate my account so I can give them a card to refund the money back onto. There was no answer.

I then took to Facebook to comment on my experience. After maybe 20 minutes, I tried to get back on the page to find out they blocked me from their public page, so they weren’t even visible in a search. Days went by. I still had no response from their team, so I decided to call my bank and initiate a chargeback to reverse the transaction.

This is robbery in plain sight. This company is so arrogant in the way they handle customers. After looking at all the reviews similar to my experience, I will be boycotting Airbnb. I also would like to get together with others to begin putting together a class action lawsuit against them. They messed with the wrong person and I will do everything in my power to deal a devastating blow to them. If interested please comment and we’ll connect.

The post Host Cancelled My Reservation One Hour Before We Arrived appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

Immediate calls to Airbnb Support yielded nothing, as I was informed the decision fell to their “Trust Department,” for whom they not only had no phone number or were able to transfer me to, but indicated would not respond to an email for 2-3 business days. Having no other options, I decided to take the risk of opening the link in this suspicious email. It led to a report of a criminal charge from nearly three years ago in which it stated clearly in its outcome that all charges had been dismissed.

At the end of a two-day wait (Friday evening), I received an email from Airbnb Community Support stating that my Superhost account was removed due to this criminal record, and stated “this is a violation of the Airbnb Community Standards.” However, nowhere in these standards does it state that it is a violation to be charged with a crime. I point this out in an email, stating that any innocent host or guest could potentially be charged with a crime at any point for numerous reasons beyond one’s control, but what matters is a conviction. I asked where in these standards was the “violation” they referred to.

After five days and further loss of income, I got no response and decided to email again. After a day of calls and emails, I received a generic apology for the delay. Shockingly, it also stated, entirely falsely, that “the public records that were used in this determination did not show that the charges were dismissed.” I was asked to provide documentation of this outcome in order to have my account reinstated.

A reply has now been sent, where I’ve highlighted the plainly stated outcome of a “dismissal” within the very same public record which they used against me. While I have ample evidence of my innocence. Not only does it remain to be seen if my Superhost account with its hundreds of glowing reviews will be reinstated, but Airbnb has not refunded the several hundreds of dollars in lost income that they caused.

If there ever was an ‘Airbnb nightmare’ for a host, surely this exemplifies it. That Airbnb does nothing to inform a host of this “random” action is bad enough, but it appears they cannot even bother to review the information their own background check company provides them before or after deciding to take devastating action on it. Their complete lack of lines of communication for hosts and cancelled guests in such a matter is equally inexcusable. I never imagined Airbnb, who has previously provided outstanding customer service, would treat a Superhost with such inflexible negligence.

The post Superhost Account Deactivated Without Reason appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

The first one last week was because they had claimed I did not complete their “account verification” procedures, which I actually had done prior to making the active reservation I had at the time of deactivation. In fact, their app would not allow me to book without completing the account verification. It was simply uploading a picture of my driver’s license.

It took two days of silence before I heard back from them with a very short email stating they made a mistake and my account had been reactivated. The following day, their Love Team (that’s what it’s called), sent me a much nicer email along with a $100 coupon to use in the future for being inconvenienced. That was a nice thing to do as I had not asked for any compensation.

Cut to this week. I had made another reservation for a business trip. Yesterday I got emails from Airbnb stating my account was being permanently deactivated because a background check found a criminal history and my reservation had been canceled.

I was shocked. I have never been arrested in my life, let alone convicted of any crimes. I wondered if speeding tickets could get me kicked off of Airbnb. They had a link to my report from the awful background check company, which I looked at and listed in the report were three speeding tickets, all valid but expunged from my record. And one entry for a robbery committed in Baltimore in 1999 by someone with my same first and last name and birth date.

Keep in mind I have a very common name. This wasn’t me, but now I had to prove it. I have never been in Baltimore. I was living and working in California at the time this happened. But how do you prove you were not in a place on a specific date? Think about that for a minute. It’s not going to be easy proving you were not somewhere 20 years ago.

Luckily my wife had her wits about her (I was livid) and suggested I call the police department in Baltimore and maybe they have a mug shot or something that would show it’s not me. Maybe he’s a different race and the difference would be obvious. Great idea.

I couldn’t reach the police very easily, and so I called the courthouse where it showed he was convicted. A very nice woman answered and when I told her my dilemma she was very understanding and started to look for the record. She first said I think records that old were destroyed, which made my heart sink. Then she said she found it and listed the guy’s height and weight and eye color (different than me) and race, but we are the same race.

And then….his middle name. Bingo. Different middle name. She asked me to wait a couple minutes while she went to the basement to pull the report and then emailed me a full copy of the court record and police report. She was my angel.

I had emailed three executives based on email addresses someone had posted on Google, as well as the Love Team about my plight. I also messaged their Facebook account and opened a complaint with the BBB. I sent the proof showing this person who only matched my first and last name and birthday was not me. It’s appalling that only that level of match is enough to be accused of being a felon.

To my surprise, later that day I received two messages from Airbnb, one on my reinstated account apologizing and offering to help resolve the issue. Another from the Love Team with a similar message. They also reactivated my coupon and upped it to $200. Okay. I had hoped they would have rebooked my reservation and not charged me for it, but wishful thinking.

I don’t know if the amazing Inflection Risk Solutions, LLC background checking company has reviewed my evidence yet. I originally filled out their dispute form saying I wasn’t ever in Baltimore and had never been arrested in my life. That’s really all I could say at the immediate time of the dispute because I hadn’t discovered the irrefutable evidence until later in the day.

I was not allowed to modify my dispute, but I was able to upload documents, which I did and a text file as well explaining the evidence. They have 30 days, according to their response, to get back to me.

I am hoping Airbnb helps to clear the record. I am unsure whether to book again on Airbnb. I know that will surprise people, but I love the app. Their bookings are so much less expensive than VRBO, which I ended up using last week since I didn’t know if I would get my account reinstated. And their review requirements are by far superior.

I won’t use them for the business trip I have coming up because I cannot risk them deactivating me again a few days before the actual trip. I will likely use them for personal trips only. If they do it to me again, I will be done. But ultimately, they did hear me and reinstate me both times, so maybe that’s a little bit of progress.

Communicating with them is rough. Their phone customer service people are completely useless. Only after complaining loudly to the executives and the FB site did I get any results. And I have no idea if any executives actually received or read my emails.

Think hard about what happened to me and if the records for that guy’s arrest and conviction had been destroyed, how would I prove I wasn’t him and in Baltimore in August of 1999, 20 years ago. I don’t keep records that old. It is frightening thinking I would have to prove my innocence when falsely accused of something.

Background checks should never be half-assed and not use something that uniquely identifies someone, like a SSN. This company is making money using what amounts to a scraping algorithm to declare someone a felon. That should be illegal.

The post Account Mistakenly Deactivated Twice in One Week appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

In other words, Airbnb terminated my account because of a family member who has nothing to do with Airbnb. Inflection Risk Solutions, the company Airbnb uses for background checks, said Airbnb is totally out of line for terminating my account for a family member who doesn’t even have an account with Airbnb. Inflection Risk Solutions said Airbnb sent them the wrong information and that they should correct that by sending the right information. They are refusing to do this.

I’ve invested thousands of dollars into my property for an Airbnb account and no one is hearing me. I need help because first of all if you are a business as Airbnb you just can’t run backgrounds on who you feel you want to. Secondly, I don’t have a criminal record so if this is their reason for terminating my account that is false. I was booked six months in advance and now I’m sitting with an empty house making phone calls to Airbnb daily.

The post Account Terminated For Family Connections appeared first on Airbnb Hell.