Banned from Airbnb over Background Check

Posted on February 27, 2022

I just recently logged onto Airbnb to book a trip to Phoenix with my partner. As soon as I booked the trip and included him on the itinerary, I was locked out of my account. When I told him what happened, he noticed he was locked out of his account also. I kept trying to reset my password, but the screen never refreshed and I continued to stay locked out.

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.

Airbnb Host Account Hacked, Locked Out

Posted on February 18, 2020

I have been successfully renting my lovely townhouse since August 2019. I still love in it but move out approximately two weeks per month to rent it through Airbnb. This has been assisting my income.

Last week I received an email saying the phone number on my account had been changed. I immediately went onto my profile and deleted the new number and changed my password. Since then its been havoc. I was logged out of my account, half my future bookings for my place were cancelled by Airbnb and guests are emailing me asking why their bookings have been cancelled.

I cannot reply to them as I cannot log in. When I receive a reset password link it says it has expired. I have tried to call and email Airbnb so many times with absolutely no success; they do not even bother replying. All I want to do now is delete my account but if I cannot log in I cannot delete it. I have even spoken to an IT expert and asked for help but there is nothing they can do to help me. Only Airbnb can help but they ignore me.

Screwed without Access to Airbnb Account Email

Posted on December 8, 2019

I just experienced a real Airbnb nightmare. It’s actually ongoing and has been painful for 48 hours. Why? Simple: I need access to my account/app. Should be easy, right? I tell you no, it is not.

After damage to our cell phone software we had to reset all the software, meaning we lost all data, pictures etc. Bad enough but it was about to get worse. My bad, I had no backup done sine May and so we lost almost every password. No problem; we could easy reset most of them until we came to the one we use for Airbnb.

We could not get Microsoft to assist as they did not accept we had no details about the mailbox history we only used for Airbnb. However, we wanted to reset the Airbnb app; it can‘t be too hard. Right? Yeah, we thought. That was a bad mistake.

Airbnb offers you one option to reset the account password: email. Only the one email your account is connected with. No other option, no other possible way. There was no way to contact them. I got creative, found some email addresses here and emailed them. I made it urgent, explained everything, gave all relevant details including security check questions and waited for an email back twelve hours later.

The guy asked me for my email address to send me a reset link. Cool, I thought. I gave him the only available address and said thank you. No, he cannot use this address, only the one where the account is registered with is possible. I emailed back asking why he thinks I emailed him if I would be able to reset it myself. Again, I explained the situation hoping he would understand. He did.

He asked me about my phone number, twelve hours later. I gently asked if he was kidding me. All the details were provided in my very first email. I advised them again. I made it urgent, and again sent a copy of my license and a screenshot of my last text message from a guest. I really hoped now he had gotten it. He did not.

Twelve hours later I received a message: he cannot assist me; he can only email to the address I have behind the listing. Now I am at the end of all possible thoughts and do not know what to do. No access to anything, full bookings and no way to contact guests. Incredibly terrible situation. This will potentially cost us a lot of money, stars and reputation. Airbnb does not care. Wrong and newsworthy. Hence I want to share this with you.

Airbnb Took Our Page Down, Cancelled our Reservations

Posted on April 11, 2018

Unbelievable. We have been Superhosts for several years and when my father in law passed away, he had a man running his Airbnb. No problems. Until… we tried to switch him over as the official contact. That’s when things went from bad to worse. We have since been locked out of our account, our customers have been contacted and had their booking cancelled. Without our permission or consent our whole page has been removed from Airbnb.

We are at the end of a full week of trying to resolve this. We have spent hours and hours phoning Airbnb Customer Service. Every time we call, it’s 15 minutes on hold before we speak with someone. The person we get doesn’t know anything about our file, doesn’t have any idea how to help us, apologises profusely, and promises to get a supervisor to call us back, which never happens.

They “accidentally” disconnect from us, and even though they know it will be another 15-minute hold for us to phone them and that we won’t ever speak with the same person again and have no way to reconnect with them, do they call us back? No. Do they have our phone number? Yup. So, we call back again. A full seven hours was spent in this pointless loop Sunday.

My mother-in-law is losing much needed income and has had her reputation destroyed. Our customers have received unauthorized cancellations as close as the day of their planned vacation. How horrible for them. I have now contacted the CEO’s and sincerely hope to get somewhere today. I will repost this accordingly. I’m not happy at all. The competition will come and that old adage “be careful how you treat people on your way up because you don’t know who you will meet on your way down” will come to fruition. They obviously can’t handle the responsibility of no competition.

Can’t Log in After Registering Account with Local SIM Card

Posted on January 1, 2018

I post this as a warning to other people. My complaint is about the absurdity of a travel site requiring a phone number and bank card as a form of ID. On my last trip, which lasted for quite a few weeks, I entered a local SIM card phone number and a travel card as my bank card so that Airbnb-related expenses and messages were dealt with in the country in which I was staying, without the bank and phone expenses with international transactions.

Now I am home. I have ditched the SIM card and the travel card and can’t log in. I phoned Airbnb (can’t get help any other way, as I can’t log in) and they are apparently unable to verify me any other way. I am pretty pissed off as I have a history on that account of where I have stayed. I cannot believe I am the only traveller using Airbnb who uses a local SIM and travel card – both temporary items – and that Airbnb is using these as the only form of verification. The introduction of this verification has occurred in that last couple of months. If you use a temporary SIM card on Airbnb and/or a travel card, remember to change it back at the end of your period overseas or you could lose access to your account.