Account settings changed by support staff

[KandT0]

I have learned that Airbnb (customer experience?) support staff believe it's okay to:

• access our account without our permission,
• change settings in our account without our permission,
• access our account and change settings in our account without notifying us in advance, and
• access our account and change settings in our account without notifying us afterwards.

While I would not have an issue with a tech guy accessing my account to investigate an issue, I'm not at ease with the regular support people doing this without us ever knowing they were there. This is especially the case after I discovered our language setting had been altered from where I set it.

Does this action breach Airbnb policy?

[Gerry-And-Rashid0 · Accepted solution]

I am not sure it is always the staff that change things - calendar seems to have a a life of its own and other features too seem to be riddled with bugs..

[KandT0]

This was a little different. While a ticket was in progress, I mentioned I had changed our preferred-language setting back to English after finding it had been changed to Japanese.

I was stunned when the support rep told me casually, in passing, that she had earlier tried changing our language setting. If I hadn't mentioned it, I would never have known.

If it's not a breach of protocol, it should be.

What are their management teaching them?

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

Wow...that's not on.......

[KandT0]

I know what you mean about the calendar too. I switched off smart pricing after I often found prices I'd set manually were being changed.

[Paap0]

Can anybody assist me?

Somebody have turned instant booking on (not me) and I cannot get it off myself !!!

How nice.

I cannot figure out the reaon. You can imagine confusion with guests arriving after payment while we are fully booked and cannot do anything.

Also it is not possible to cancel anymore.

I even cannot find some Airbnb contact email to address the issue. How to let them know that this instant booking setting must be canceled ASAP? I am not going to waste my money on long distance calls to other side of the earth.

Besides I don't know how to manage refund to customer. I would like to do this immediately but this should be done through Airbnb as well.

If such mess cannot be solved fast, it will be easier to stick with other companies (booking.com etc.)

[KandT0]

You're off topic here, Paap, but I think I can give answers for at least some of your concerns.

Even with instant booking enabled, guests cannot reserve days that are already reserved on a listing, so you can't get double booked that way.

To contact support by email, go to https://www.airbnb.com/help/contact_us , scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the link 'my question is about something else'. Then there are more options to get you where you can open a support ticket.

And then here are your numbers for urgent phone support: +1-415-800-5959  +1-855-424-7262 (toll-free) -- Those are buried on the site, so you need to dig for them. The latter number is US toll free, so you can call it free from anywhere if you use Skype.

To refund reserved guests, you can use the cancel/change link/button that appears in various pages related to the reservations.

I hope it helps.

[David6]

If a ticket was in progress, then assume support staff would be looking at your account? But with so many hosts cannot see how or why support team would have time or need to randomly access accounts, sure they do for quality control etc, but personally I have no issue with that. Everything is totally transparent that we do on this platform so again personally does not concern me. 

[KandT0]

David,

Did you see this part of my original post?:  "While I would not have an issue with a tech guy accessing my account to investigate an issue, I'm not at ease with the regular support people doing this without us ever knowing they were there. This is especially the case after I discovered our language setting had been altered from where I set it."

My main concern is that inexperienced CS reps randomly accessing clients' accounts and changing settings without authorization, notice, or notification is commonplace and deemed acceptable. Clearly it is not acceptable, and they need guidance from their management.

What I am trying to establish now is whether it is in breach of Airbnb policy. I'd be grateful for any leads or contact info that would help me direct that question to management.