Airbnb Unlisted One Of My Listings

[Huseyin14]

Hello, I cannot believe I'm here posting about this at all. 

My newest and best listing got unlisted without my knowledge. No mention from Airbnb whatsoever. The only way I found out it was unlisted was an inquiry I received one day before the unlisting tried to accept the pre approval I sent the following day and messaged me saying, hey I'm trying to accept the pre approval and it's not allowing me to. So I tried to copy my link and send it to the person and that's where I noticed on my calendar that it said it was unlisted. I thought maybe my kids got into my phone and started messing with my listing and tried to list it back and it said to contact Airbnb which is where I realized that Airbnb did this. I contacted them and received a message from a person named ** from the Safety Team and ** said she would call me the following day which she did.

She asked me three questions. If I was aware of any parties that occurred one of my reservations (she mentioned the reservation in the message the day prior as well and I had no issues with that guest. I left her 5 stars and she left me 5 stars as well). I said no. She asked me if I was aware of police being called to the property, I said no. She asked me if I was aware of any neighbors complaining about my property and I said no. She was then ready to hang up on me and I said whoa whoa whoa hold on a second. I got some questions smh. I asked the obvious questions like why did this happen? When will I get my property listed again etc. and she said she couldn't disclose it and it's under investigation. 

I have a Ring doorbell so I watched every single video during that reservation and no loud noise or police came to the house. I then reached out to my neighbor since she's my only neighbor and asked her if possibly she had an issue with my guests and she said absolutely not and said that she would contact me before reaching out to anyone else if something did happen.

I then reached out to the guest and asked her if I did something wrong or if something happened during her reservation that I didn't know about and she told me that the same Trinity reached out to her and asked her the same three questions as well. Like I said I had no issues with this guest and in fact she was a picture perfect guest. Quiet and clean. She asked everyone in her group of 10 if any of them had an issue and they said no. It's been over 4 days now and it's still unlisted and Trinity told me that the investigation would take anywhere from 2-4 days and it's passed that and this is my newest property that I invested all of my money into. 

I can't begin to explain my frustration but more so it's going to affect my income to a scary point because I put everything I had into this house. Maxed out my cards and borrowed money from family members just to go live two months ago and I've been getting excellent reviews and really nice bookings gross income wise. 

I would never jeapordize my account by doing something against the rules so I just do not understand why this happening to me. I also don't understand why I'm relying on one person to handle my case. Why can't I contact someone higher up and how long does an imaginary investigation take? I have Ring camera videos of each time someone got detected in front of the house and that's all the evidence I have that no police ever came to the property. 

I don't know what to do and I need help.

**[Name hidden due to privacy concerns - Community Center Guidelines]

[Fred13]

@Huseyin14  Two reasons (there are others of course) why Airbnb gets unwillingly dragged into these investigations which I am sure they do not relish and they are: guests causing a disturbance (aka 'party' bothering neighbors) and/or the use of cameras (aka guest nervousness).  Someone called your place to their attention, it must be otherwise why would they even be aware of a 'problem'.

Your 'problematic' 3rd place allows 10 people, but I do notice property #2 allows 8 (only 3 bedrooms) for the price range of $59-$84, and that computes to about $10 a person. Great deal indeed, but I wonder if in time it may come to the attention of someone looking for a very  inexpensive place to do hold a party. Just a thought and good luck.

[Huseyin14]

The property im mentioning that is unlisted holds 13 guests and is almost a luxury stay and you can't view it because it's unlisted at the moment. I only have a Ring doorbell as a camera. That is all I have as far as cameras go and I spoke to the guest as I mentioned and she assured me that it wasn't her or her group that complained or filed a complaint because Airbnb Safety Team also reached out to her and asked her if she was aware of any parties and she said no. She left a very nice review and so did I. My rating is a 4.96 on that property with about 28 reviews. 

Also the Safety Team specifically mentioned party and my Ring Doorbell records anytime someone walks in front of the house and I checked each video and no music was to be heard. All you heard was birds and air. They are "investigating" but how can they investigate without asking me more questions? I can send all my Ring doorbell footage. I can also give them my neighbors phone number if it has to get to that point but my point is, how exactly are they "investigating" anything?

[Fred13]

It is a mystery indeed, no doubt. A pity they do not tell you why they are investigating so you do have a starting point.

[Huseyin14]

My starting point was speaking to my neighbor who assured me that it wasn't her who filed a complaint because she said she would call me first if there even was a disturbance which there wasn't. Plus she doesn't even have an Airbnb account. Also, she's my only neighbor. The house on the other side of my property is up for sale and is currently empty.

After I determined it wasn't my neighbor, I reached out to the guest to see if possibly she reported a disturbance even after leaving me a 5 star review and she sent me screenshots of the Safety Team pretty much interrogating her the same way they were me. This is literally a mystery. Absolutely no parties occurred yet it's under investigation for a party. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Huseyin14 Maybe the Realtor of the property for sale reported you as they want you shut down to aid the sale of the house. Stranger things have happened in life.........

[Huseyin14]

I'm cordial with the owner selling the house though and have spoken about possibly partnering up in the future. We are in a gated community that has over 430 properties that are being used as Airbnbs so I doubt it's that but anything is possible like you said because nothing else makes sense.

But let's go with that theory. Let's say someone made a false accusation and reported me, where is the proof? And why is it taking more than 5 days to disprove it?

[Robert6681]

Your content helped me a lot to take my doubts, thank you very much.

**[Link removed due to safety reasons - Community Center Guidelines ]

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Huseyin14 Does the word party appear anywhere in your listing even in a totally different usage of the word?

[Huseyin14]

The only place in my listing that the word "party" is mentioned is in the house rules section where I say "No parties or events allowed". Should I delete it? But even if that's the case, the Safety Team specifically mentioned the reservation I had with a guest in particular who did not have a party. That is the confusing part. If a specific reservation wasn't mentioned, then if might make sense if the computer saw the word party and flagged it. But no. This reservation was specifically mentioned.

[Jenny]

Hi @Huseyin14 

I just wanted to let you know that I've passed all of this over to the team, so that someone can investigate, and hopefully get back to you soon with an update.

It'd be great if you could let us know once you've heard back from the team.

Jenny

[Huseyin14 · Accepted solution]

Thank you Jenny. The listing is active again which is all that I care about but I'm still left with so many questions. How did this even happen? Why would Airbnb unlist my property based on a simple call or complaint without contacting me first? I feel very uncomfortable that my listing can be unlisted without my knowledge for almost a week. So basically if someone really hates or dislikes me, they can just contact Airbnb Neighborhood Support Team and make up lies and Airbnb finds the host guilty until proven innocent smh.

[Priscilla377]

Good for you getting restored! We got unlisted recently as well. Been 2 weeks now…I don’t know if Airbnb is just lazy or whatnot, they receive a complaint because someone didn’t like us, the host, so they just suspended the listing quietly. Instead of proactively trying to resolve the issue, they figure this will sure make you contact them and explain yourselves. Pretty much like the government. But by suspending us, the hater won’t get what they want except we might be hurt financially and perhaps losing our sanity going through this appeal due to the non-transparent process slow response. Maybe that’s what the hater wants, and Airbnb made it easy for that. We are a 5-star listing, not doing anything that hurts anyone. But if you think that we as hosts only pay 3% commission whereas the travelers pay at least 5x what we pay, it all makes sense. In the end, we are just one mere listing of their millions. And this way they could be the white knight to the general public and their shareholders would love to see their stock price goes to the sky. Sorry, we must not be that important. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Huseyin14]

Hopefully a better competitor to Airbnb will emerge so we won't rely so heavily on Airbnb for bookings. We as hosts definitely deserve more respect as any host who cares about the business already goes above and beyond to ensure the guests are happy and enjoying their stay. Airbnb doesn't need to be a white knight as hosts already care about the guests experience. Until Airbnb has a better competitor, this will continue. The guests and hosts should be valued equally because one without the other would mean there would be no such thing as Airbnb in the first place.

[Michael8212]

They just did a similar thing to me. My property has been unlisted for about a month without notice. VRBO messaged me about 3 weeks ago saying they had to unlist it to due to DMCA on resort photos I used... I removed the photos and they relisted it right away.

Not one notification from AirBnb... just a claim that they attempted to email me. They still won't let me relist it.

-Mike