Unjust suspension

[Lissette72]

Sorry for the long read, but I’m at a loss for words and could use some reassurance or advice.

We own three homes that used to be managed by a property management company for over a year. They were good for a while and as they grew, their level of service started to drop and it all came to a head when we found out some guests were not happy with both the maintenance and cleanliness of the home (both the property management’s responsibility). We immediately fired them, told them to delete our homes from any booking site they were using, refurbished our houses, and started to self manage.

I personally went to each home, upgraded things, refurbished what needed to be re-done, and I am slowly relisting them with me as the host. Our first property listed has done well and I’m getting 5 star reviews. Our second property, which was listed a month ago, has been slow to book but I’ve been giving it some time. The third property I haven’t listed yet because I’m waiting on photographs since I completely remodeled it.

I thought everything was going fine until this morning I woke up to an email from Airbnb saying that my second house is being removed from the platform because it is a duplicate listing. I called Airbnb and was told that my previous property manager has a listing for this house and that duplicate listings aren’t allowed and that it had been flagged for bad performance. 

I immediately reached out by email to my old property manager and told them that they needed to remove any listing ASAP as I had requested before. They sent me screenshots of the property being unlisted (which is why I couldn’t see them on Airbnb) to which I responded that they needed to be removed not just unlisted. They then supposedly removed my listings all together (something they had said they had done before).

However, Airbnb also claims that there were so many complaints about that listing with our old property manager, that the property has been flagged as a problem. I have zero visibility as to what complaints ever came in because it was under our property managers Airbnb page. We did not have access to it. We were always told that everything was going fine. I did, however, find reviews of people saying that there were issues with cleanliness, maintenance, or the property manager themselves….all reasons why I fired that PM.

I am now managing the houses myself and I’m getting 5 star reviews but airbnb still shut down my second one listings even though I’m a brand new host on the platform and I own the homes. I am in no way linked to our ex property manager. I submitted every possible bit of documentation to Airbnb showing every step of the way, including when I emailed our old property manager to fire them, when I requested for them to shut down any listings on any booking site (back then and again now), list of repairs and updates, etc. My appeal was denied and the reason they are giving me is that the listing has complaints and I’m brand new. They are all the old host. 

What do I do? I see others were able to get this fixed but they don’t say how. 

[Lissette72]

Adding that I see from previous posts that this seems to happen often. I’m looking for those who have gotten it resolved to please tell me what they did and what number or email they used to deal with it. 

[Zheng49]

Seems a little too late now, but looks like the safest thing would be for them to add you as a co-host and you make sure the old listing has no listing issues before you create the duplicate listing. Airbnb actually has no issue with duplicate listing, what it has issue with is duplicate listing of a listing that has a lot of issues. 

This is something you can try for your 3rd home, if it's not too late already. 

Also, I'm not sure I see a lot of others that were able to fix this issue and I'm on these forums almost everyday. And if they are, they probably succeeded with the appeal.

In any case, you can try listing your second house on VRBO instead, and see how that works. Then once you become an established host with a lot of 5 stars reviews (ideally superhost, which you can qualify by the 3rd month if everything goes well), then try the appeal again, if the system allows you to. 

[Lissette72]

I appreciate the feedback and will definitely try other venues but I couldn’t add myself as a co-host as we were not involved in any of the property managements company’s airbnb account nor were we involved in any of the short term rental management. They are a decent sized company with over 100 listings on their airbnb account and personal property website. 

I have indeed since a few people say they are back on the platform after having the same issue. If you search up unjust listing suspension they show up. 

I will keep trying to fix it. Thanks for your help. 

[Lissette72]

Also, Airbnb is actually trying to crack down on duplicate listings as well. They’ve informed me this themselves. 

[Zheng49]

Sorry, I meant duplicate listing but with some things changed. 

For example, one listing with a checkin time of 4pm - 11pm, then another with checkin time of 6pm - 11pm. That should be allowed since there is no way to have different checkin times for different months. 

@Sophia @Quincy @Rebecca 

[Rebecca]

Hi @Zheng49 👋

Thank you so much for the tag here. @Lissette72, I popped you a direct message with some more information. 😊