unjustified Immediate listing suspension without warning

[Adam201]

Hi, 

This morning at 07:17 GMT i received an e-mail stating that my listing was being suspended for 30 days following a violation.

The violation was the discovery of the word 'parties' in the 8th paragraph of the description, which has not changed for a out 8 years! For this, all my future bookings have been cancelled. Guests started to e-mail me from 07:24 this morning. 7 hours, 3 long phone calls, 3 unanswered e-mails to a special e-mail address that was given to me by customer support  and several apologetic messages to guest later, I am no further forward. 

This is VERY VERY stressful and I feel that my integrity has been trashed.

I understand that some people have breached COVID rules that have caused some negative press for AirBnB, but to suspend with no warning and a black hole as a means of reply is simply unacceptable.

Has anyone else had the same experience? If so, how did you resolve it?

So much for super host status!

Kind regards,

Adam

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Adam201 Airbnb generally don't like publicity hence why Twitter can be a good approach. They also don't generally like being taken to court. I wonder if you could launch a small claims court case for the lost revenue of your cancelled bookings. I think its all done on line these days in the UK.

I talked to a Telegraph journalist last year - I'll try and find her contact details for you.

[Adam201]

I might just do that?  Guess they would probably spit their dummy out and bar me from the site! 

[Nathalie-Et-Gilles0]

.

[Penny369]

Hello Jay

Exactly the same has happened to us: You will see at the bottom of my complaint, which I had already listed, Airbnb have placed a note saying it is 'Resolved'. It isnt! This is what happened to us:

For several years without incident or complaint we have occasionally hosted small weddings and family celebrations for residential guests at our 5-star AA listed property. We have a lovely riverside location and a small marquee and we are fully insured to do this.

Despite having a strong policy (which is printed in our listing details) regarding noise and outside lighting at night, even insisting on only hand-played non-electronic music, and that all events stop before dark, a person at Airbnb called 'Jay' peremptorily delisted our property for a month under a regulation to do with 'party houses' claiming :

"We have determined they contain advertisement or promotion of unauthorised party or party-friendly space(s)."

This arbitrary behaviour, after years of being a Super host, is extraordinary. We have never held an 'unauthorised party' and would have no benefit from doing so.

This decision was sent to us by e.mail at 08.26 

We wrote to complain immediately - which took a few minutes

At 08.57 Jay wrote back

"We have decided to uphold our original decision and we consider this decision final."

Clearly there is no 'we', this is one person making the decisions.

Apparently it is possible to re-list under Traditional Hospitality - which seems contradictory - but we have no idea how to do this and this option was not put forward to us first.

When we tried to complain about this, we spoke to another Airbnb employee on the telephone and they said they would refer us on to a 'dedicated team' and that they would call me on my mobile. When I checked the e.mail thread several hours later the case was listed as 'closed'. No-one had called on the mobile. We wonder if the case was simply referred back to 'Jay'.

Is anyone else going through this experience? Its definitely a first for us with Airbnb, until now the Customer Service was excellent. And here is the nonsense about this being 'resolved' ....

 Resolved! Go to the Featured Answer.

[Nazim12]

Sorry Jay I inadvertently copied your message and reposted. my apologies.

Apparently it is possible to re-list under Traditional Hospitality - which seems contradictory - but we have no idea how to do this and this option was not put forward to us first.

When we tried to complain about this, we spoke to another Airbnb employee on the telephone and they said they would refer us on to a 'dedicated team' and that they would call me on my mobile. When I checked the e.mail thread several hours later the case was listed as 'closed'. No-one had called on the mobile. We wonder if the case was simply referred back to 'Jay'.

Is anyone else going through this experience? Its definitely a first for us with Airbnb, until now the Customer Service was excellent. And here is the nonsense about this being 'resolved' ....

Hello Jay

Exactly the same has happened to us: You will see at the bottom of my complaint, which I had already listed, Airbnb have placed a note saying it is 'Resolved'. It isnt! This is what happened to us:

For several years without incident or complaint we have occasionally hosted small weddings and family celebrations for residential guests at our 5-star AA listed property. We have a lovely riverside location and a small marquee and we are fully insured to do this.

Despite having a strong policy (which is printed in our listing details) regarding noise and outside lighting at night, even insisting on only hand-played non-electronic music, and that all events stop before dark, a person at Airbnb called 'Jay' peremptorily delisted our property for a month under a regulation to do with 'party houses' claiming :

"We have determined they contain advertisement or promotion of unauthorised party or party-friendly space(s)."

This arbitrary behaviour, after years of being a Super host, is extraordinary. We have never held an 'unauthorised party' and would have no benefit from doing so.

This decision was sent to us by e.mail at 08.26 

We wrote to complain immediately - which took a few minutes

At 08.57 Jay wrote back

"We have decided to uphold our original decision and we consider this decision final."

Clearly there is no 'we', this is one person making the decisions.

Apparently it is possible to re-list under Traditional Hospitality - which seems contradictory - but we have no idea how to do this and this option was not put forward to us first.

When we tried to complain about this, we spoke to another Airbnb employee on the telephone and they said they would refer us on to a 'dedicated team' and that they would call me on my mobile. When I checked the e.mail thread several hours later the case was listed as 'closed'. No-one had called on the mobile. We wonder if the case was simply referred back to 'Jay'.

Is anyone else going through this experience? Its definitely a first for us with Airbnb, until now the Customer Service was excellent. And here is the nonsense about this being 'resolved' ....

[Regina874]

Hey, 

Sorry if I reply to the wrong thing but this is the first time me getting into this community threads. 

I'm a Superhost since 1 year now with good ratings and yesterday my listing got suspended. I didn't get a reason but I didn't get an email either. I tried with messages first as i pay 1$ a minute if i call the CS. No answer, case always got closed within minutes. Then i called and the CS said in their system my listing appears as active they wanted to come back to me soon. Didn't. Another call with the same thing. Now it's been 24 hours, future bookings didn't get cancelled but how are they not able to tell me what is happening. I seem to not have done anything wrong all my reviews from the last month were 5 star so I have no idea..

And even they said they can't see that it is suspended or why, how is this possible and what do i do now, any advice? 

@Quincy 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Regina874 It may be a temporary suspension as you have dropped below a 4.7 star rating. It is a shame that Airbnb is not capable of saying what the problem is. I am afraid you go on my list of Superhosts randomly suspended by Airbnb (usually 1 added per week) and flagged to @Catherine-Powell so that she can continue the fight to treat hosts better.

[Regina874]

If that is the case it's bull**bleep**. I'm still 4.76 overall rating and the recent 3 star rating came with a "great place to stay" review, and a private note that he wanted a place with AC, a thing that is not in my listing.

This is very frustrating as I'm losing a guest for a long stay just now that wanted to book for today but can't.

I've heard that people at least got an email about a suspension but I didn't even get one.

Also the customer support experience is just poor and stressing..

[Bhumika]

Hey @Regina874 ,

We are so sorry to hear about this and the experience you are having. I have reached out to the concerned teams if they can get back to you with any information. I hope you get to hear from them soon!

Can’t find what you’re searching for? start a conversation

[Regina874]

Hey, that's very kind of you.

As of now I've not gotten any email. Called them again earlier and was once again promised that i would get an email with a reason within the next hours, let's see if it's true this time.

As of now i lost 1600$ of people that asked my why they can't book .. 

[Regina874]

Update from my side: my account will be getting deleted without any reason provided to me. I asked for a reason and was told "**.

This was out of nowhere, why and how can they treat super-hosts like that? 

 **[Private conversation removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines]

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Catherine-Powell I assume there is something going on here that justifies Airbnb's action. It is just concerning for hosts that this can happen and they be given no explanation. I know that banks cannot give reasons why accounts are closed as this would, in itself, break the law. Does this apply to Airbnb as well?

[Regina874]

Here in Tanzania 70% of guests ask if they can see the place first before booking. I used to let them see it (but book via Airbnb only) but got a warning for that in January.  After this warning whenever someone asked me i always told them that terms and conditions don't allow me to do it. Some still send their numbers which I ignore. 

This is the only possible reason i can think of, but I still don't get a reason from Airbnb. Even Personal friends that visit me here book the places via airbnb.  Like this how can I defend myself? Shouldn't my version of something be considered as well? 

I got 100% response rate, 0 cancellations and not a single customer was ever unhappy with anything. It's just weird. 

Treatment feels very unfair..