I have had my share of problems with Airbnb as many other Hosts probably know:
awful customer service, guest over-friendly policies, easy refunds for everyone asking, etc..
But today something more serious happened that make me question the honesty and reliability of Airbnb as a platform.
I received a reservation from Airbnb for one of my apartments in Florence from 18/11 to 30/11. Verified profile with already 1 trip on Airbnb.
Guest checked in regularly, no problems at all, until this morning.
I received an email form Alice of the 'support' simply telling me as follows:
**[Private conversation removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines]
I obviously replied asking for an explanation, no one knew anything about it but this Alice, who eventually called me back with such an attitude, simply saying that she could not provide other details, but basically this was my problem now. She asked me to kick the guest out, without knowing the reason, she could not say if there will be any payment, but in the same time warned me to not take payments outside Airbnb...
On top of that Alice opened the calendar risking to take an overbooking while another person is obviously in the apartment.
Now, I have one guest inside the apartment, for some obscure reason I'm supposed to tell him to go away immediately and most likely I won't be paid.
I will have to seek legal advice, but I would like to know if any other hosts had the same experience and any advice is welcome.
My advise to other hosts instead is to use other platforms, reliable and honest, that consider hosts as their partners and guests as mutual customers. Airbnb sees hosts as piggy banks, and guests THEIR customers only. The fact the hosts put their properties and efforts is just a minor detail.
