I want to share my recent experience with Airbnb Where they broke their own terms of service to make people aware how they treat hosts.
I woke up one morning to several messages from Airbnb and calls advising me they canceled an existing booking which was in progress and that I must go to my place and evict my guests or they’ll remove their protection. They cited safety reasons but refused to give me any details citing privacy concerns. I asked if they called the police and told them they had my consent to go to my place with the police. They insisted I had to go there alone. So basically I had to act as a bouncer and a strong man against my guests with zero explanation from Airbnb. I was out of town so I had to pay someone to go there and do all that. The guests told me they had no idea why they were kicked out but left with no issues (thankfully). The next day Airbnb issued the guests a full refund for nights not stayed despite me having a strict cancelation policy and despite cancelation not being caused by me or the guest. They said it didn’t matter and they can do whatever they want.
If you review your terms of service policy, you’ll see they can cancel at any time if they think it’s best. But if you review their guest refund policy it says clearly that Airbnb can only refund for “trip issues” (covered as host failed to provide accommodation or not as advertised) except where guest didn’t cause the problem themselves. Nowhere does the policy give Airbnb absolute power to issue refunds in any circumstances and nowhere does it say they get to take money from the host after causing the cancelation for safety reasons.
So Airbnb decides this guest is unsafe. Makes me act as security and go there personally alone with no details just telling me “we advise you to call 911 if anything happens”. Then the guest asks for a refund and they take the money from me and give it to them. I’m out a 1000 dollars and my bookings aren’t last minute - I’m unlikely to rebook all of the nights.
If they made a mistake with deeming this guest unsafe and canceling her reservation they should bear the costs. Also, this is another lesson - as a host you are always on your own with them. And if they make a mistake you’ll be paying for it, never them. They will just send you messages from “Carrie B” or “Frankie C” saying “this decision is final”.
