Airbnb completely threw their hosts under a bus regarding Covid-19 - REVIVE

[Dylan-and-Lizette0]

Reviving this thread as it needs to be brought to the attention of everyone within the community and addressed by AirBNB. The thread was closed by @Stephanie in London, GB as she sees the discussion as a violation of the community guidelines, however clearly trying to sweep our testimonies under the rug and censor our opinions.

The original thread is listed here. https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Airbnb-completely-threw-their-hosts-under-a-bus-regardin...

Please feel free to continue the discussion, post your experiences and share how Airbnb completely threw their hosts under a bus regarding Covid-19.

[John1574]

-

@Sheila22 

I'm with you, Shelia.

-

[Karen765]

Air BNB completely destroyed my business. They threw their hosts under a bus without a shadow of doubt followed by their staff..

[Robin4]

@Sheila22 

Working in Airbnb support is infinitely harder than working in a front of house role Sheila.

Everyone who come to Airbnb support has a problem, and most of them are angry! They want their issue resolved to their satisfaction, and many times it is not possible to validate their point of view....they are the problem, not the system. 

It got the better of me in the end, I was getting tired of having my head ripped off, customer after customer all day. One night about 1.50 am I went down to Ade and said...."I am not logging on in the morning, I am beginning to doubt what I am doing".

I tried to tell this community here that if you want a satisfying balanced hearing, there is a right way to deal with support and there is a wrong way and I used some Directly screenshots to illustrate my point. I was informed by Directly management that I had contravened company policy and we went our separate ways.....so ended my role as a support agent. 

I was a good support agent, my satisfaction closure rate was 97%! That meant for every 100 customer tickets I took on, there was only 3 that I had to hit the hotline button and pass on to God and the inner sanctum!

I have learned in life Sheila, that being a conciliator in any situation gets you far further than waving a big verbal stick.

The fact that @Stephanie  @Lizzie @Quincy @Anna @Sergi @Emilie are controlling this Community Centre does not mean they are censoring it out of fear they might loose their jobs and their income. In my support role I had absolutely no consideration as to whether I was stepping on the company's toes....I just told them what the rules were, simple as that.

Sheila, please don't accuse the moderators of acting unethically, I have personally spent time with one of them, and I know unreservedly they are acting in yours and the the CC's best interests!

Lizzie's farewell

Cheers.........Rob

[Stephanie]

Thank you for your kindness @Robin4 ! Can't wait to be where Lizzie's stood (after the baby's born!) 

[Adriano78]

@Robin4 @Dylan-and-Lizette0 disgusting that some people in this CC report me, i just received this e mail

Hello Adriano,

I hope you are well. 

I am reaching out to you as many of your posts have been reported by other users for being repetitive on certain topics and repeated multiple times with the same text and disturbing the flow of conversations. I understand that the current situation regarding the COVID-19 situation is stressful for all of us, but as per our guidelines we kindly ask not to spam the community centre.  We are collecting feedback and will pass this on to Airbnb so please rest assured about that. 

I would appreciate if you would refer to our Community Centre guidelines so that there is no breach of our guidelines in the future https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Community-Center-Updates/Community-Center-Guidelines-Updated/td-.... 

Thank you for your understanding. 

Quincy - Community Manager 

[Robin4]

@Adriano78 

Not quite sure why you have tagged me in that post Adriano, are you perhaps feeling that I may have made some comment to the moderators......If that is the case I can assure you I have not. My only comments will be made here on the various pages.....the moderators know their job, they don't need my help!

Cheers......Rob 

[Adriano78]

i know @Robin4 , i just tagged you to know that community manager sent me this message

[Quincy]

Hello @Adriano78, 

Thank you for highlighting my message. 
 
We do read every post in the CC and it became clear that duplicates of your posts were cropping up frequently across many threads, many appearing off-topic to the original posters content. All our members are entitled to a healthy and constructive experience here on the CC which is why we endeavour to keep content relevant.

Just as an extra note for you moving forward, all users are able to report content should they think it breaches our guidelines so please do feel free to do so next time you see something that fits that criteria.
 
Quincy

[Alison695]

Dear Quincy and all

Thanks for your comments. To try to be helpful, might I suggest that you consider a different moderating policy?

How about marking the post as moderated (offensive / duplicate / etc.) , removing the content of the post but leaving the post’s place, time and community poter’s ID there? That way we can see how much moderating is going on, and if the original poster feels as though they were unfairly moderated, they can always reply and / or post their comment on another suitable thread and let everyone else be the judge.

Please let us know if you are listening that you might consider this idea.

To me and many others it smacks a little too conveniently that you are ‘protecting the community’ when you move and then remove comments which are maybe a bit close to the truth for you as a company.

Ultimately, words are cheap and actions are what count

With respect

Alison

[Gordon0]

I’m a moderator of a 30,000+ group in my day job, @Alison695, and if I had a pound for every time somebody tried to give me advice on how to do it...

Much as you’d like to think it’s easy, it isn’t.

[Irene879]

@Gordon0 

I'd quit my job rather than try to defend the indefensible in the guise of community as these sad moderators are trying to do at the expense of their personal integrity and moral compass.

Some jobs are just not worth it when you learn that your'e working for one of the "Evil Empires". If Airbnb goes down they will go down with it. They are contract workers, hired hands to support the party line of Airbnb. Nice people, I'd suppose, individually, and just doing their jobs, as certain types have claimed down through history. Just following orders. Moderating is a thankless task but working for Airbnb may be beyond the pale.

[Gordon0]

>>these sad moderators<<

Take a look in the mirror, @Irene879, and read those three words words aloud. These people are sons, daughters, friends and loved ones. Consider your moral compass, maybe.   

[Sheila22]

@Robin4   I absolutely appreciate your transparency and your perspective is very authentic and trust me I AM hearing you.  Customer service is clearly an extremely difficult job.  The Hosts' criticisms are of Airbnb, which we feel is behaving unethically.  The Airbnb Community team here is censoring the voices of Hosts who are trying to share stories about what Airbnb has been doing to them, and share information for how to move forward. The censorship is just a fact. You will not be able to change my mind or any of the minds of the Airbnb abused Hosts who have seen and felt the censoring.  I do not in anyway accuse the Airbnb community 'team' of acting unethically.  Everyone hear knows this forum is Airbnb's property and not truly a public forum ipso facto there is no expection of free speech here, so censoring here is NOT unethical, and the people who as part of their job do censor people here are not unethical individuals and are not behaving unethically.  I do not conflate any member of this team with Airbnb itself.  We know it is Airbnb that is unethical.  The fish rots from the head.

[Frank35]

When I first heard that AirBnB is refunding the guest 100% I was seriously impressed. I thought wow, AirBnB must have some sort of insurance, some sort of stashed away super fund to cover this and I was impressed.

Then however, I learned that this is not the case at all. I learned that AirBnB was actually refunding OUR money without even asking.

So how on earth can AirBnB refund money that isn't even theirs to refund? I understand that its a hardship for a traveller, not being refunded (100%). But for us hosts its for than a hardship, its a severe financial problem, at least for people who rely on their income from airbnb.

Here is some math: if there is a group of 10 friends, who booked a place for a weekend for 1.000 EUR and they have to cancel their plans due to the Covid-19 pandemic and they are not refunded at all. Their maximum financial damage per person is 100 EUR, which is annoying but not a real hardship.

The host on the other hand looses 1.000 EUR and yes, this is a hardship and can be very threatening if this continues for much longer. 

I just hope that AirBnB realizes that siding with the travelers does not solve the problem, it creates a very severe problem for a lot of hosts and in the long run undermines the very foundation AirBnB is built on.