Guest cancelled their long term stay early, but still owes airbnb (and hence me) money. Meanwhile, no one at home at airbnb...

[Dave52]

Guest booked a long term stay, stayed a couple months then cancelled abruptly before their reservation ended, yet owes airbnb (and hence me) money.  The moment the guest canceled, airbnb messaged me "we were unable to collect payment from the guest, no payout will be issued for this canceled reservation".  

Calls to airbnb CS are put on hold and answered "in a few hours" 

Can someone suggest how to reach a case manager at airbnb?  Chat?  Maybe some direct number to call?  Will airbnb continue to pursue this guest for the money owed?  Will the guest be banned from airbnb for non-payment?  Otherwise I'm concerned the guest has no reason to pay what they owe. 

Thanks.

[Carolyn623]

@John52

Hi, Did you get any reply?  I have a similiar situation, my long term guest checked in 4/21 and is still here but no payouts have been deposited into my account. A couple of weeks ago I too received that email from abnb saying they were having payment collection issues.   Fortunately, about a week later I received another email stating the issue was resolved but still no deposits to my account.  I am wondering why was I never notified that a payment was not made at check in or at any of the other dates along the way?  Should I just not do long term?  This is my 1st host experience and it not real positive.  Good luck!

[Dave52]

@Carolyn623  After my experience and you say similar things, I'd recommend keeping a close eye on your deposits when doing LTR with airbnb.  As you say, they don't notify you.  Short term rental is easier to track payments, you get one deposit when the guest checks in, done.  Hope you get all your payments!

[Sarah977]

I don't quite understand why hosts allow a guest to continue to stay if they aren't getting paid. If that happened to me, I'd tell Airbnb I'm booting the guest out if I don't see a payment in my account within 24 hours.

[Dave52]

@Sarah977 My case was a bit different, the guest paid for the first 2 months, no problem, and I was expecting a final payment but they cancelled before it went through.  The problem, they kept my calendar blocked until they cancelled, and according to LTR cancellation policy, they owe for the last 30 days but have not paid it, due to the payment failing.  I think airbnb has some "bugs" in their LTR process, probably due to not focusing on LTR until this thing hit the world.  Also hosts are not privy to the communication between airbnb and the guest which shields us from knowing exactly what is going on during LTR.

[Sarah977]

@Dave52  Thanks for explanation. This has happened to hosts, from my reading on this forum, long before the pandemic. It's more a function of Airbnb's withholding of information and not letting a host know immediately if a payment fails, than not being used to dealing with LTRs. Lots of hosts have been doing Ltrs for a long time.

Personally, If I were going to do them, I wouldn't use Airbnb. I would look for long-term guests in other ways so I could be in control of the money, hold a real security deposit, check out the guest's references, etc.

[Dave52]

@Sarah977 Agree, thank you for your good points.

[Elena87]

@Dave52 

Dave, best to read abb payment terms of service - section 9.2

https://www.airbnb.com/terms/payments_terms#sec201910_9

In brief, if airbnb cannot collect the money, they do not underwrite the payment to you and won't pay you.

Reading section 10 - If Airbnb Payments is unable to collect any amounts you owe under these Payments Terms, Airbnb Payments may engage in collection efforts to recover such amounts from you.

Section 10 gives timescales for payment collection as well - anyway the key phrase is 'may engage' so it would likely be a cost and risk assessment to see if it worthwhile to pursue. If your booking is not high value, it's unlikely to proceed further.

If you are taking on LT guests who book over 30 days in total, you should keep in mind how airbnb handle the payments.

There is no deposit collected from guests, so no wiggle room if a guest can't/won't pay subsequent recurring payments. If a guest doesn't pay, the 30 day paid notice is unenforceable.

[Dave52]

@Elena87 thank you for that.  I wonder if airbnb will charge them the amount due when/if they book another airbnb stay in the future?  Or threaten to remove them from the platform?  This guest is/was an airbnb host also.