High time we told the truth about Airbnb by going viral on all social media !

[Malcolm153]

What follows is a series of messages to the Specialist Airbnb Support  that I commenced sending on Tuesday 23rd June and have repeated every day since......with no reply at all from the official Airbnb Specialist Support, which is a total "SCAM" just to make the boys at the top look good to the outside world as they want to float the company and become "MILLIONAIRES" !!! So my advice to all hosts is don't expect to get any sensible assistance  from any aspect of AIRBNB. !

Here goes and judge for yourself.

Messages 1 and 2.

Airbnb prematurely and incorrectly cancelled my booking refrence "HMM328TJN8" notifying me it was due to the UK Covid 19 situation. The booking was not until the 9th July and the UK Government lifted a number of the restictions yesterday thas means Airbnb properties like mine can honour advance bookings for guests to stay from the 4th July and take new bookings for guests to commence staying from this date.
Airbnb were hasty, premature and incorrectly cancelled my booking due to start on the 9th July, you should have either waited until the guests arrival date had passed and was not able to occur due to the Government restrictions or waited until the legal Government position was further clarified nearer the date as it is under constant review by them.This is a major mistake made by Airbnb and its staff acting prematurely and incorrectly.

I wish to make a formal complaint about the premature and incorrect cancellation of my booking refrence "HMM328TJN8" by Airbnb. valued at £3.909.98 being the payment to me from you.
I require a full payment of this sum on the date that I would have expected to receive it , if the booking had gone ahead. This is a major mistake made by Airbnb and its staff acting prematurely and incorrectly.
If you do not accept that you made a mistake and do pay me what is rightfully due to me, then I will need to consider my legal course of action as well as announcing what you have done and how I have been treated on social media. I certainly hope that you take the responsible course of action and learn from this for the future. There is an old saying you would do well to remember..." Act in haste then you repent in laisure " !
Malcolm Chamberlain ( Superhost)

[Malcolm153]

What follows is a series of messages to the Specialist Airbnb Support  that I commenced sending on Tuesday 23rd June and have repeated every day since......with no reply at all from the official Airbnb Specialist Support, which is a total "SCAM" just to make the boys at the top look good to the outside world as they want to float the company and become "MILLIONAIRES" !!! So my advice to all hosts is don't expect to get any sensible assistance  from any aspect of AIRBNB. !

Here goes and judge for yourself.

Messages 1 and 2.

Airbnb prematurely and incorrectly cancelled my booking refrence "HMM328TJN8" notifying me it was due to the UK Covid 19 situation. The booking was not until the 9th July and the UK Government lifted a number of the restictions yesterday thas means Airbnb properties like mine can honour advance bookings for guests to stay from the 4th July and take new bookings for guests to commence staying from this date.
Airbnb were hasty, premature and incorrectly cancelled my booking due to start on the 9th July, you should have either waited until the guests arrival date had passed and was not able to occur due to the Government restrictions or waited until the legal Government position was further clarified nearer the date as it is under constant review by them.This is a major mistake made by Airbnb and its staff acting prematurely and incorrectly.

I wish to make a formal complaint about the premature and incorrect cancellation of my booking refrence "HMM328TJN8" by Airbnb. valued at £3.909.98 being the payment to me from you.
I require a full payment of this sum on the date that I would have expected to receive it , if the booking had gone ahead. This is a major mistake made by Airbnb and its staff acting prematurely and incorrectly.
If you do not accept that you made a mistake and do pay me what is rightfully due to me, then I will need to consider my legal course of action as well as announcing what you have done and how I have been treated on social media. I certainly hope that you take the responsible course of action and learn from this for the future. There is an old saying you would do well to remember..." Act in haste then you repent in laisure " !
Malcolm Chamberlain ( Superhost)

[Sarah977]

@Malcolm153  While you'll get no argument from me re Airbnb's terrible customer service, here's a hint for you. When you write to CS, you need to keep your messages as simple as possible. Long paragraphs will result in a much slower response. Anything they have to try to read through and figure out what you are asking for is likely to go to the bottom of the pile. Demands and threats will also assure a lack of response.

The key to dealing with CS  is patience, persistence and politeness, if you want a good chance of your issue being appropriately addressed.

State your issue in bullet point form, using short sentences, in chronological order of what happened. 

"This is regarding reservation XXXX.

This booking was made on XX with a check-in date of XX.

The booking was cancelled by Airbnb on XX, stated reason COVID.

My area has opened up for bookings on XX, so this booking should not have been cancelled under the COVID EC policy."

And so on. Near the end, state clearly and simply what you are requesting Airbnb to do. Thank them for their time.

I 'm not suggesting this would have gotten you what you want in this circumstance, but it is general advice in dealing with CS if you wish to get a prompt reply and assistance. I'm sure they put the complicated messages, or ones that are more difficult to read on the bottom of the pile and answer the clear ones that state the issue briefly and concisely more quickly.

[Malcolm153]

Hi Sarah,

Thanks and I appreciate your insight, which sounds as though you learnt this the hard way !

I suspect that there are thousands like me out in the big Airbnb world.

[Gordon0]

Like @Sarah977, I won't blow any smoke in terms of Airbnb's customer service, but I fear their legal muscle (and the sharply-worded EC policy) will see you lose before you've begun, @Malcolm153.

What might be happening next week won't really matter, as the decision would have been made when the relaxing of lockdown rules wasn't confirmed and remember, Govt. advice still is to avoid all but crucial travel.

Threats (the saying actually goes; act in haste, repent at leisure) never go down well, and shorter is always smarter. 

While I appreciate you're financially wounded (as many of us are) by C19, please don't let this situation wind you up for the sake of your mental health. 

[Malcolm153]

Hi Gordon,

Your articulate words of wisdom have truly enlightened me.

Was not aware that you had been fully brainwashed into the Airbnb cult !

Hope you do well with their listing and you rteap the rewards that you clearly deserve.

Airbnb's ignorance, rudeness and failure to communicate is clear to most and subjective views ultimately count for nothing.

The facts are the facts :-

1) Reservation calandars are now open in the Uk from the 4th July and have been so since the end of March where we are free to accept new bookings and honour those already booked via the Airbnb website.

2) If you do then Airbnb will cancel them due to their UK policy of the 31st July. They should not blame it on the UK Governemnts lockdown rules. Yes, before you ask, I have this copied and stored ready to use at the right moment from earlier communication wit the Specialist Airbnb Support staff.

3) I have all my messaging communications with Airbnb on saved  transcripts from when they cancelled the booking and gave the reason as  the UK Governments Covid 19 lockdown guidelines. This was of course prior to the UK Governments recent announcement that bookings can resume from the 4th July.

4) Please do not try and tell me that the "Specialist Airbnb Support" is anything but a scam to look good to the outside world.

This is the 1st time I have taken to anything like this and will cease after this having attained the lofty level of a "2".

You obviously spend your days and nights on this hosting chat  preaching the Airbnb gospel to your followers to have reached the lofty level of "10".

Well done.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Malcolm153 

The facts are the facts :-

1) Reservation calandars are now open in the Uk from the 4th July

Few here realise this is all just a rigged game. Airbnb are playing hosts and will just screw you over without properly considering any of 'the facts' but instead try to use their own 'help' pages as the gospel to live by - which are in fact,  the Airbnb interpretation of their own terms and how they would like them to apply. The 'legality' of those is at best - debatable. The numbers of lethargic hosts will outnumber those who will actually do anything about their losses, so the game set by Airbnb is a gamble of hosts' characters.

The only facts which matter in your case are the facts that:

i) Airbnb interfered with your booking contract between yourself and your guest.

ii) by reason of changing their Terms to accommodate THEIR *new* policies, and

iii) Airbnb changed their Terms without informing members by giving the required 30 days notice.

After taking those facts into account - pretty much everything else which has happened is completely irrelevant and insignificant.

Rather than taking individual legal action where you will be arguing *your facts* you should use the Airbnb Arbitration process and argue the failure of Airbnb to uphold the contracts they made between hosts and guests - by invoking a 'changed' Extenuating Circumstances policy of which no notice of change was given.

This is far cheaper and will provide far greater results.

There are various Legal Entities who will assist you in putting your case through the Airbnb Arbitration scheme and guiding you on the legalities. One such company is 'Ten Thousand Hosts dot com' - 10000hosts dot com. Others can be found by searching online.

Every forced cancellation between March 2020 and the future date at which Airbnb refrain from imposing convenient Covid cancellations should not to be looked at as mini-catastrophe's but instead, as great opportunities. Those cancellations made without adherence to your cancellation policy are not just cancellation fee losses, but whole contract losses. There lies a whole different value.

I'm guessing you won't be lethargic over losing money due to your your cancellations, so Good Luck!

[Malcolm153]

Extremely valuable information.

Many thanks for your informed point of view and information as to how and where to proceed.

Losing £4,000 is not to be taken lightly when it was totally ouside my control.

Thanks again.

[Sarah977]

@Malcolm153  Wow, Malcolm, that's a really nasty response to Gordon. He was telling you reality, not defending Airbnb. That's a big difference. There are some things that just aren't worth fighting, when it comes to Airbnb, because all it does is cause the host a great deal of time and frustration, with no acceptable resolution from Airbnb. It's a matter of whether you want to waste your time on something that will go nowhere, or move on. 

Even if you don't like another host's response, we try to stay civil here.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Malcolm153 I am still expecting a September booking to be cancelled by Airbnb. Is this fair? - Probably not BUT there is an argument to be made that as the guests are coming from the USA there may well be issues with them either not being able to travel OR having to quarantine upon arrival which would rather negate the purpose of their visit.

I don't know where your guests were coming from or if they were coming for a specific event that was cancelled so its hard to say if the cancellation was fair.

Just one further point - Posting multiple times on other threads doesn't gain support it just annoys people.

[Helen350]

Spot on! - On all counts, @Mike-And-Jane0 

[Malcolm153]

If I am certain of anything, then Airbnb will certainly monitor what is happening here as it is a free litmus test for them. So if you can not get their attention one way, get it another. Multiple postings get responses from people both positive and negative which is good as it is getting seen with resulting reaction and comments like yours.The booking was made in the UK way back for UK guests. The point is being totally missed here. Since the end of March the reservations calendar has been open to take bookings from the 4th July ! Why ? Hosts are this past week are now allowed to let people stay from that date but if the guest wants to cancel using the Airbnb 31st July date, then they are able to do so without losing any of their money that Airbnb have had  safely closeted away. So Airbnb have created their own perfect reservation / bookings "OXYMORON" !

Ta, Ta everyone.

[Helen350]

WE KNOW @Malcolm153 !

- If you bothered to use the search box, top right, you would have found many posts saying the same....

But think of all the last minute bookings you'll get.... Luxury house with pool on prime seaside location....? - You'll be fully booked!

[Malcolm153]

WOW !!  Didn't realise you were so perceptive and good at getting the point, then avoiding it by  deflect and change the point to something else. You should be a politician !

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Malcolm153 Further to @Gordon0 's input I fear you have very little chance of benefiting from legal action as the property appears to be booked again. A fundamental principle of a claim for damages is that you have to have a demonstrable loss - If the new booking is at a similar price to the old booking you don't seem to have any loss.

Alternatively, if you have now blocked those days then I am afraid you will fall foul of the requirement to mitigate any loss before you claim.

Either way I think its probably time to chill out and not just insult your fellow community centre hosts.

[Malcolm153]

So pleased you read everything carefully and commented with your views. Just a shame you were not looking at the 9th July dates !