airbnb coronavirus cancellation policy class action suit

[Johan75]

Airbnb's decision to fully refund YOUR money to any and all guests is an outrage.  Why do hosts choose different cancellation policies?  to protect our business and income, of course.  So this unilateral action must be illegal and at least, most definitely disloyal to us, the "Partners".   And from my perspective, they took decision without dialogue with us, their "Partners".  So what if we call got together.  It's the hosting version of a labor union.  Us against the tyrants.  Strength in numbers.  

[Anonymous]

@Johan75   Good luck with that. Be sure to read Section 19 of the Terms of Service, which you agree to every time you accept a booking.

19.11 No Class Actions or Representative Proceedings. You and Airbnb acknowledge and agree that, to the fullest extent permitted by law, we are each waiving the right to participate as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class action lawsuit, class-wide arbitration, private attorney general action, or any other representative proceeding as to all Disputes. Further, unless you and Airbnb both otherwise agree in writing, the arbitrator may not consolidate more than one party’s claims and may not otherwise preside over any form of any class or representative proceeding. If the “class action lawsuit” waiver or the “class-wide arbitration” waiver in this Section 19.11 is held unenforceable with respect to any Dispute, then the entirety of the Arbitration Agreement will be deemed void with respect to such Dispute and the Dispute must proceed in court. If the “private attorney general action” waiver or the “representative proceeding” waiver in this Section 19.11 is held unenforceable with respect to any Dispute, those waivers may be severed from this Arbitration Agreement and you and Airbnb agree that any private attorney general claims and representative claims in the Dispute will be severed and stayed, pending the resolution of any arbitrable claims in the Dispute in individual arbitration.

[Johan75]

OK good information.  So then even easier, boycott.  I'm already going to favor BDC in my rates.  I can't rely on airbnb any longer.  If I do it, no one cares.  If many hosts, yes, an impact

[Nicky109]

It doesn't say that we can't take legal action individually though does it?

And I agree the only thing they are likely to take notice of is huge numbers of hosts de-listing.  That may be difficult though as people soon forget.

[Nanxing0]

@Anonymous While I have no interest participating in this class action, they can possibly overrule this term by claiming that Airbnb violated the term of service first so this term should be nullified. I'm not a lawyer so not familiar with that, but I believe it doesn't make sense to follow the term conditions if the other party already breached the contract.

[Anonymous]

@Nanxing0 The terms of service also give Airbnb wide latitude to terminate bookings and entire accounts at will.

[Nanxing0]

@Anonymous They can terminate bookings or account, but they cannot do anything they want. For example, modifying refund policy on existing reservations is at least quesitonable to me. The ToS gives Airbnb a lot of rights but it's certainly not unlimited.

In this case, it's not that Airbnb terminated the bookings. If they did cancel all bookings during this time I guess there's nothing people can say because it's their right. However in most cases it's the guests who wanted to cancel the reservation. Airbnb first did the trick by introducing the feature that guest can submit request to hosts to cancel and full refund, that makes it agreed by host so hosts cannot dispute anymore. However at least now they are not issueing refund automatically if guest do the cancellation. Without host consent they are supposed to follow the host's cancellation policy in the first place. I believe they realized this legal issue at some point that's why the current set up is like this. I have several guests who cancelled in the past week or two where their reservations were covered by the updated EC but I had to manually issue refund for them.

[Christian952]

There is no chance any tribunal (incl. the American Arbitrage Association) would enforceable such clause - it is disproportionately one-sided 

[J-Renato0]

@Anonymous  @Johan75 

I agree with you Andrew, I had read this contract long before corona virus crises.

Even if it was possible, I do not know if it was a good idea to go for class action suit. I think I will move on. However I will have to be cautious of Air BnB and not prioritaze instant booking to ABB anymore. I will use other platforms to get bookings as well in the future.

However, It is important to say that, there are some terms and contracts that can be considered not valid by international courts, foreign countries and even European Union.

The fact is, a contract can never overrule the constitution of a country.

That is why Micro soft  has lost millions of dollar when facing the European Union Court.

I am just leaving this piece of information. However I am out of this.

I think that this type of lawsuit is not viable. It takes so long that it's not worth it. We will lose more time and more money than we can possibly earn. Better to invest our time and hopes for the future than in the past.

[Anonymous]

@J-Renato0 It's true, a contract does not supersede any existing law. I think hosts in many countries would be surprised to learn that Airbnb was actually violating domestic trade laws in their favor when it upheld Strict cancellation policies. 

[Nanxing0]

@J-Renato0 It's not easy to compare those cases though.

As far as I know the class action waiver thing is a debating topic these days. Lots of compaines force their employees to sign the class action waiver to get the job. In 2018 there was a US Supreme court decision that favored the use of such waiver. However on the other hand in 9/20/2019 the US House of Representatives has passed the FAIR Act which aims to nullify the class action waiver, but it's still in discussion by senate. I guess unless the FAIR Act gets passed , the decision in the 2018 case will be always referenced unless there's sufficient reason that Airbnb violated the ToS in the first place.

[Christian952]

Bull **bleep**! For 200 USD you can take Airbnb to the Arbitrage Association of America and seek payment of the payouts Airbnb owes you and should have NOT refunded to Guests. Lawyer will defend you right charging exclusively a sucess fee - you have nothing to loose! Here is one of them:

https://www.traverselegal.com/contact-us-airbnb/#form

[Sheila22]

Just so you are aware many of the commenters here on this forum who are trying to discourage us are actually paid agents by Airbnb.  I know you all suspected it, but it has been confirmed.  I don't really know whether we can or can't do a class action suit based upon Airbnb's policy.  I am not a lawyer, but I am also not a troll on this "community" forum.  I'm a Host just like the rest of the Hosts who are being raped by Airbnb.  We need to support each other and discuss next steps on a different forum.  This forum was good place to start, just in case there was any hope Airbnb might start listening to us.  And it was a good place to get confirmation from other Hosts that this was REALLY happening to us, not just a glitch, and it was going to continue to happen to us.  And it was a good place to start because we found each other!

But now we are get trashed and censored on this forum and Airbnb is NOT listening, so its time to move elsewhere.  I knew this time would come, so I set up a private FB page. It was the quickest and easiest place to set something up.  Here is the link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/861430217655400/

Please know, we have not yet found the silver bullet to fix this situation for us, nor have we decided the exact actions to take against Airbnb, but we are discussing it.  And it is true, we are also sharing our horror stories as Airnb's ever-expanding  EC policy is not yielding and more and more unimaginable things are occurring.  The latest:  Airbnb is cancelling reservations and fully refunding for Guests who are currently in a person's place and who are not leaving -- refunding down to $0.   This is not hypothetical hysteria as the trolls on this forum have described it, it is REALLY HAPPENING!

(P.S.  Trolls is not an insult so don't get offended (you know who you are).  I get that you are doing your job.  It is a commonly used word to describe people who are paid to make a multitude of comments an internet forum. I just want to use a simple word for this that everyone knows and understands.)

Thank you to all the Hosts who are coming together to support each other.

[Helen3]

Hi @Sheila22 

I was shocked by your comment;

"Just so you are aware many of the commenters here on this forum who are trying to discourage us are actually paid agents by Airbnb". 

Who are these many commenters on this forum who are doing so as paid agents of Airbnb. Shocking indeed.

How did you find this out? What sort of evidence have you seen?

[Sheila22]

I don't find it shocking at all.  I expected that was the case.  It was confirmed to me that it is the case with a detailed explanation for why and how it is done  (you can go find that post if you want).  I don't care; it makes sense to me.  It is part of Airbnb's business model and part the business model for the outsourced service providers who Airbnb have enlisted.  It's fine by me.  I don't know why you find it shocking.

But that is not the point.  The point of my post is this: disenfranchised Hosts are coming here thinking their voices are going to be heard by Airbnb, but their voices aren't going to be heard here.  That is now obvious, however these Hosts are being attacked and discouraged when they do come here, so I just wanted to make sure they don't get discouraged by these attacks. 

I wonder why you are even posting on this site that is clearly meant for Hosts who's March, April (and now looks like May too) bookings are being cancelled and fully refunded by Airbnb.  You are not one of those Hosts, but your are hanging around posts that pertain to that specific topic.  Same with Andrew and Branka, as well as several others that are "trolling around" these posts.  You know that expression 'looks like a duck, quacks like a duck...'

If you aren't a troll, that's fine, but you certainly give that impression.   Maybe you should be paid.  But look at this way, you aren't the only person not getting paid by Airbnb when you should be.  I guess we have that in common then.