Has Airbnb Shut Down Phone Support?

[Christopher187]

Maybe this has already been discussed, but I didn't see it posted anywhere here. 

I just tried calling Airbnb to take issue with a cancellation under the new 'agreements don't mean anything' policy.  A pre-recorded message says that Airbnb isn't offering any phone support anymore, due to COVID-19. 

It directed me to use online support, which I understand to mean 'we've automated the ignoring-you process'.  They could at least stop advertising the help numbers on their website.

Sigh...

[Huma0]

@Mark116 

Thank you! Yes, I put all my rooms on spare room dot com today. I do not want more than one, local, working from home, renter during the lock down, but have advertised all three as options so someone can pick one, and specified those clauses.

I have used this website very successfully in the past to find long-term lodgers, before I switched to Airbnb. Normally I am inundated with responses. I don't expect any responses for a while though (also because the renters have to pay to be able to message me in the first week), but let's see what happens.

I think it highly unlikely that the guest I mentioned will keep her booking as, even if her job in London goes ahead, Airbnb has created too many issues now between me and the guest, which was totally avoidable had they been ethical in their practices.

I am also exploring other options, taking a look at Airbnb's competitors, etc, but as I have never used any of them before, I am a bit more cautious about those. Would love to hear some advice from live in hosts that have used any of these platforms that are available in the UK to see how they faired, e.g. booking dot com, homestay dot com etc.

[Sarah977]

So, instead of spending $ hiring more staff and expanding their phone lines at this crucial time to deal with the volume of calls, Airbnb simply shuts the phone lines down. Nice. They're like a spouse who starts an argument, then refuses to engage with their partner when the partner wants to discuss it.

Airbnb just keeps making one bad and irresponsible decision after another. You'd think the outcry over how they have handled this crisis would make them think long and hard about the daily decisions they are making, but they are obviously living in their own little bubble, with their fingers in their ears. 

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

Unfortunately, no amount of outcry from hosts makes a difference to Airbnb. They only react to outcry from guests. Let's see if they will react to a media backlash, which will hopefully happen some day soon...

[Lisa723]

@Christopher187 @Mary419 @Sarah977 @Huma0 @Robin4 

I have had two support request message threads open for three days, about guests not getting refunds they are due, with zero response to either one. So messsaging doesn't seem any more likely to yield results.

[Huma0]

@Lisa723  I have one that's been open for 10 days. Guest has been wrongly refunded accommodation costs (which she agrees to pay as her university is refunding her anyway). I have been waiting for response about the refund. She has been waiting for response about her Airbnb fees. No luck for either of us.

[Huma0]

Actually, Airbnb closed the thread because they said there were two threads open, but the other one was regarding another guest. They are simply not responding in any way about this particular guest, even though I have repeatedly asked them to contact me or her about it.

[Sarah977]

@Lisa723  I'm not surprised. But it beats wasting one's time holding the phone for 3 hours, only to have the call dropped, or being quoted some policy you've already read :-(( 

[Lisa723]

@Sarah977 yes, I opened the messages after calling the superhost line and getting "your estimated wait time is a few hours."

[Florence349]

oh

[Sandra126]

That counts as touching your face, sarah

[Sarah977]

@Sandra126  Like I said, one bad decision after another :-))

[Huma0]

@Sandra126  LOL. Great to see some humour. You really cheered me up. x

[Terrill0]

This is horrifying. We had our rental shut down because of covid. we’ve been waiting for things to clear up so we could feel comfortable hosting again. This situation though has me rethinking opening up again completely. Airbnb’s protection for hosts was questionable before. Phone support has always been MUCH better and faster for me in resolving questions or issues, and it made me feel like I had support from Airbnb...but this is messed up. I have sent two messages to Airbnb in the past 4 days and not even gotten a response. This is nuts....