I rented out a property to somebody whose house burnt down(p...
I rented out a property to somebody whose house burnt down(probably for the same reason, they messed up my house). I specific...
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In another thread a rather sad story has been developing over the past couple of days. This is a long story, I'm cutting it down as good as I can.
Monika in Chile is renting 3 places through airbnb in Chile but she doesn't get paid by airbnb. She started reporting about her problem on sept. 19, adressing @Catherine-Powell , to no avail.
Due to COVID she had to close her places on march 20 and reopened mid of august. Monika did get paid from airbnb untill the end of August, but ever since no payment. Monika says she and her husband have lost their jobs due to COVID, couldn't rent the flats and now she's not reveiving money for the completed stays.
Monika has listet a breakdown of outstanding payments for 19 stays, totalling apprx 2400 USD.
Monika has been calling and writing with airbnb every day but nothing. Unfortenately Monika's financial situation has gotten very difficult so in september she had to ask friends to lend her money to pay her bills. „We have two little kids - we can not sleep at night, worried about how to pay bills and buy food when you keep all payouts for 5 weeks“.
Meanwhile as it looks Monika has maxed out all financial resources:
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„Yesterday we were considering for me to go back to London (Monika lived there for 17 years) to find any job as here will be impossible now. We used the credit card limit and now we have nothing left. …. My 9-year-old girl heard this conversation and cried asking me not to go to London and leave them.
It breaks my heart. Once while talking to airbnb , my girl took the phone and asked them, please pay my mum money“
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„Electricity bills, communal charges bills, internet bills etc etc . why, what we have done, please Airbnb pay us all money, we have nothing now, please“
2 days ago Monika received 72,000 CLS = apprx. 90 USD from airbnb. „At least I could buy some food today“ Monika wrote. But the remaining 2400 USD+ remain unpayed.
As I said this is a pretty long story, for details pls start reading here:
and continue to read there:
The conversation starts on page 10 and continous to page 11.
This is Monika's airbnb profile Picture: Monika , Domingo, Kyara and Maia
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I've been getting real emotional over this story. Obviousely I cannot contribute anything to all these payment details, but I have decided to send 100 Euros = 120 USD to Monika in Chile so she can buy more food for her family. In order to do so, today I have set up a Western Union account for international cash payments.
What I'd like to find out is:
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How hard is it to send Money to Chile in the 21st century?
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My husband has meanwhile picked up his 50 Euros from Western Union.
He drove to the local Western Union branch which is 15 miles from where we live in Germany. On site he had to submit 2 things:
His government ID
the Western Union transaction number
The clerk in the WU branch took this Government ID and put it into a scanner and scanned it. WU now has a copy of his ID on file electronically. He did get the 50 Euros straight, no further deduction was made. Here's the receipt that he got, obviousely I have erased some of the data:
Also I have logged myself into my new Western Union Account. I can see from my computer that the money was picked up and the entire transaction is done.
Western Union also provides a variety of softwarefunktions to make payments on an ongoing basis. I think as a company You could make hundreds or thousands of payments a month without loosing track of one single payment.
What I do not understand is, why isn't airbnb using Western Union, the biggest cash Money transfer company in the world. Instead they have a real human being in the northern part of Chile walk into a drugstore and send money to Monika, obviousely paying in cash using banknotes. Airbnb could do all that from San Francisco online with their computers.
Maybe Western Union is too expensive? I payed 2.50 Euro for a 50 Euro moneytransfer, thats 5%. But the airbnb host fee is only 3%. Perhaps airbnb doesn't want to pay for the extra 2%? I have no idea.
Anyway, I think I am now ready to send 100 Euros / 120 USD to Monika = @Monika-And-Domingo0 .
I will send her an email in a couple of minutes.
cc: @Mary419 @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 @Super47 @Colleen253 (I just tooke CC members from the dropdown menue, it just takes too long to tag everyone.)
This is the receipt for the small payout (about 90 dollars) of the approx 2400 dollars that Monika and Domingo are owed. As you can see, deposited in cash (via same servipag system used for previous deposits since April, that they have in the corner shops) Nothing on it whatsoever to indicate it's an Airbnb payout, or anything to do with Airbnb. Not trackable, not traceable and certainly not ideal when it comes to doing one's accounts, or if the taxman wants to have a look at your financials. Just 3 letters in place of the name of whoever deposited it, and a scribbled, almost illegible phone number
Despite both @Catherine-Powell and the forum moderators regularly responding with lots of jolly little upbeat messages to many other posters on that same thread, Catherine only got around to responding to @Monika-And-Domingo0 on Sept 28th, after Monika had been posting a series of increasingly distraught comments on the thread since Sept 16th.
Catherine urged Monika to contact her if support didn't get things sorted, and promised her that "We will get this resolved". Unfortunately though, Monika's several DMs and emails to both Catherine Powell and Tara Bunch remain unanswered.
@Catherine-Powell - it's now 10 days since you publicly pledged resolution for @Monika-and-Domingo's issues. These lovely people are literally in dire straits because of Airbnb. I implore you -please demonstrate that you are a woman of your word - and not just full of empty platitudes - by doing whatever is necessary to get the family's money to them immediately. Thank you.
