A family in Chile has got nothing to eat

[Ute42]

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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:

• „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“

• „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:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-Updates/Customer-service-updates-payments-and-more-in-the...

and continue to read there:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-Updates/Customer-service-updates-payments-and-more-in-the...

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:

• How hard is it to send Money to Chile in the 21st century?

[Ute42]

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No good news today.

As I have stated upthread I made a payment of 100 Euros = 120 USD to Monika respectively to her Husband or partner Francisco through Western Union.

Yesterday Western Union cancelled the payment.

As You can see from the screenshot I made a first testpayment of 50 Euros to my husband on oct 5. The status of that payment is „abgeschlossen“ = finalised.

On october 8 I made a payment of 100 Euros to Francisco, Monika's husband or partner, I don't know if they are married. The status of that payment is „storniert“ = cancelled.

I have no idea why this payment got cancelled. Maybe this is an explanation, Monika wrote this on the other thread:

• „Here in Chile if you do pay rent , loan etc they – bank , flat owners , shops put your name with your RUT ID to the system called here DICOM and then your life here is over – anytime you will try to rent , get a loan , first they check if your name is not in DICOM – if you are there – forget to get place, get bank account , loan – you are out. We are now in this danger as we can not pay rent for the place we live and the flats we rent for Airbnb . Not mention to pay bills and basics. „

Perhaps the late payment from airbnb has already tanked their credit rating bc they couldn't pay their bills and now they can't receive money from Western Union. But I don't know, I do not know why this payment didn't go through. My WU dashboard says nothing about it.

Today or tomorrow Monika and Francisco will go to the local Western Union branch and ask why the payment failed.

cc:   @Paul1255 @Super47 @Colleen253 @Monika-And-Domingo0 @Sarah977 @Sharon1014

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 @Heidi588 @Cormac0 @Helen3 @Mary419 @Inna22 @Emilia42 @Emiel1 

[Super47]

 @Ute42

Well that's just sod's law, isn't it? Thankfully, Monika and Domingo (he has two first names, Francisco Domingo, but goes by Domingo for short) have now received or been notified of release of most of their payouts, with just 6 or 7 payouts still to come, but at least they have food and heat now, and their rents are paid. The Western Union closed at lunchtime today, and doesn't open tomorrow so they'll go back on Monday morning to try and find out what the issue is. Really hoping that it's not going to be more bad news for them - they've really had more than anyone's fair share of that in recent times.

I'd previously only seen the written communication between Monika and customer support, and I thought that was just about as surreal as it could get, but I heard some of the recordings of calls for the first time tonight and it's all just way, way beyond crazy. Every call (and I heard four of them, with four different agents) was an exercise in stonewalling and futility, from start to finish. Every one of the agents was utterly clueless - they had no idea what a payment processor even is, they couldn't/wouldn't answer even the simplest of questions, they couldn't/wouldn't escalate to anyone who could actually help (Monika had already been waiting a month for her money at this stage) - all she got was "Someone will call you" over and over again. But the promised calls 'within 24 hrs' never came, of course

The agents dodged her questions, constantly changed track to a completely irrelevant subject, dithered, diverted, obfuscated.. you name it. Anything but help her in any way.

I'd dearly love to put the recordings up here, so everyone could hear the lunacy for themselves, but they'd be removed anyway. It might actually wake people up though to just how truly shambolic and broken the entire system actually is. And how terribly vulnerable and exposed every one of us is, to the tyranny of Airbnb's total and complete control over every penny of our earnings. "Just a platform" Yeah, right.. 

At this point it's not even about whatever convoluted, spaghetti-junction payout routes Airbnb have got going on anymore, nor about whatever shady, cash-totin' 'payout processing' entities they're choosing to 'partner' with this week  - it's about the lies, and the disrespect, and the gross incompetence, and the fobbing hosts off, and the time wasting, and the deliberate obstruction, and the gaslighting. But most of all, its about the barely-hidden contempt and disdain with which this company treat hosts now - an overarching, pervasive attitude of "How dare you complain about your missing payouts that we owe you for nearly two months! Get back in your box and we'll get around to you, whenever we can be bothered. Not really our problem whether or not you and your family have food, light, heat or shelter" 

There are still some hosts who are having a glorious time of it out there - and that's all great. It really is. But as much of a blind eye as some seem determined to turn to all these abuses and injustices being perpetrated daily by Airbnb that are causing so many of our fellow hosts  such misery, hardship and suffering - the truth is, Monika and Domingo's story is the grim reality for countless thousands of hosts worldwide. And if we as a community fail to call out and condemn these systematic abuses - that we all know are going on - then we're not only complicit in the abuse, we're enabling and encouraging Airbnb's unfair, unethical and unconscionable practices to proliferate. 

Staying silent doesn't mean that being shafted and treated like sh*t by Airbnb won't  come to your door..  staying silent  guarantees that sooner rather than later, it will. 

[Sharon1014]

@Super47  @Ute42  It's a mystery to me why ABB even bother throwing money away on this out-sourced CS shambles.    The conversation usually goes like this

Host: I've got a problem, it's "xyz"

CS Rep:  Oh ok, let me see what I can do help you with problem "abc"

Host:  Hang on I just told you the problem was "xyz" why are you talking about "abc"

CS Rep:  Let me just speak with someone else (puts you on hold for 10 mintues)

CS Rep:  OK, I've spoken with someone else and the "abc" problem you have is at your end

Host: Not it's not.  The problem is at your end and it's not "abc", it's "xyz" which is why I can't fix it at my end, you have to fix it

CS Rep: Tell me what the problem is again

Host: The problem is "xyz"

CS Rep: Oh ok, I'll have to open a ticket and have someone call you back

Host: Can't you just fix it, it seems a simple thing?

CS Rep:  No but I'll make sure someone calls you back within 24 hours

Host:  OK 

Nobody calls back.  2 days later you get an email saying your ticket has been closed.  You give up and say a prayer to the IT gods instead.  You figure there's no point calling CS back because a) they never understand the problem from the outset even though you explain in the most simple straight forward terms and b) no-one in CS takes full ownership of resolving an issue.  You just get shunted from pillar to post with different CS reps none of whom have any sense of personal responsibility toward you as a host.

We need a host specific hot line with staff trained in each category and enabled to effect immediate fixes.  A dedicated Host Concierge for each country, fluent in the language, financial and other protocols would be a helpful thing.

[Sarah977]

You're so right and I've been saying for a long time that I just don't see how outsourcing CS to incompetent, uninformed, un-caring reps can possibly be cost effective. In the scenario you wrote above, lets say 20 minutes has been spent on back and forths trying to make a dead simple issue clear to someone who seems to have their ears or brain stuffed with cotton. The rep is getting paid for that time, no matter how paltry their salary is. 

If the rep was knowledgable and helpful, it could be solved in 5 minutes. It would take a quarter of the time to deal with, Airbnb could hire competent staff and train them well, and pay them 4 times what they paid the incompetent staff, with it coming out the same cost in the end and with a problem actually being resolved, and users singing the praises of Airbnb CS instead of being constantly ready to wring their necks and slamming them all over social media.

@Sharon1014 

[Super47]

@Ute42 @Sarah977 @Sharon1014

Here's a bit of insight for you into why customer support at Airbnb is the complete sh*t-show that it is today. Aisling Hassell in a 2018 interview with Voxpro Studios (now Telus Int) waxing lyrical about such topics as how to scale your CX operations while 'staying relevant to each customer', how AI and Machine Learning can 'empower cx agents to deliver even better experiences' and how each host and guest is on a 'Snow White journey' 🙄

(Voxpro is the Cork-based company with call centres in low-wage countries such as Romania and the Philippines, to which Airbnb Customer Support has been outsourced for the last 6 years. The former owner, Slimy Dan Kiely - a buddy of Ms Hassell's - walked away with a reported cool $150 million in his pocket after selling to Telus Int earlier this year. 

Unless you want to die of boredom altogether,  just listen from around 20 minutes in.. 

http://art19.com/shows/telus-international-studios/episodes/17dba4cc-c7e7-423e-88ef-6962c2c565ea 

[Sarah977]

Where I used to live in British Columbia, Canada, the phone company was BC Tel- they had local offices and if you called, you talked to a real person working at a local office. Then they sold out to Telus, and immediately the customer service fell off a cliff, getting someone at a call center in India, whose accent you could barely understand, and who just gave you the run-around. 

A "Snow White journey" ???? WTF is that supposed to mean? It seems like these people never grew up and are stuck in some feel-good happy-ending Disney movie of their own creation and think it's reality.

[Super47]

@Sarah977

Chesky has had an obsession with Disney since boyhood, and it tends to permeate all that he does. Even now that he's a big boy, and pushing 40. Here's an entertaining little vid that makes the "Snow White Journey" crystal clear (or not!)

Joe Gebbia, Airbnb co-founders.. *When we started this process, it took a little explaining (from Brian) to see the parallels between Walt Disney and Snow White and us and the sharing economy... "

One can only imagine it did, Joe..

Watch "How Snow White Helped Airbnb's Mobile Mission" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/nT7Irq8YuSo

[Emilia42]

@Super47 @Sarah977 I just wasted 3 minutes and 41 seconds of my life and I still don't have a clue what the heck is happening in that video!! Jessum, how long do you think it took to create that thing?!

[Sarah977]

Thanks for taking one for the team. I trust you, and now won't bother wasting 3 minutes and 41 seconds of my time. 😜@Emilia42 

[Monika-And-Domingo0]

Dear All,

In few hours ( first in the Monday morning ) we will go to Western Union here in Puerto Varas to investigate the issue. ( well, hope they are open as it will be a bank holiday this Monday). We are now not only chasing for the missing payments ( still in a total of 537. 116 CLP from August bookings and two from September ) but also now investigating the Argenper company which Airbnb is using to send the payment. Argenper to provide us with evidence where the money is coming from demands from us to pay 9 USD $.  We told them to give us all information without even one penny charges otherwise I will go to PDI ( Policía De Investigaciones De Chile ) to investigate those payments. Argenper gets money from Airbnb than they withdraw from their account, take my money ( cash) to Sevipag shop to put the cash deposit to our account. Then employees of Servipag take the proof of the payment to our bank to scan it and attached to our bank statement. But we do not get any indication what the money is for and from who on our bank statements. We can not trace it. This is horrible. Our data is used by god knows how many people and what kind of people ( in Calama, Antofagasta, now Santiago ). Our money is in the mercy of the individuals from Argenper. Airbnb is in breach of my data protection, my chosen method of payments ( bank transfer), etcetera. 

I keep sending over and over the same messages to the payment department? via only available route - Airbnb assistance messaging system. No replies to my latest message for now 5 days. No words can describe what this company and its employees done to us and still doing. 

Monika

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[Sarah977]

It's absolutely outrageous and criminal for some random people at something called Arpenger to have information about your bank account and your data. And then there is yet another entity called Servipag which is also involved? As far as I can see, Airbnb is acting in a highly suspect and criminal way where your payouts are concerned.

I had my wallet stolen here in Mexico about a year ago. The thieves instantly made a charge for about $800 Canadian to the Canadian debit card that was in my wallet, in the three hours that it took for me to get home to call my Canadian bank (a woman had found my wallet, with the debit cards missing and called me, as she saw my important residency cards, etc, strewn around in a parking lot, so I had to spend time arranging to meet with her). The thieves had charged items through some online app called Señor Pago, which when the fraud division of  my bank told me about, I thought they were joking, but it's a real app- all the thieves needed was the card, no password, nothing. I am still trying to deal with the aftermath of that- when I reported the card stolen, that instantly locked me out of my online banking, which has been a huge hassle.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

I don't understand, this payout problem, is it just in Chile or in other countries too=?  Someone mentioned this family is not the only one affected

[Super47]

@Branka-and-Silvia0

No, not just in Chile. Reports of payout issues in Brazil and elsewhere too. And Airbnb themselves have stated that others in Chile have been affected also. 

Shades of the Nov/Dec 2018 Australian payout debacle about this one too, when 23000 hosts were left waiting for payouts towards the end of Q4, some for up to 2 months. Many of the same old excuses Monika has heard, were being dished out then too. 

[Ute42]

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Good and bad news today.

Good: 3 days ago @Monika-And-Domingo0  were notified by airbnb, that they would receive another 700,000 Chile Peso = 875 USD payment by october 14th. Yesterday she told me, she has already received this payment, along with payments for 3 october bookings.

Bad: airbnb still owes Monika 537.116 CLP = 670 USD.

At least there is some movement. I'll keep You posted.

@c:  @Sarah977 @Super47 @Branka-and-Silvia0 @Sharon1014 @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 @Colleen253 @Heidi588 @Cormac0 @Helen3 @Mary419 @Alex893 @Inna22 @Emilia42 @Emiel1 @Paul1255 

[Sarah977]

Thanks for update. Too bad it took a 6 page thread, that you started (since Monika's posts on the other  thread were going nowhere), and other hosts going to bat for her family, to get Airbnb to start paying her out her money. And since they obviously have no problem transferring the money to her account, what's with releasing it in dribs and drabs? They have to check the company bank balance each day to see if they can give hosts the money they are owed so the numbers stay looking good for their IPO?

And what about those bills Monika wasn't able to pay on time? Is Airbnb going to also pay her whatever interest might have been tacked on to those bills by not being able to pay them by the due date?  Haha.

@Ute42