AirBnb has still not paid me for a guest that checked out 7 weeks ago

[Kelsey166]

Can anyone help advise on what I should do from here?  I have not been paid out on a 5 day reservation from nearly two months ago.  This was an Airbnb glitch which they have admitted, but I'm getting nowhere with customer service on when I will get my payout.  They all say engineers are working on it and there is no estimate on when payment will be released.  Has anyone filed a small claim w/ airbnb?  I'm very annoyed with the lack of communication. 

[Maia29]

Call Airbnb within San Francisco’s normal businesss hours and request to have your case escalated. +1 (415) 800-5959

[Susan17]

@Maia29 

There are countless numbers of hosts worldwide calling Airbnb - including Airbnb SF - all day, every day, for the past several months in relation to this latest round of delayed/missing/withheld payments. All being fobbed off with one ridiculous excuse after another - from "Oh nothing to do with us - it's your banks/card issuers/own fault", to "Oh it's just another months-long Airbnb "glitch", and it'll be fixed whenever we say it's fixed" All being deprived of (and forced to battle/plead with Airbnb for) substantial amounts of income they've earned - and which rightfully belongs to them - for sustained, and totally unacceptable, periods of time. 

This has gone way, way  beyond the occasional error, and the widespread payment withholding is clearly systemic at this point. Phone calls should definitely be made, but not to Airbnb - who have proven time and again that they're singularly unwilling to fix this issue - but to ombudsmen, financial regulators, small business bureaux, consumer authorities and the media. Only then might Airbnb desist from misappropriating money (be it through negligence, rank incompetence or other more nefarious purposes), that thousands of hosts are depending on to pay their bills and feed their families.

[Maia29]

@Susan17  I suggest hosts that are missing payments to direct message Airbnb on Twitter. Airbnb receives the funds at the time of booking; what is the issue with releasing said funds in a timely manner? Keep calling, keep emailing.

[Susan17]

@Maia29 

There are countless threads on this forum alone, with thousands of posts from distraught hosts whose payouts have been delayed/missing/withheld/"lost" for anything up to six months or more, who have phoned, emailed, tweeted, facebooked, pleaded, begged, cajoled, demanded and implored relentlessly, in futile attempts to get their money out of Airbnb. And still, they're left hanging. 

They're pawned off with bs excuse after bs excuse and lie after lie, and left in no doubt whatsoever, that they'll get their money, if and when Airbnb decides they'll get their money. If this were any other company on earth, with all the long-term financial shenanigans going on that are occurring with Airbnb  (and have been occurring continually for years - the evidence of that is right here in the CC for all to see), there would be uproar. Absolute uproar. And rightly so. 

But for reasons that are far beyond my comprehension, there seems to be some sort of omerta going on with Airbnb hosts. It appears that most would prefer to keep Airbnb's dirty little secrets... well, secret - hidden away from the "outside world" - and who'd prefer to honour the code of silence, either out of fear of being penalised/delisted, or out of some sort of misplaced loyalty to a company that's routinely shafting thousands of their fellow hosts, right before their very eyes. 

Calling, emailing, tweeting are all great if a person is getting an appropriate, satisfactory and timely response. But Airbnb just flicks hosts off as if they're something Brian Chesky brought in on the bottom of his shoe, and contemptuously dismisses them, as if they and their concerns are utterly worthless. 

And as long as everyone continues to keep these long-term ongoing financial (and other) abuses "in-house", by only airing their grievances here in the CC - the online equivalent of howling at the moon- or by sending endless emails to the black hole that is Airbnb's feedback link (as opposed to reporting the company's serious transgressions to those who, collectively, do have the power to curb Airbnb's excesses and force change), then these blatant abuses and exploitations of hosts will simply continue unchecked and unabated, as they have done for years. 

What we permit, we promote. 

[Lisa723]

@Kelsey166 small claims court worked for me.

[Babylon0]

You took airbnb to small claims court for payment?

[Lisa723]

@Babylon0 yes. Airbnb clawed back two 18-month-old payouts, and closed my two help tickets, without explanation. I filed in small claims court, and Airbnb did not respond, so I won a court judgment by default, and Airbnb paid the judgment-- original claim plus court fees.

[Maia29]

@Susan17 "What we permit, we promote" - I love this saying. Airbnb customer service is fed up with me; I call too much for their tastes. I would keep calling, calling, and calling. They want us to just email them so they can dismiss us. If I call, then they have to deal with me.

[Babylon0]

I spoke to Airbnb as far as non payment for a four days rental . I was told that the quest payment was not going through,  they told me they spoke to the guest and the guest had problems with there bank. I have a case number and have started the process. Who is responsable from payment , it should be Airbnb they took the guest payment info.  it been over a week , I am calling twice a day, they said there is no phone number for the case worker that is on it ,  is that true they said they will email or call nothing yet.  Any help

[Sarah977]

They insist that all payments are handled through them so they can hang onto them as long as they want to. And the situation where they allow a booking to take place and a stay to be completed and only then tell the host that they couldn't collect the guest payment is unbelievable and criminal.

They're like those people who ask to borrow money, promising to pay you back next week, and every week they come up with another excuse why they can't and it will be next week. Months later, you finally resign yourself to the fact that they're never going to pay you back.

Airbnb should just be a listing service which collects its service fees from guests and hosts and allow the actual booking payment to go directly from guest to host. I know, I'm dreaming. 

[Susan17]

@Sarah977 

"They're like those people who ask to borrow money, promising to pay you back next week, and every week they come up with another excuse why they can't and it will be next week. Months later, you finally resign yourself to the fact that they're never going to pay you back"

Except they're much worse, because at least with those you lend money to, it's your choice to lend it to them in the first place. Airbnb just arbitrarily "borrows" hosts' money without any consent or agreement from the host whatsoever.