Airbnb Abb delays payments to hosts

[Summit-View0]

I spent more than $300,000 buying land and building a large villa, a garage fit for five cars and also a swimming pool and dedicated two years of my life to this project.

In September 2021 I accepted guests to my villa despite that the yard was not yet completed (the inside of the house was complete and totally liveable).

I had two groups of guests and everything went fine.

The third group of guests apparently had unruly children (half a dozen of them aged between 7 and 13 years old).

My cleaners alerted me to this fact over the phone (I was thousands of kilometers away so I couldn't judge for myself).

One cleaning lady who I work with for 13 years even said in real time as she was checking them in I should consider to cancel their booking because the children were throwing sand at each other and running around wildly throwing other objects at each other.

I unfortunately decided against her advice.

I had a 200 USD damage deposit so what could go wrong (or so I thought)...

On the day they checked out my cleaning lady noticed that my brand new basalt stone stairs that lead from the garage to the yard were damaged.

Basalt is a heavy stone so such damage to four stairs and in multiple places was a result of deliberate sabotage.

I alerted the guest and also Airbnb 'Support' but was surprised and frankly bewildered to see that 'Support' despite siding with me was not prepared to compensate me for even the 200 USD damage deposit amount unless I forward to them invoices for the cost of fixing the damaged stairs.

The damage to the stairs was actually more than 200 USD (total was 650 USD) but in rural Armenia it is not common to issue invoices for such repair jobs let alone in English (!).

The only companies that issue invoices are two and half hours away and so a job that would typically take three days and cost 650 USD could cost as much as 1,500 USD which wouldn't make sense seeing that the most I could get back was 200 USD.

The guest left a one star review that was vengeful and his sole goal was to convey me as a crook.

I asked Airbnb to remove his review considering the unusual circumstances but it was to no avail.

Fast forward five months I started a new Airbnb profile and listing (this is common practice l. It would be insane to continue with the initial listing and the horrible one star review).

To start a new listing is no big deal.

In fact I even registered it on my name just as I had done previously and the 'system' (as it almost always does) accepted it.

On the 3rd March 2022 I accepted a booking for 28 nights.

The guests were wonderful people and they were very satisfied (they stayed for the entire 28 nights and I allowed them free late check out on the 28th day of their stay).

I also revealed to them on the 23rd or 24th day of their stay that Airbnb didn't send me the payment they made that amounted to thousands of dollars.

They were bewildered and they volunteered to write to Airbnb and ask why on earth I wasn't paid for 24 days.

Now it is the 72nd day and I am STILL not paid a cent.

I am in touch with 19 Airbnb 'support' team members for the last 9 weeks.

I got dozens of 'heartfelt apologies' from the Airbnb support team members and dozens of 'assurances' and 'reasurrances' that their 'team of engineers is working at this moment to fix the technical glitch' which supposedly prevents Airbnb from sending me what is lawfully mine (maybe I shouldn't use the term 'lawfully' as it seems Airbnb is a law onto themselves).

I can't for the life of me understand what possible technical glitch can prevent a payment to go through despite that I have a default and verified payout method (as well as other verified payout methods I am willing and able to designate as 'default' if need be).

My demand to see the trail of attempts to send the money to my payout method has been totally ignored by Airbnb.

I have 15 closed tickets and 2 open tickets right now (!) but it seems nobody at the customer service (so called 'support') cares to address my very straightforward and reasonable demands and questions.

Seeing that the wait is almost two and half months I can no longer make sense of why I am targeted except for perhaps my ethnic and religious roots that are evident from my surname.

I welcome any feedback and advice as to how to proceed next.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Summit-View0 I suspect breaking Airbnb rules to avoid poor previous reviews won't have helped you. Anyway is your bank sanctioned at present? If not then I suggest a Twitter approach to Airbnb and/or launch a court case.

[Summit-View0]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

For starters I didn't break Airbnb rules.

It is Airbnb that broke the universal law of fair play by heaping difficulties and unwarranted demands and pretending that all the villas in the world are located in South Miami Beach or in Key West where invoices can be easily obtained in the English language.

A villa with 9 bedrooms and sleeping space for 14 guests in the bedrooms plus sleeping space for 6 guests on sofas naturally has a team so all I did was to register my new listing in the name of my villa instead of on my first name.

On both occasions I stated that I am the owner (not that Airbnb has any way let alone care to verify this is actually true).

I and my team of employees have multiple bank accounts in at least five countries so in answer to your question ; no, none of the bank accounts registered and verified on my listing are in a bank that is under sanctions.

My team member posted tweets on twitter (I don't use twitter) but all be got is the same reassuring messages with apologies and empty promises that they will look into it.

[Summit-View0]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

On the topic of 'breaking Airbnb rules' I would love to see the specific rules you are referring to and an explanation of how I supposedly broke them.

Airbnb sets the rules and requirements for registration of listings.

Mine is not a case of double listing (which indeed is not appropriate though these are very common and even evident to the naked eye despite the different angels on photographs used to 'trick' Airbnb bots).

It isn't exactly breaking news that any property can be rented, sold, gifted etc. hundreds of times  (hence also posted hundreds of times) and that Airbnb is not able to trace any of it especially in foreign countries (hence Airbnb doesn't ask for any proof of ownership of any kind).

[Summit-View0]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

Let's for a moment assume that I indeed 'broke the laws' set by Airbnb.

Does the penalty for breaking 'the law' amount to exactly the amount Airbnb owes me since 72 days for a service I provided on the Airbnb platform?

If the penalty for 'breaking the laws' is heavier than the exact amount owed to me since the 4th March 2022 will I be able to repay Airbnb by attending a reeducation course?

Perhaps a gulag for Airbnb hosts that strive to be Superslaves but fail to become such is the more fitting penalty for rogue characters such as myself.

[Summit-View0]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

Hello Mike and Jane,

I feel it is only fair to update you that the payment finally went through.

Apparently the 'technical team' rose up from the dead and they sent me two transfers by Western Union during the weekend.

The payment was two months overdue but it is better late than never.

I collected the first amount so far (each transfer is limited to a maximum of 2,000 USD) and the second amount will pick up when I am in Georgia again in 3.5 weeks from today.