Guest stayed and didn't complete payment- No payout for hosts

[Laura2592]

I had a guest stay for three nights. They called me prior saying there was trouble with a credit card. I directed them to Airbnb. I thought it was unusual and posted here. Everyone reassured me that the guest could not stay without completed payment.

They came and went. No payout. Now on my 4th call to Airbnb requesting the payout a very nice customer service rep said they did not complete their payment. She is looking into "options." HOW on Earth could this happen??  I am still waiting for a "resolution."

This is the holiday season and we are booked solid. We had several inquiries for the guests' dates. Be careful my fellow hosts!

Also a note for Airbnb CR-- I was called by three different names in the course of a 45 min conversation with two reps- Lorna, Lauren and Laura. My name is Laura 🙂 It is a little frustrating to not be called by the correct name when trying to resolve a problem. Doesn't make you feel as though you are heard or matter much.

[Laura2592]

Finally got an email from the case manager, cut and pasted below. Still no payment. Lizzie was nice enough to tag my issue in another thread.  Just keeping everyone here updated. 

Airbnb Support2:38 AM

Hi Laura, Greetings for the day! My name is Ekagra a case manager at Airbnb reaching out to you regarding the reservation HMAA9M3DWH you had with Laura Stanek.

I am sorry to hear that you did not receive the payout for this booking. Please do not worry, as your case manager I will surely work to give you the best possible resolution. While investigating the details I have found that there are known technical issue due which it's not only your payout however payout for most of the hosts are impacted.

Our team is working very hard to get this resolved for you and you will surely be notified once the issue gets resolved.

Airbnb Support2:44 AM

As of now, we do not have any tentative time frame that when this will get resolved but rest assured team is working very hard to fix this issue at the earliest post which you will get the notification.

In case you require any additional assistance, please feel free to reach out to us anytime at www.airbnb.com/help. We care for our users and always happy to help!

[Karen307]

Having a similar issue with AirBNB leaving it up to me to handle when guest didn’t pay the second month of 2 month stay. AirBNB is no help and it’s hard to get real time information from them. I’ve spent hours on the phone with several different AirBNB reps. They allegedly escalated my matter to “urgent” but that meant nothing as a practical matter. I have had to give the guest a  North Carolina 10 day notice to Quit so I can start formal eviction process.

The guest said they paid on Friday but it turns out they didn’t pay in full. They say they’ll pay the rest  next Friday. I couldn’t get any information from AirBNB about it when I asked on Friday. They replied on Monday to my inquiry about whether payment was received.

AirBNB reps give the impression that they care about it but really it’s no skin off their proverbial nose if the guest stays on without paying. Except of course that they could be earning fees from paying guests who stay here. We have a high occupancy rate. I wish we hosts had some recourse other than just not listing with AirBNB. Very frustrating!

[Patrick568]

This is seriously one of the craziest issues I've ever seen with Air BnB. I hope every gets this insanity cleared.

[Laura2592]

Still no $$. And no further communication. I am back on calling and complaining. Sigh. Tweeting is next and maybe  Better Business Bureau. I performed my part of this transaction. I should be compensated. This is very disheartening. 

[Lisa5074]

I have been reading this ALL morning! SAME issue with my guest who checked out on the 5th. You would think if this was a KNOWN AIrBNB issue they MIGHT makes hosts AWARE!!!!! GAAAAAH

[Laura2592]

Still no money, honey. 

No word from Airbnb. But from the other threads on the same subject I can see I am not alone. What a shame. 

[Lisa5074]

The frustrating thing is that as I am looking, there is not much recourse except to "wait" on AirBNB to "figure it out". 

[Colleen253]

@Laura2592  Did you ever get proof from the guest that Airbnb successfully took their payment, or not? If they did, this is theft. Criminal, not shameful.

[Laura2592]

@Colleen253 I don't know how I would get proof. And I don't know if this is a guest issue or an Airbnb issue at this point. The guest seemed very interested in using Airbnb and had a lot of feedback. So if they set out to defraud by not paying in full its Airbnb's job to catch it and cancel BEFORE they stay. If they did pay in full or make an attempt to do so, Airbnb should be sending the money my way. At this point I don't care who did what. Airbnb is responsible for making this right. 

[Colleen253]

@Laura2592 I was referring to Airbnb, not the guest. IF the guest's payment did end up being accepted, then it's more like theft, on Airbnb's part. There are hundreds of posts from hosts on here, and elsewhere on the internet, who NEVER heard back from Airbnb and STILL to this day are not paid out, sometimes to the tune of thousands of dollars. Seems pretty fishy to me. Airbnb just goes 'duh, we dunno where the money is' in the majority of these cases.  Because you "don't know if this is a guest issue or an Airbnb issue at this point" is my point exactly.  It seems to me it would be easier to move forward at least KNOWING whether or not, in the end, the guest's payment was processed by Airbnb. The guest would have a record of the debit on their CC statement, or something to that effect, and be able to show you. Or not, but that information either way I would think would be helpful. jmo, that's all. Hope you get it resolved.

[Laura2592]

@Colleen253  yes I agree it's very very odd. I'm just waiting to see a story about this on the news. Its certainly not an isolated incident and someone somewhere us bound to make some noise that gets attention.  

[Susan17]

I'd put good money on that happening in the very near future, @Laura2592. And rightly so. There's too much heat on Airbnb at the moment - and too many hosts being badly burned - for this dirty little secret to stay buried for much longer. 

[James1]

This can happen if the 'guest' uses a credit card (or other online payment system), that may pass an initial 'quickie' verification by airbnb, but later fails when airbnb processes the full payment. The 'payment' may be a stolen card, a fraudulent PayPal/Venmo/etc, or simply over limit. The 'guest' is sometimes aware of this and is cheating the system. In the early days of airbnb, they (airbnb) would notify the host that the guest payment 'failed' but they (airbnb) would make good on the payment to you (host), out of their own pocket. That may no longer be the 'policy' 😞

[Susan17]

@James1 

Yes, there are often issues with the cards used for payments, but in many, many instances, the guest has paid - in full. But Airbnb somehow "misplaces" the funds, or "forgets" to transfer them to the hosts' accounts. 

[Sarah977]

@Susan17  And if they're "misplaced" or "forgotten", they couldn't possibly be earning interest, right? 😉