Missing Payouts, Has this happened to anybody else?

[Susan723]

Any other hosts experiencing missing payments from Airbnb? It first happened to me earlier this year. It was just one payment that time and only a few hundred dollars. After 3 days and receiving no notice of payout I called and spent hours on the email and phone with airbnb. They finally acknowledged their error and issued the payment. For my hours of trouble they sent me a coffee mug. This time the missing payouts total nearly $2k. I have already spent much time trying to get it corrected. So far I am just getting the "we are checking into it" email message. The original rep I spoke with acknowledged to me that there was a mistake made. So now I just get to sit and wait for them to hopefully correct their error again. I wonder if I will get another coffee mug. Frankly I would rather just timely get my payouts and without having to waste hours of my time to get them. Anyway just wondering if this is happening to other hosts and also a heads up to other hosts to be sure to keep track of your payouts.

[John1574]

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@Huma0 

That is funny. And it is a shame that hosts have to deal with this missing payment problem. Running a business is tough enough.

Did Airbnb notify you of those payments in May and August but they never really showed up in your account? That would be really weird and troubling.

In our house, I'm the finder, she's the looker: because I do more than cast my eyes around a room and say, I don't see it: I actually move things around,  pick things up, look on top of, underneath  things and in the odd places. Maybe searching is a skill like math, some people have it, some people don't, maybe not related to gender, but brain type. I pride myself so much on my skill at finding things, that I get very frustrated and obsessed when I fail to find the object of my affection's. lol Then I give up and it turns up anyway in the oddest of places when I wasn't even looking.

Good luck on getting your payments. I hope they find them.

Keep us informed.

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[Sathis7]

It is extremely disheartening to receive flimsy excuse from the Airbnb, when ever I remind them to settle my pay out (USD 1833.30). Please find below a response I sent to them today, for the other hosts, who are facing the same problem, to know what is going on. "Dear April, Thank you for providing me the SAME answer I received from Airbnb on 21 January 2020. Airbnb has received Euro 995 from the credit card of our guest, who occupied my bungalow and another Euro 995 is due from him. As of 21 January 2020, Airbnb has failed to take the balance Euro 995 from his card due to a 'technical glitch' and Airbnb sent a message to our guest stating that its an issue in the system and Airbnb is fixing it. He confirmed to me today, that Airbnb has still NOT recovered the Euro 995 from his account. What I require is my pay out. Fixing the technical glitch is your problem and NOT my responsibility. Don't you feel bad to keep on repeating the same excuse, which is internal by nature, for not settling my pay out since December 2019? Please settle my pay out without giving the same excuse all the time. Thank you. Kind regards Sathis Abeyasuriya"  Airbnb has been taking about a technical glitch since 30 December 2019 and they are still doing the same without resolving it. This is a classic example to show how Airbnb is taking care of the hosts.   

[Laura2592]

Still missing mine- been a month now. URGH. Calling AGAIN. So tired. We are taking our cottage off of Airbnb at the end of 2020. I am exploring other listing sites. This is just too much to chase down.

[Cynthia714]

Airbnb always have TECHNICAL GLITCH reason for entire year. ALL YEAR LONG. Every host get a chance to experience them.

I wonder why they don't fix their technical glitch, it's such a shame for a big established company like airbnb. i think holding our money make so much fortune for them. Why airbnb why? 

[Sathis7]

If we are unimportant to Airbnb, we are left with no other option as you say. I am struggling to get my pay out since last week of December 2019. Airbnb is still repeating the same excuse, as to why the pay out is delayed.

[John1574]

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@Sathis7 @Susan723 @Huma0 @Cynthia714 @Laura2592 

I don't think it really does any good to adopt a victim mentality in these situations.

We are partners with Airbnb and when your partner is not carrying their weight you have to call him or her out.

You have to be willing to walk away from the partnership.  

The hosts who did you get their payments remitted to them took an aggressive approach. 

There's an old expression, don't get angry, get even.

I would advocate that anyone who is missing a payment, and it is Airbnb's fault and not their own, and that it is unequivocally airbnb who is to blame for the missing payments, then tell Airbnb that they will refuse any additional future, reservations, and they will be notifying all current reservations they will be canceling them until they get paid by Airbnb.

It's an aggressive approach, yes, but why continue with Airbnb if you're not making money? They will continue to jerk you around until you take a stand.

I suspect, at the risk of being accused of victim blaming, that many of these instances of Airbnb missing payouts is partially the fault of the hosts.

In the cases where it is solely the fault of Airbnb then there's no future in continuing with them if they don't immediately correct their mistake.

I believe Airbnb is being hacked all the time, that they have serious security breaches, and that is partially the reason for some of these missing payouts. And some missing payments are due to host ineptitude and Airbnb ineptitude combined.

But I believe many missing payouts are the result of Airbnb being hacked and that they are slow to correct the hack amid fears of the publicizing of the security breachs in light of their pending IPO.

Just a wild guess.

I recommend being aggressive with airbnb, blocking your calendar, refusing any future bookings and threatening to cancel all upcoming bookings until you are paid.

What's your alternative: being jerked around by customer service?

This thread is 15, 16, 17 pages long: it's time we got to a resolution of how to handle the missing payouts.

I think a template has been established: if you read the thread you will arrive at the same template that successful people have used to resolve their problem with the missing payments.

portraying yourself as a victim and Airbnb as a perpetrator, will not get you anywhere.

This is a business. And this is business as usual. Conflict is a natural part of business. Problem-solving is an essential skill in business.

Take it to Airbnb, aggressively, and if you don't succeed in getting your payment, get out of the business.

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[Sathis7]

Thank you sharing some very valuable thoughts. You have looked at the issue from all possible angles. Much appreciated.  

[Jerry46]

I have a current 3 month reservation that I haven’t received a penny for. I keep calling in and they say their “technical team” is working on it. What can I do? It’s been months and I can’t seem to get any help with the payout. Airbnb support has already confirmed that the money was paid to them, but for some reason no one has the authority to release the payment. It amounts  to a total of around 4.3k

[John1574]

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@Jerry46

I am no expert. But I have been following this thread since it's inception. If you read the thread for the beginning through the 17 pages you will see a template has been established for how to handle this.

Here is my advice to you:

1. Make sure that there is no error on your end or on your guest's end.

2. Be sure that the problem is solely caused by Airbnb's ineptitude or "technical issues".

3. if you determine that the problem is caused by Airbnb then try doing the following:

A. Call customer service, tell them you will be blocking your calendar to prevent any upcoming reservations until you have been paid.

Do the same thing by crafting a coherent written message conveyed to them via Twitter and Facebook.

B. Tell them that you will not be accepting any new reservations until you have been paid.

C. Tell them that they have 48 hours to pay you for this reservation or you will implement these changes to your account.

Tell them that in the meantime you will be moving your business to other short term rental platforms. 

Tell them If they don't pay you within 48 hours, you will be asking the party that's there for the three month rental to leave since Airbnb has not upheld their Legal agreement with you, they have not honored  the partnership, and they have broken their contract with you. They have not paid you for this rental.

If that doesn't work, cancel your contract with Airbnb for there's no future in you working with them any longer. Do not beg or plead with customer service. It is common knowledge that their customer service reps are very different from one to another: keep calling back until you get a sympathetic rep. If you are getting nowhere with a rep, end the call and try another rep.

Try it, and good luck.

PS. Many hosts to not accept reservations for more than 29 or 30 days. There are many good reasons to do this most of them having to do with "tenants rights": you should research this and implement the necessary changes.

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[Debby69]

I have a missing payout for 2 reservations on third week of December 2019 . As of writing time, I have not received  my payout yet. I wish I could contact of what they called " Payment Department" to get direct answer.  It is so frustrating and disappointing.

[John1574]

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@Debby69 

You should research the best ways to contact customer service using the help pages and this forum using the search feature.  There are 17 pages of information on this thread: have you read them all?

I've read that Facebook is one of the most effective means of contacting them, secondly Twitter, and I have always used the phone, and I've had no problem contacting them. If you're not happy with the behavior of the first customer service rep end the call, and call back for a different rep.

Be sure the payment withholding is due to Airbnb and not something caused by you or your guest or in your banking service or your guest's banking service.

In withholding payment from you they broke in their contract with you: you should block all future activity from happening until they pay you.

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[Sushanta--Sunny-0]

I've been facing this since November 2019. There were 3 missing payouts. When I notified them, they were resolved almost immediately. I had 3 missing for December 1 of which was resolved, 2 are still pending and now 1 for January. They have acknowledged that it is not an isolated case and has in fact been happening to great number of hosts. That being said, no one can offer a positive reply or course of action. All I get is that the case has been forwarded to the technical department and a couple of Bug Reference Numbers. I get that No site is without bugs, but what bothers me is the lack of response! 

[John1574]

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@Sushanta--Sunny-0 

It is very worrying that Airbnb cannot get ahead of this problem.

If you read back through the 17+ pages of this thread you will garner a lot of information: one thing to make note of is that this seems to be happening in your part of the world a great deal of time. 

Airbnb and your account with Airbnb has probably been hacked, and it takes time for Airbnb to track down the hack and be sure that you or your guests were not part of the fraud being perpetrated. 

The other important piece of information you can learn from this thread is that there seems to be a template,                                        a get-tough-template, to spur Airbnb to make their payments quickly once Airbnb has broken their agreement with a host by withholding payment.

I urge hosts who post here about missing payments to read the entire thread and learn whatever they can learn from it before posting. And then follow through on the thread once you get some resolution so that we all can learn from your experience.

Or go ahead and use this thread to vent, I have no problem with that: just venting is not going to help resolve the problem.

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[Laura2592]

Just an update--  talked to someone yesterday about my still missing payout. Apparently there was a systemic bug that prevented the second payment to be collected from guests at the point in time that my guest was making theirs. Many hosts did not get the full payment and many hosts have been waiting to be paid. Its over a month for me. Seems like the "bug" has happened periodically and not just this single time.  So in my case the guest has fully paid after being sent to collections but I STILL have not gotten paid. Will continue to call until it happens. 

[John1574]

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@Laura2592 

Very interesting, thanks for posting the update.

I want to make sure I understand fully what happened with your payment being withheld: Airbnb had to send your guest to the collection department in order to collect from your guest?

Can you speculate on, or do you have any ideas about, where in the chain of events their so-called "systemic bug" kicked in? Does it have to do with processing payments from guests? Was there any problem with the guest's payment or method of payment?

You said many hosts are suffering from this systemic bug. Did an Airbnb customer service rep tell you that? Or do you know that through another resource?

So, to reiterate, Airbnb has broken their contract with you by withholding payment for over a month. 

I t sounds as if they freely admitted to you that the bug, the entire problem in fact, is on their end: it is not your fault at all. Yet they still have not paid your rightfully earned fees under your contract with Airbnb.

The devil is in the details: thanks for helping everyone on the thread understand how this problem occurs and how to handle it.

I admire your dogged perseverance.

Let us know when your payment comes through and keep asking them questions about how this occurred and why they're withholding your payment?

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