Payouts suspended as KYC for a South African Trust not recognised

[Daniel19]

I have been a superhost for over 9 years with mutiple listings and very high ratings. 

The properties are owned by my family trust and I am the trustee and my family is the beneficiary. My payouts were therefore going to my Trust account as this is the owner of the properties.

Airbnb does NOT have a trust option under account registration options. I was approached by what appears to be a BOT asking me questions about the trust, beneficial ownership and then asking a list of illogical questions. Its apparent Airbnb does not understand South African Trust Structures. The reseting of my account has now caused issues with the setteling bank as they have registered the reciever as being an individual but with a company name and so Bidvest will not accept this understandably.

I am desperate to resolve this. My payouts have stopped and no matter how many times I email and request assistance I am not able to speak to someone who can properly solve this.

Has anyone else experienced this? How did they solve it?

[Saien0]

Hi Nicola, 

We have been experiencing the same issue, with regards to Airbnb asking for ownership documents for a 3rd party with NO beneficial ownership of the trust but merely acting in an administrative function. Which is also mentioned in the trust deed. After pointing it out many times to the robot behind The KYC department, still no luck or understanding regarding this situation. 

The response time is extremely slow and i am told that there is no possible way of getting someone from the KYC department on a call to resolve the issue. Myself, along with many other hosts are experiencing the same issue with no resolution in sight. It is as if we are talking to a brick wall with no compromise or solution to the issue. 

[Andrew3673]

I have exactly the same issue. Property owned by my business and my trust owns the shares of my business. 

I do not get a response from the Specialsit team and continue to be told that my case has been escalated. 

I feel helpless. What do I do now? It’s been over a month and a half and still no payments. 

[Nicola3819]

This all feels like a bad dream! Airbnb could not be interested to try and help us! They say the point of all of this is so that they can prove we are not scamming people… how about Airbnb are scamming us?! I am owed over 2 months worth of accommodation payouts, and so much more upcoming payouts in December. I honestly don’t know where to turn!?? 

[Peter-Muller-Family-Trust0]

Gosh this is a long thread with same experiences - I thought I was incompetent but evidently we all are !!

This process is frustrating to the nth degree

Peter

[Peter-Muller-Family-Trust0]

The update still reads as a bad movie ....

They request that the nominal Trustee is added with Beneficial Ownership of 0% 

This is under the instruction to add only Beneficiaries with greater than 25%

A few interactions later the click on link takes me to the Beneficial Ownership screen which does not allow an additional "beneficial ownership"even  at 0% as the total listed is 100%

You cannot get past Customer Service  - all my calls over the past weeks have been escalated with promises of action ....