Think Twice Before Starting with Airbnb

[Carie1]

Beware.

Once you start with Airbnb, it is hard to leave. If you have a high rating, it will cost a lot to establish with a different platform and rebuild. So, my advice: don't do it. Don't start with Airbnb.

In general, as you will see if you cruise the community forum, Airbnb is not host oriented. They don't have your back. And in some ways their system is beyond parasitic and into abusive, for several reasons, aside from general human fluffupery:

1. As with ride-sharing, Amazon and other online ventures, the first step for the dominant online provider is to put brick-and-mortar companies out of business by making prices very low. This doesn't just give them greater leverage over the consumer, but it also shifts the workforce from an organized one to a diffuse, un-unionized, screwable population. If you join Airbnb you will be as valued and cherished as an Uber driver. Don't think 'Airbnb gets a cut of my take, so surely the more money I make the more money they make.' Think 'Airbnb is in the phase of crushing hotels, and to do that they need to crush their hosts, too.' In every way they can, Airbnb will try to push your prices down. (You can say 'I won't rely on their suggested price,' --don't!--but in the leaner times their suggested prices become a self-fulfilling prophecy.)

2. Time is money. If you get in a problem where a drunken guest takes your jade lamp and tries to impale someone else, meanwhile leaving several large holes in your kitchen wall--just saying--and you hope Airbnb will refund you in a timely manner--No. Maybe you'll expect a stall, because every day they delay is more money for them and less for you. You can expect to be dicked around (depreciating the value of the jade lamp because... jade fades? Rather than using replacement value). But really no matter how hard you try to prepare yourself, you can have no idea how crushingly horrible, inconvenient and deliberately dehumanizing the 'resolution' process is. (And my host isn't even disputing!)  So here are things to think about:

- of course there is the full-time job of tracking your things and their condition, keeping receipts, etc

- in your disaster planning, realize that you can't count on Airbnb to pay for repairs in a timely manner, and this could mean YOU WILL BE SHUT DOWN so that while you are sitting in your drafty kitchen, you will not only be frustrated as heck but you will also have lost your income for an indeterminate amount of time. My damages were over $7,000. I can't float that. Could you?

- Imagine the worst, most unresponsive, most 'riddled by rules and ruled by riddles' federal bureaucracy and then multiply that by 10. There are three separate departments, one for extra cleaning costs, one for repairs and one for broken rules. And they don't talk to each other. (Why should they? Delay is good for them.) So budget your time for this morass--and I include their wretched resolution platform in this! It is a bottomless well.

- The delay is a feature, not a bug. I resisted the conclusion that the de-humanizing is also a feature, a deliberate  pattern, but actually I am happier now that I admit the obvious. They really could not accidentally be so horrible. I felt like Charlie trying to just at least touch the football... For example in the now 10 weeks since the hole-bashing event, I have not received one call from my case manager, but I have repeatedly been getting little teases 'send me your telephone number' (because Airbnb doesn't have my number?) I respond. But of course, no call. You can't do crap like that 4 times and have it be an accident.

- And this is not a lower-level staff issue. This is a management issue. It seems likely it is being managed exactly the way Airbnb wants it to be managed.

If you do decide to do Airbnb despite this warning, my other advice is: keep your sense of humor. They really do have the power to exert considerable practical harm, but if you can laugh at them at least it doesn't have to go soul-deep. They won't have your back. They are not well-intentioned towards you. To expect that is a recipe for misery. Plan accordingly.

Good luck--

Carie

[Elaine701]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 

Yes, well, unfortunately, there's a certain reality all hosts must eventually face: The burden of prevention is solely on the host.

You can't depend on any booking platform to "save" you from bad guests, nor expect them to reimburse you for whatever damage or fraud they impose on you. No matter what they may claim. 

So, for that reason, you have to protect yourself. I've scared away 6 inquiries in the past 2 weeks. Some may have been perfectly legitimate and decent guests. I just didn't feel comfortable with their responses. They avoided my questions and/or seemed "detached", as if they didn't care. Or made unlikely excuses. Or some such.

But there's almost always another one waiting in the queue. It's Airbnb's greatest strength. Use it. 

Morale of the story: because there is no guarantee of anything other than bookings, I can't take the risk of unsavoury guests, causing damage, or filing a false complaint with Airbnb so they can get a free holiday on me, or resorting to fabricated retaliatory reviews when they get caught. I just don't want those guests. I'd rather the place sit empty. So if I feel uncomfortable with them, I apologise and give them every reason to run away. 

Fortunately, there's plenty of really great guests. The vast majority, in fact. And if there's one thing Airbnb is good at, it's attracting those guests... along with the bad ones.

One bad guest can destroy the benefits of 10 good ones, unfortunately, Airbnb makes little distinction between them, so that's on me to solve. And I do, without Airbnb. Or any other platform. 

And if need be, I can, will, and often do demand a real security deposit. And that works really well so far. 

Bookings and payments. Expect nothing else. Watch your back.

[Carie1]

Well, of course, we pay for the insurance. Every time you pay a host fee, you are paying your insurance premium. So I do expect that to mean something.

You write about your strategies for protecting yourself from bad guests. I hope those continue to work for you, but I don't blame hosts who have bad guests for what goes wrong, and I don't even hold a bitter thought towards my own disaster guest. You try to prevent **bleep** from happening, and sometimes it happens anyway. The  guest herself lost control of the situation.

That all seems accidental. Airbnb's delays and strategic dehumanizing don't seem to be accidental. Yeah, I'm working to let that go. But I still would recommend that a newbie think twice before going down the Airbnb path.

[Elaine701]

@Carie1 

Airbnb does not and never has offered any kind of "insurance". Read the fine print. There is no Airbnb "insurance premium". That's an illusion. Like many other policies. 

Look, I'm not defending them. This isn't about about what's right or wrong. It's about how it actually is.

Until hosts grasp the reality of this, they'll continue to believe they're "covered". Surprise! They're not. On any platform. You have to protect yourself. That's just how it is. 

As you suggest, one solution is to choose NOT to list on Airbnb. But if you think VRBO or anyone else will somehow be magically better, then you've got a few more surprises in your future before you come to grips with the reality of it.

No matter what, you'll still have to protect yourself, or continue to suffer from nobody else protecting you.

Your choice, indeed. 

[Carie1]

Oh, I saw such a common thread in those last two comments and only now realize it is the same person. I am neither careless nor naive, and I am exactly interested in what is. I am trying to report my experience of what is.

There is a classic experience among victims--and, yes, there is victimization in the Airbnb experience--you can see it everywhere in this platform--is that one can choose to rationalize it (not a bad option), buck it (not likely to be successful), try to process it (where i am), get out if possible (where I'm probably headed) and so on.

Of course Airbnb purports to offer insurance! They finally just offered me a payment, after 10 weeks. It is lowball. That I expected and am philosophical about. It was the seemingly deliberate strategies and tactics of dehumanizing me that I found so surprising.

You have helped me to clarify my message to prospective new hosts. It isn't just the risk, and the sense that Airbnb will never have your back. (Oh, how that has changed over the years I have been hosting!) It is the ugly. My mom used to say 'when you sup with the devil, you had better use a long spoon.' I'm just not sure there is a spoon long enough. I don't want to agree to being treated in this way. I think a lot about the low-level workers who actually have to implement these ugly games. Gah! Can you imagine being a frontline person in the 'resolution' center?

Your tone suggests you are angry and frustrated at me more so than Airbnb. Please don't be. I am trying to figure this out for my own ethics and sense of well-being, without judging other hosts who make different accomodations. We all struggle with this in our own way.

This whole comment string has been like a message to my former self, what I wish I had understood. I did have a pretty good grasp of the risk, and I am ok with the fact that after 7 years this was my first disaster. And I am not surprised at all by the lowballing. I didn't factor in the delay and how hard it would be to get going again (COVID makes that worse as all the repair people are booked way out). But what took me so much by surprise was the ugly.  Do you, new person, really want to be a part of that? Do you, @Elaine701? Is your spoon long enough? I suspect it is. But mine may not be. Good luck to both of us.

[Elaine701]

@Carie1 

I'm not a victim anymore.  If you're still a victim, then maybe there's something to be learned from all this? I did. 

Have a good day. 

[Carie1]

Wow.

[Mark116]

@Carie1  I don't want to interpret the previous poster, but I would guess she meant that continuing to expect anything but bureaucratic Kalfaesque procedures from Airbnb at some point makes you somewhat of a willing victim.  I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of hosts who, never having had a serious problem, still naively believe that 'Airbnb has their back' that there is some one million coverage somewhere and that 'Airbnb has you covered' when the reality is they will do almost everything, first, to delay, delay, delay in the hopes the host will give up, next, if you still didn't give up, they will bombard you with  bizarre, duplicative demands for evidence, and if you still somehow make it through that level, they may simply ghost you and close the case, or ban you and never tell you why.  It goes on and on.

The only way to succeed, even a little with Airbnb is to expect nothing from the company except bookings, and assume as much responsibility as possible for preventing problems so you don't ever have to go Airbnb for relief.

It's unfortunate that the company is structured this way, but it has worked brilliantly for their bottom line, if not always for their image.

[Carie1]

Yes. I think that very succinctly and resonantly captures this whole conversation. And that leads to: Think twice before you start, and think not only about finances and practicalities but also about ethics and community. Can we accommodate this? Maybe. Many people do, and I admire them. Maybe I'll continue to. Is the exercise of being realistic about how bad it is and yet managing to get unstuck a good one? Yes, and Airbnb provides an excellent jungle gym for that. But maybe the exercise of walking away (or, for newbies, of never starting) has its good side, too. In the end is it fun to partner with someone you know from the outset is...  all that you and others and I have said?  Not only a bad partner but a strategically bad partner?

[Sarah977]

@Carie1  I don't read Elaine's comments as victim-blaming at all. What she is trying to point out is that if we expect Airbnb or other platforms to have our backs, we'll be sorely disappointed, because the reality is that we can't depend on them to do so.

We have to assume we are totally on our own and have systems in place that hopefully prevent problems before they can happen, or if not, a way to cover ourselves. In the case of damages, that could be private insurance, and/or setting aside a certain percentage from each booking, as a fund to dig into if all else fails.

[Carie1]

Yes, I agree with that. They sure do make it sticky ("we are here to help") but in the end, being unstuck is up to me. I'm skeptical, though, about how long that spoon can be, for me, without paying a higher price than I realize. But that's why I started this by saying that I want to keep my sense of humor!

[Robin4]

@Carie1 

Carie, maybe I had an advantage over many hosts in that, I started to be involved here on the CC before I listed and became an active host. Initially I had it in my brain that Airbnb were going to 'have my back covered'  and I was to 'host with confidence' just as they said I should. But the reality of hosting came across in many posts here on the CC  just like yours. Airbnb are all smoke and mirrors when it comes to resolutions and I decided that I would use Airbnb as a booking platform and nothing else!

I have never submitted a claim to the resolution centre, in 513 guest stays they have never received a complaint from me....and they never will. That is not to say I don't have problems......I do, I just look after them and take care of my own business!

I allow a percentage of each hosting payout to go into a damage fund and I have an STR insurance policy with a substantial deductible to keep the premium low for any major contingencies like some loopy guest  burning the property to the ground.

If damage occurs, as it does from time to time, I just pull money out of the damage fund, put things right and get on with hosting.

Carie, Airbnb are not an insurance company, they do not set a premium to cover claim risks, they charge an outrageous service fee to simply put A (the guest) in touch with B (the host).....don't expect any more out of them than that and you will have a long and successful hosting career!

Cheers.......Rob

[Nick]

Hi @Carie1 and I'm sorry for any issues you have experienced so far with Customer Support. I'm one of the community managers here and wanted to say that upon reading your post, I decided to drop a note to the Customer Support team with your feedback.

They did get back to me saying that a specialised team is dealing with your inquiry. They need to investigate thoroughly to assist you entirely, contributing to the overall wait time.

I realise this reply might not be ideal right now, but it could turn out to have the best possible outcome for you; Nevertheless, I do feel the need to apologise for the amount of time you had to wait and let you know the team does appreciate your patience in this.

As I've said, they are actively working on this, and I'm hoping for a quick resolution.

Thank you

[Carie1]

Nick, This is gobbledygook: "They need to investigate thoroughly to assist you entirely, contributing to the overall wait time." And 'a specialized team?' That's the first hint I have had. It sounds like ...  hmmm.

If you have any influence, just ask A*** to send me those emails. At this point it is all I want. Just forward those two emails to me. It is so easy. It doesn't violate any ethics or protocols. She'll know what I am talking about. (And I would be glad to explain if anyone wishes.) Writing 'do you still want those emails' is not the same as actually sending them.

Maybe you could ask the 'specialized team' if they could look into that. Yes, that is me being sarcastic and I apologize. When I tell myself to keep my sense of humor I don't really mean dark humor.

Just send the darned emails.

Carie

[Carie1]

Nick--  Please interpret.

Dec 8th: asked to confirm that I want my emails. (Me: YES!!! I want the emails.)

Dec 8 - 14th: numerous desperate calls to airbnb support (I am told on several of these calls that A will call me. She doesn't.)

Dec 14th- A writes me to inform me that she asked me for confirmation on Dec 8th but doesn't mention that I did confirm and that I continued to plead for them. She writes:

we request you to kindly confirm the dates from which you would want us to forward the communication to you.

Now, I don't have the emails, so I can't identify the dates. That's kind of the whole point. I write:

please forward all correspondence between you and me, that you or I sent to or from xxx@proton.mail.com.

If you have any questions, let me know. You may call me any time you wish.

In the same email, she mentions calling me. But she doesn't do it. If you count the times support people have messaged A and come back to me 'she says she is going to call you,' and the several times she has dangled the idea of calling me in one of her emails, that makes what? A dozen times she has mentioned calling me since early October? And yet she never does.

I don't really want a call (though I am certainly not objecting to one). I want the emails.

Help?

C

[Carie1]

(This is for @Robin4 and all the rest of the hosts who have so thoughtfully and generously responded.)

Rob, These are really nice notes from seasoned hosts who are saying the same thing: if you expect nothing, you wont' be disappointed.

I agree with your practical advice--I have business insurance of my own on the house and innkeeping, for instance. I agree with everyone who has so kindly written here, including @Elaine701 ! I just didn't realize how casually cruel, how strategically befuddling, the process would be. And it is a double or triple whammy, because they don't just do it 'to' us, but also by virtue of a cadre of low-paid people who have to say things like 'They need to investigate thoroughly to assist you entirely, contributing to the overall wait time.' How does a worker come out after a few years of that? Ah well.

But Rob, in your entirely rational approach, there is one thing I don't understand. Why not do both? Why not keep your rainy-day fund AND go after Airbnb for sumpin', but not with the earnest naiveté that I got myself tangled with? Just a WTF kind of going-after? What would you lose? (Sincere question.)

BTW, I actually forget how long I have been doing this, but 5 years or more, and I never filed before... but I just didn't need to.

This idea of simply never going for the benefits that are offered feels almost like... igh... grooming. This is another theme that hosts have responded with here. That the casual cruelty is a kind of grooming of the hosts so that they won't make claims. At all.

Well, I suspect I am taking all this too seriously. Time for my second cup of tea.

And thanks to all of you.

Carie