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

[Carie1]

Ouch!

A 'policy' that bends so easily to only one party's convenience is not really a policy. It is gaslighting.

I think this relates, too, to something @Elaine701 posted later on, what is now the last page, about the review dance. She usually doesn't go for repayment until after a review has been lodged by the guest, if at all. Of course.

[Huma0]

@Traci138 

Sorry to hear that you got nowhere, but it doesn't surprise me. It's pretty clear that this is a retaliatory review, but it seems that Airbnb has no system in place to address those, despite hosts calling for this over and over.

To my mind, there's no useful information in this lady's review. She doesn't say why it was horrible (would have been more accurate if she had written "Do not stay here, especially if you planning to stay with children without telling the host and try to get away with not paying for extra guests.")

However, I think that CS view 'irrelevant' as random things that have nothing to do with the stay, e.g. complaining that there was a lot of traffic on the way to the Airbnb or that most of the shops were closed on a Sunday. If it's comments about the stay (accurate or not), they will just say, "It's the guest's experience," and that's the end of the story. The review policy even states that they do not get involved in matters of accuracy.

[Carie1]

Actually, in some ways yours is a better story, because it shows how systematic this is. One of my case manager's few emails said 'we are revising our interpretation of our policies. I apologize for the delay and thank you for your patience.' (And, btw, I am not patient.) But What the What?! I complained about this to a friend and said it was utterly bewildering, and he said 'it isn't bewildering at all.'

'Then what the heck does that MEAN?' I asked.

'It means they are stalling.' He responded. And that was kind of a relief. Duh.

[Ann72]

"Our INTERPRETATION of our policies," @Carie1?!?  That in itself provides blinding clarity.

A host posted recently about a revenge review that called her racist.  Airbnb refused to take it down.  That would appear to be against review policy, which states:

"To keep reviews relevant, we recommend avoiding the following:

• Commentary about a person’s social, political, or religious views
• Profanity, name calling, and assumptions about a person’s character or personality."

But right there is the loophole:  "we RECOMMEND AVOIDING the following."  That's not the same as saying you can't call someone names.

Good to know.

[Huma0]

@Ann72 

Quite. In that same section, it says something like, 'we MAY' remove a review on this basis," not that they are bound to do it.

What is the point in a policy that they can choose to stick to or not, especially when they then tell you they can't help you because they have to stick to policy?

It's nonsensical.

[Carie1]

Yes, this made me laugh too. I think my friend would say 'the point is to have the upper hand but avoid responsibility.,

[Sarah977]

@Huma0 @Carie1  Airbnb policy language is chock full of 'mays', 'mights', 'coulds' and other nebulous terms designed to allow them to "interpret" pretty much everything in whatever way they choose.

And even with policies that have quite clear parameters, like the cancellation policies, they can always fall back on "This is our final decision".

[Carie1]

Gah.

[Huma0]

Update on the above.

- I decline the latest BOT request to close the thread.

The last message I received was the rep telling me someone would respond to me, but they haven't, so why would I mark it as resolved?

By the way, that last message said someone would get back to me in my 'preferred language'? What? That's a new one. Have I not been speaking/writing in English this whole time? (BTW I do usually write better English than you see here because the CC autocorrect seems to be bit over enthusiastic these days).

- I then get an auto response saying "We are forwarding you to a team that can better assist you."

- And then silence...

[Huma0]

@Carie1 

Please keep us updated as to how you get on with CS. I would love to know how they justify a guest trying to assault another with a large jade item thereby causing holes in the wall and call it 'normal wear and tear'.

[Carie1]

No, after 10 weeks, when the guest said 'I should have called the police'--there was no dispute about what happened--they informed me that "your request qualifies for reimbursement under Host damage protection." But notice you could drive a truck through that gap! All this says is that I have passed the threshold question.

I was going to give you another jaw-dropping picture, but let's all remember not to obsess about this. To help each other see clearly, yes. This conversation has been so dear to me. But not to get hooked.  So here's an alternative, if it will appear--platform being weird.

[Carie1]

This has absolutely nothing to do with the case but it makes me smile.

 

[Ann72]

@Carie1  Ha, love it.  Is that Pilobolus?  Whoever it is, it makes me smile, too.

[Elaine701]

@Carie1 

I learned my lesson some time ago.

Use Airbnb for bookings. They're good at that. 

Do NOT involve Airbnb support or listen to Airbnb recommendations. They're NOT good at that. 

Aside from getting bookings and getting paid, avoid Airbnb involvement in anything. It's not only extremely frustrating, but can be highly damaging as well.

Watch your back. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Elaine701  yes, I agree.I would like if Airbnb would be just a booking agency and hosts would be independent. But they, we, are not.

Airbnb is interfering in our business to the point that we can't say it is only a "booking agency" . Guests were refunded without the host being asked for his side of the story,  hosts can't collect or charge real security deposits, can't even cancel the reservation once the guest checks in...  Hosts would not involve Airbnb if they can resolve the problem by themselves. But they can't.

Btw, here are my guest's punch-hole artworks on the bed headboard and the door ( different groups, same week )  It was back in 2018 so our damage claim was accepted within a few days.