Dave, did you ever get a response from the Trust and Security team? I'm a Superhost and was just deactivated this week, with vague reason: "for violating the Terms of Agreement" but no specific Term provided. After piecing together the two cryptic messages I received from "Trust and Security", I figured out that ABB has the right to deactivate any host, even a Superhost, if we:
1. Accept a guest who arrives but who is not the person who booked the reservation ("Third-party Bookings"). This happens more and more on ABB and it puts hosts in a hard situation of telling someone who's just arrived (with their luggage) that we cannot accept them, and that we have to call ABB customer service to have ABB cancel the reservation. Rather than cause a confrontation, I have welcomed them and mostly had no problem, until recently ...
2. A third party guest caused a problem and tried to elevate it to ABB (and youtube), which triggered the "Third-party booker" violation and exposed ABB (and me) to the risks of defamation through social media. Deactivating the listing is their way of minimizing risk exposure.
3. Encourage a guest to contact you or pay outside of ABB. After ABB first temporarily suspended my listing and cancelled two upcoming reservations, the guests messaged me asking how to confirm their reservation (they still want to stay at my property, why punish them?). I replied back assuring them we still had their reservation and to call me. Within 3 days my account was permanently deactived due to "violation of the Terms of Agreement".
Trust and Safety never called to speak to me, only 2 brief email messages informing of deactivation. Apparently we are presumed guilty until proven innocent, even with a 3 year history and Superhost status. Although ABB prides itself with the quality-control, peer-to-peer review platform, the mass volume of ABB users are now causing all kinds of problems - and if your problem reaches ABB Headquarters, they will deactivate you (and probably the guest account) to simply reduce their risk exposure.
Heading to VRBO.com now...
