@Ute42 @Sharon1014 @Colleen253 @Sarah977 @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0
I have spoken at length with @Monika-And-Domingo0 over the past several days, both by email and on the phone, and I can assure everyone that these are good, decent, proud, hardworking people who have been plunged into a living nightmare, not through any fault of their own, but as a direct result of Airbnb's deception and duplicity.
Summary - since they very first started hosting, up until March of this year, M&D's Airbnb earnings had arrived without issue into their dedicated bank account in Chile (apart from one booking in March, for which they're still owed)
From April to August, Chile - like most other countries worldwide - was subject to severe Covid restrictions/lockdowns, and M&D only had around half a dozen bookings from front line workers etc during that entire period. However, with the help of their savings, they managed to hang on through the lean months, in the hopes that things would pick up eventually.
In August, they reopened their listings and bookings started coming in again, but on August 25th, the couple noticed that all payments had stopped. Upon investigation, M&D discovered that since April, any payouts that had gone into their bank had not been via the usual bank transfer, but by 'deposito en efectivo' (cash cheque), through the SERVIPAG system, from two separate locations in Northern Chile. Their bank informed them that deposits via this method do not have a tracking number and are not traceable, unlike regular bank transfers. Not ideal when one is trying to locate thousands of dollars worth of missing payouts, as Monika and Domingo now are.
Since Sept 5th, Monica has been contacting Airbnb on a daily basis, spending interminable hours emailing and calling in a desperate attempt to have Airbnb release the money she and her family so urgently need to pay bills, feed their family and at this point, keep the roof over their heads and save the little hosting business that she and her husband have worked so hard to build.
Long story short - since Sept 5th, Airbnb has pushed them from pillar to post, fobbed them off with every preposterous excuse under the sun, messed them around relentlessly, blanked them, wasted inordinate amounts of their time and effort, flat out lied to them, and have driven them to the brink of despair. Monika's heartfelt, agonised pleas for assistance were wilfully ignored on the thread Ute linked to above (even though both Catherine Powell and the forum mods were regularly responding to many other posts on that same thread) from when she first started posting there on Sept 16th, until Catherine finally responded with a vague, non-committal response on Sept 28th.
On October 2nd, forum mod Katie posted that a customer support rep called Sergi had been in contact several times with Monika and Domingo, and falsely claimed that the delay in payments was down to M&D not providing certain information that Airbnb required of them to proceed. This is absolutely and completely untrue (to clarify, Katie is in no way at fault for this - the mods are just posting what they're instructed by Airbnb to post, and have no way of knowing the actual facts)
On October 3rd, Monika and Domingo finally received the tiny amount (again via deposito en efectivo - cash cheque), of just 72,800 CLP from the total of over 24,000,000 CLP of their money, that Airbnb currently owes them, for the 20+ Airbnb reservations they have now hosted, apparently for free. Barely enough to keep their family fed for a short while, let alone fight off the wolves from the door. The question to Airbnb is this - if this payout could successfully find its way to M&Ds bank account, why then, could the entire amount they're owed for the past month and a half, not be deposited along with it?
So what's really going on here, @Catherine-Powell @Tara-Bunch@Sam-Shrauger @Airbnb?? You all know as well as we know, that at any one time, there are innumerable hosts in exactly the same hopeless, helpless, powerless position as Monika and Domingo - but most are too intimidated or too scared of being booted off the platform to speak out.
On Sept 25th, at 2.48am, your support agent Jenelle wrote..
"We have other Chilean hosts who are also facing the same issues"
How may other Chilean hosts, exactly, Catherine? We're also hearing many reports of widespread Brazilian payout issues too. How many affected there, and left with no money to feed their families or pay their rents Tara? And Sam Shrauger - as Airbnb VP Global Head of Payments and Chairman and CEO of Airbnb Payments Inc - perhaps you could justify your impressive title by advising us of when all the other countless thousands of hosts around the world who are also victims of the Airbnb missing/delayed/withheld payouts debacle - some of them waiting to be paid for up to 18 months or more - might hope to receive the badly-needed income that is rightfully theirs?
Do we take it that Airbnb is operating some sort of Ponzi scheme now, whereby the company is using hosts' desperately needed funds to pad out its pre-IPO balance sheets, for the updated SEC filings? Because - along with many other highly dubious financial practices that the company has been engaging in over the past number of months (deducting money from hosts' upcoming payouts for refunds for totally unrelated cancellations that had scheduled arrival dates far in the future, just one example of many) - a Ponzi scheme is sure as hell what this is looking like.
Nowhere in the T&Cs does it state that hosts must offer 30/60/90 day (or more) credit facilities to Airbnb to keep the company afloat. And make no mistake, there's not a host in earth who signed up to act as Airbnb's de facto piggy bank, that the company can raid at will, whenever it needs to shore up its own finances.
The inhumane, despicable abuse, exploitation and mistreatment by Airbnb of decent, honourable hosts like Monika and Domingo - and incalculable numbers of other Monikas and Domingos across the globe - has to stop, and it has to stop now. Catherine Powell, Tara Bunch, Sam Shrauger - this is your watch. And your mess to sort out.
Penelope