Hi Hosts team.
My name is Mario, I'm a proud host for 8 years now. I'm facing a critical situation and need help and alternatives:
Airbnb is not releasing payments for my Airbnb account since April 5th. To date, we are talking about USD $61,500 that Airbnb has not released. They all appear on the upcoming transactions, but Airbnb is just not sending the payouts (no issues with the banks, but with Airbnb not releasing them).
We have more than 70 listings and hundreds of Airbnb guests every single day to host and support, but our cash flow has stopped since April 5th. We won't be able to properly host them very soon. Our operation is big and expensive, we always want to offer great experiences to the community, but without money, no business in the world can operate. Plus, we channel everything through Airbnb, all our places are listed exclusively on Airbnb. We don't even receive direct payments , so basically 100% of our cash flow stopped suddenly.
We have followed the right process. We created a support case since April 18th, they escalated it to the Payments department and they assured us we were going to have a resolution within 48 hours, but we have received no more than a few copy-paste answers.
I have also posted on Twitter to Airbnb officials accounts but same copy-paste answers.
At this point, I'm considering alternatives. I know Airbnb has tons of cases, but this is not a normal case, I have around USD $20.000 payouts every week and they are not being released. I'm thinking of:
1. Hire some individual/company with good traction on social media or press that can call the attention of Airbnb
2. Hire some individual/company with legal alternatives. I don't want to sue or something like that at this point, but create a legal requirement that gets the appropriate response and support
I'm clearly desperate and frustrated, and I'm reaching out to Hosts community. I'd greatly appreciate your suggestions, advices and help. I still love Airbnb and I plan to grow with this Company and community, but I need the entire Airbnb team more than ever. It's a rough time for us.