Host Capital / Kabbage

[Roger-and-Lisa1]

Hello Fellow Hosts,

Has anyone out there used the heavily advertised "Host Capital" through Kabbage & Airbnb?

This was a heavily advertised program on both Airbnb's site as well as on TV and Facebook, etc. It worked like this: You could request an 'advance' on your future earnings as an Airbnb host. As a guest would check in, Airbnb would take a percentage of that payment and that would go to paying off the 'advance'.

We 'took advantage' of this one time. We chose to use $2,000 advance which was paid back in 3 - 4 weeks. Kabbage took an additional $300 as payment for this advance. Done. We were square 3 weeks into 2019. Fast forward to 6/7/21; our oven/microwave combo died and of course we had guests arriving in 3 days.  We reached out to Kabbage to see if we could get another 'advance'. Surprise! No answer! In fact we've called 10 times, at different times during the day only to hear the same message: Please call back during business hours. So we reached out to Airbnb, since they had partnered with Kabbage and allowed access to our account to both receive the original advance and for repayment. 

The first gal I spoke with had never heard of Kabbage nor the program. She assured me she'd have a specialist on it. Sometime during the night we received a response from an Airbnb 'Specialist' who informed us that no such program exists nor has ever existed and that we were scammed. The day we were to receive our payout from our guests (we were able to fix our oven - thank YouTube!) we learned that not only did Airbnb short us almost $600, when we called they informed us that they were taking the money (and would continue to do so) until the 'advance' was paid back!! The advance they claim was a scam. Airbnb informed us that we had borrowed an additional $2,000 they were taking our money until that was paid back! 

We've been dealing with this nightmare for 4 days now and can't seem to get anywhere. Do any fellow hosts know contact info., name/phone for someone much higher up in the Airbnb organization? Have any fellow hosts ever dealt with a similar situation and if so, how did you get it resolved?

Thank You,

Roger & Lisa

Super Hosts since 2018

[Mary419]

I am so shocked yet intrigued to read this post. Have you posted screen shots to any host group where screen shots aren’t banned/censored? I would like to know where I can see those if so… 

Those are steep fees for an advance. I personally didn’t know about Kabbage and was only offered advanced payouts along with super strict cancelation once around 2016 and I declined it. But I’m fascinated that there is/was a sort of loan shark payday loan operation going on that none of us know about now. I do not think it was in the SEC filings at all either. Please keep us posted. 

[Louise0]

$300 interest on a $2,000 advance for 4 weeks?  Seriously?  That's equivalent to 195% per annum.  

I think you've been scammed.  I'm also thinking a few other things.  But ...

[Holly85]

Yes I am having trouble too. I stopped hosting when pandemic hit. At the time my balance was only $689 and Airbnb was deducting 49% of every payout. I just started hosting again and they are still making the deductions but the loan isn’t showing payments. Neither side knows what’s going on and keep telling me to call the other one (Airbnb/Host Capital aka Kabbage) can’t get a resolution and I’m not able to earn a full payout nor is the loan getting paid..where’s the money going???