Houses DESTROYED post Typhoon Disappointing Airbnb Support !

[Jon3435]

Hello everybody,

Over the years, airbnb has been a major life companion, after traveling the US for work using mostly airbnb as accomodations, I settled in a little surfing paradise in Siargao Philippines where I would open some little rental houses with my savings. Life was perfect, recently opened accomodations started to be full. On December 16th, the typhoon Rai decimated 90% of the houses of the island. People are starving, and without roof for rainy season. After 4 days without signal trying to help the community rebuild, I went to the nearest non affected area to coordinate some donation and emergency supplies to send to the people in need (you can follow the action on the Bastien del isle Facebook account).  With no electricity in the neartown and limited internet, it's complicated to communicate to the outside and I couldn't access the airbnb platform. 

In the meantime, I've been getting harrassed over the phone by Airbnb customer service to agree to give full refunds to all my guests. I already wrote to them to tell that I have no house anymore, and that all my guest could choose between get full refund or half refund, with the other half going to the community to feed people in need. 

Since, I'm getting harrassed by the customer service who call me to accept to give full refund to the guests. I've lost everything and people just call me asking "how are you today, are you ok to refund fully your guests ?? " I've lost everything and it is just a total lack of tact when it's the 5th time that you receive a call. Then I receive some emails saying how nice of a host I am. On the side no help or understanding for the platform that you have been using for years. I booked over 100 accomodations and hosted over 100 guests ! 

Like most people who experienced the typhoon, we are in a trauma and focusing on helping the community. We have no more energy to fight against airbnb and it seems to be a fight at the moment, not a collaboration. 

Airbnb says that it will cover the guests in case of natural disaster, yes they will, harassing the landlord to accept to give full refund of everything, regardless the situation. We don't have houses anymore. 

I'm writting this to express my profund frustration from Airbnb. It used to be a flexible platform with a community spirit, it's becoming a money cow using cheap customer services representative who have no clue what they are doing and no understanding. This is sad. 

[Jon3435]

GUYS !!
This is enough, I just received ANOTHER CALL from your assistance staff ! She just asked me if I was OK, I answered NO, and then nothing happened, she didn't even know what to say !!!
I don't really understand what you are doing but it's becoming INSANE.
Stop calling me for NOTHING if you don't have any assistance to provide me !

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Jon3435I've seen videos and pictures on your facebook and it is apocalyptic 😞 Poor people... Nature is so unpredictable, one moment it is a paradise island and the next moment it is a pile of debris 😞

I see you are volunteering and helping provide food and water and raising money for a disaster fond despite losing your own homes. I can imagine how annoying and irritating it is when Airbnb reps are calling you.

This is just a forum for guests and hosts, Airbnb staff nor founders don't read it. CS is probably calling you separately for each reservation and will continue to do so until the last one is canceled.

To prevent it you should contact Airbnb and tell them to cancel ALL OF YOUR RESERVATIONS AT ONCE without penalties for you bc of extenuating circumstances.  Send them a link to your Fb page or news article as proof.

As soon as you will be able to log in to your ABB account you should snooze your listings.

@Nick @Quincy could you help ?

[Bob297]

@Jon3435 

While your listing is still live, you could consider writing future guests with the question of whether they would be willing to make a donation by paying but not staying with you.
Send them a link to your Fb page or news article as proof.

[Sarah977]

@Jon3435  I am so sorry for the devastation you and your area has experienced.

If the host is unable to host, for whatever reason, guests always get a full refund. You can't just force  guests to give half their booking payment to disaster relief.

If it's at all possible, given the difficulty of communications right now, as suggested, you could message the guests and ask if they would be willing to contribute. Otherwise, you need to do as Branka and Sylvia  suggest and tell Airbnb to cancel all the bookings with no penalty to you, under the "natural disaster" section of the Extenuating Circumstances policy.

[Jon3435]

Hello,

I just realized that now Airbnb deleted all my listings without any notice !! 

I have stayed courteous the whole way and ageeed to refund all the guests. 

I was not reachable for two weeks due to all communications that were cut, but my houses will be rebuilt within 3 months , and my calendar had bookings beyond the expected rebuilding date !
I also paid a lot of attention to my listings and my guests, all my ratings were 5 stars and I had at least 50 of them ! I don't understand what happened, could you help me please?
Thank you for your help, I'm getting desesperate and it feels that it is just an additional strike that I just got if I really have to start all over from 0.. 😕 

[Jon3435]

[Sarah977]

@Jon3435  I guess you will have to contact Airbnb to see if you can find out why they deleted your listings. I can see them temporarily suspending them as you can't host right now, but deleting them entirely seems totally wrong. 

You won't lose your reviews, those are still visible on your profile, but if you have to relist, the reviews won't show on the new listing itself, you'll have to direct guests to look at your profile. 

This doesn't help for the upcoming reservations you seem to have lost, but it's something to keep in mind for the future- as soon as a booking is confirmed, make a note off platform of the guest's contact info, i.e. phone number. That way if Airbnb cancels your bookings,  you still have away to get in touch with the guests and make other arrangements outside of Airbnb.