Payout Method Change stuck in a limbo for 3 months

[1-2-3-Rooms0]

Getting help from AirBnB help desk has been akin to war of attrition ...

( attrition mainly at a tiny cost of our sanity, soul and patience...)

Even characters in Catch 22 had a better chance for a sane resolution

than we have chance of resolving a simple issue.

“We have a simple issue…”

(well, we thought it was simple, but hey, live and learn...)

My partner has decided for personal reasons unrelated to our

renting business to take a break from everything.

Her Payoneer card data was the only payout method,

so we decided 2 months before she leaves to change our payout preferences

to another, already existing and working Payoneer account...

Sounds easy? Well.... Not quite...

You can not delete default payout method,

without adding another one....

and you cannot add another Payoneer payout method if there is one

already existing....

(you get to this dreaded payoneerwall/gate:

So, catch 22 rearing its ugly head…

No worries, we have 2 months before she leaves, and we have contacted the help desk in timely manner…. I mean how long does it take to change 5 lines of data?

Apparently it takes more than 3 months…

See, after we send out initial ticket we always get a generic reply with a following link:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/823/how-do-i-edit-or-remove-a-payment-method

which (if any of the help desk reps actually bothered to just READ the ticket would actually know) is completely useless to our problem.

EVERY SINGLE TIME (with one exception when representative kinda tried to delete the data and than forwarded the problem and we never heard back from anyone)

we get the same generic answer with the same link before we get into the problem

and 3-4  back and forts we either get our ticket closed with a reply that they are informing their technical department (I mean by all means do, but can we just change or delete 5 lines and solve the problem as well… takes … 30 secs? ) or to contact payoneer which promptly ends with: it’s AirBnB issue….

Pleas, requests, tickets and prayers to remove the existing Payoneer account from our profile have landed on deaf (well to be precise not deaf,  just completely uninterested ears)

We just lost our previous month payment, since our friend will not be able to collect the payout,

so at this point looks like we are just throwing money down the proverbial drain….

So…..

I guess I’m asking at this point:

What does it actually take to solve an issue like we’re having ?

Do we need to learn some secret and ancient language?

(if so, please refer us which one I should start learning)

Do we need to sacrifice some lambs or 100 oxens to AirBnB gods or some other deities and entities ?

(if so, please refer us to Those That Should NOT Be Named so we can arrange the proceedings

(am I getting terminology right this time around ?))

All jokes and venting aside this was utterly bitter and bad experience for a problem that should be easily solvable  …

After 3 months of dealing with this and finally losing some money to boot, you have to be in awe with the level and mastery of not giving a… dime and showing no interest at all in job the help desk is supposed to be doing.

[Sarah977]

@1-2-3-Rooms0  How ludicrous and absurdly frustrating.

Yes, I have found there is a secret language you need to learn when dealing with Airbnb CS.

First of all- realize that the CS staff are young, and likely very poorly paid. English is often not their first language. Also, they don't make the rules and their responses are all so similarly robotic that I'm sure they are instructed to respond like that. It also isn't their fault that Airbnb obviously doesn't bother to train them well. And if you're being poorly paid it's doubtful that you're going to spend your days off boning up on Airbnb policy. As well, they are fielding calls and messages from hosts and guests all day, most of whom are angry or upset. So I try to keep all that in mind in order to prod them to respond appropriately.

So I am always polite, even when I wish I could go cut their desk in half with a chainsaw. And I try to personally engage them in some way, so they will be on my side. Whether that's always thanking them for their time (even if they still haven't helped), telling them I appreciate that they have a difficult job, or wishing them a good day or night, I try to say something personal and friendly and address them by name (even though those likely aren't their real names) "Hi Jessica, thank you so much for your reply. Unfortunately it didn't adrress the problem, so let me try to make it as clear as possible" sort of thing.

Next, you have to lay the issue out extremely clearly. Short sentences in bullet point form in chronological order: 

I did this.

Then this happened.

I contacted Airbnb and they told me xx.

I tried to do that.

It didn't work.

Then this happened.

I need you to xx.

Ad nauseum.

Also, I often start the message with something like "Please read this message and do not send me links to the Help pages. My issue is not addressed there. I'll even shout it in capital letters. I recently had a possible hack of my email address. The first line of my message was TRUST AND SAFETY ISSUE. Then I explained it in the simplest of terms. I instantly got a reply from a CS rep saying she was passing it to a trust and safety rep and that rep got back to me within the hour and dealt with it quickly and professionally.

Perhaps you've already been doing all this and it's not working. But those are my tips that have worked for me. Good luck.

[1-2-3-Rooms0]

Thank you for the reply and your experiences, and you're right and on point,

and I do understand that most of the help staff is not that proficient in english...

(actually I think they actually mostly are…. but that is a whole other can of worms...)

but this still doesn't change the simple issue that most of them do not even bother to read/understand the issue… after multiple tries.

I understand more than I would like to, how it is to be low paid help desk rep, since once upon a time, very long time ago, in galaxy far away, I was one, so I’m ALWAYS polite (I am all too aware how I dealt with unpleasant customers, after all ) even while I am banging my head on the keyboard, laughing semi maniacally and wondering when will the nice ladies and gentlemen in long white coats finally arrive to pick me up and give me that wonderful, quirky shirt with strange sleeves with shoelaces on their ends…

I am aware that most of the tickets are dealt automatically, without a single thought given, just to grind through them, but odds are that given enough tries you actually get through a single rep that actually takes those precious 10 seconds to analyze the problem…

But I guess in 5-6 tries help desk rep lottery in 3 months now (March 15. was the first ticket that got lost) was not particularly kind to me 🙂

Sadly, after a while, frustration does set in….

But honestly at this point of time I’m just left in baffled state of disbelief  

And patiently waiting and keeping my fingers crossed that when those people in white coats finally do show up, they will at least offer some candy before throwing me in the van.

Joking aside the whole ordeal is almost soul crushing at this point, that is one of the reasons I posted here in hopes that someone will show me an alternative way how to reach/use proper channels (or point me to a new one preferably) which we can use to solve our “simple issue” 🙂