Shadow ban on our listing, trust & safety team unresponsive

[J218]

Hi,

My account underwent verification some weeks ago.

Ever since then I have had a lot of problems with the Trust & Safety team.

The people there have hid my listing from showing on search results (even though it shows as "listed" on my profile).

Every time I call support or open a  support ticket, a different agent in a remote place of the world picks up the phone or replies to the support thread in broken English, but they are always completely clueless on what's going on and can never fix the issue. They often even close the thread before providing an answer, or they say they will call me back and simply close the thread not to call ever again.

My guess is that the Trust & Safety team is able to shadow ban listings at their own discretion and regular support agents don't have the tools to even know this is happening. On top of that, they seem to completely lack motivation to fix any issues. They act like automated bots, it is truly the worst support I've ever receive from an online platform.

After many weeks with this issue, my girlfriend decided to publish our listing again from a new account but it got blocked too by the same agents.

So right now, we are completely stuck with this Trust & Safety team.

They only communicate by email and they do not offer the option to talk via phone to resolve the issue.

We have to wait for them to reply, sometimes for 10 days at a time, even though we write daily emails requesting an answer.

Whenever they bother to reply, they do so with outright lies, such as saying our listing will be published again within 24/48h which is not true, or they send a bunch of nonsense buzzwords thanking us for being a part of this community without actually addressing our questions or providing any answer.

They act like complete despots, and we have no one to turn to.

It is extremely frustrating to be subject to such blockage and there is literally no one we can talk to to solve this issue.

Why does Airbnb allow its hosts to be held hostage by such slobbish employees?

And what are the options for a host like us to actually understand what's going on and get rid of these people's harassment?

We would like to talk to someone who can actually look into our case and resolve this matter.

Thank you

[Emiel1]

@J218 

Your listing is indeed inactive. The T&S team can not be contacted directly and if they are investigating, you just have to wait. The CS can not help you, so it can be frustrating. But in most cases a host knows  allready there is trouble, because "something" happened (claims, complaints of guest or neighbours, no license, off site payments, etc...)

Hopefully your case will be resolved soon,

Emiel

[J218]

First of all, if there is an issue that's being resolved by the T&S, why does Customer Support always offer to help the issue and makes us waste weeks waiting for answers which eventually solve nothing or they are outright wrong? It's a waste of time for both sides.

And about the T&S, you suggest we should just "wait"?

We have already waited enough, for a month now at least.

They take ages to reply and they do not clarify what's going on.

How do we know they are actually working on our issue?

How do we know they won't make us wait for another 3 months?

Why isn't Airbnb able to offer clear answers, or deadlines for their support agents to react?

How is this way of proceeding, with shadow bans, copy paste replies and endless wait, considered a valid way to deal with whatever issue there may be with our listing?

We are ready to answer to any questions they have, only if they actually bothered to reply!

If there is an issue why don't they state it and simply close our profile or tell us what should we change in order to fix it?

[J218]

it seems the employees at the T&S team are allowed to do whatever they want with hosts and our listings, at their own discretion, without being held accountable and leaving the hosts completely defenseless and out of options to contact anyone.

Why does Airbnb allow for this kind of mistreatment of their hosts by their staff?

This is something I can't understand.

Airbnb prides itself on inclusivity and pretending it's all nice and cool but in reality they can take your payouts, block your listing, shut down your account, etc, and there are no mechanisms whatsoever for users to complain.

What's left for us? Complain on social media?

[J218]

I imagine there must be staff working at Airbnb to ensure proper quality customer support...

It would be good if they get in touch with us to review our case, explain us about this situation and find a solution.

[Therese110]

Hi J1. I am currently experiencing the same exact thing! I'm a super host with a 5 star rating, have been calling every day, and seem to be getting nowhere. This has been happening for about a week now, and I have been searching for answers. No one at all has reached out to me to ask any questions or give me any information at all. It's extremely frustrating and yes, we are losing money. Something must be done. I've even been thinking of looking into talking to a lawyer regarding this, depending on how long this is going to be an issue. Let me know if you ever hear from them and what the outcome was! For now, we're switching to HomeAway and hopefully we can be up and running again... Very unfortunate for AirBnb. I will make sure I let anyone know who plans on hosting too, because I have actually had lots of friends and family asking about my experience because they're also thinking of hosting. 

[Therese110]

My husband just gave me this website that has some contacts for Airbnb.. I'm going to give it a shot and email... you should do the same!!! As well as everyone else having this problem: https://www.airbnbhell.com/contact-airbnb/

[J218]

I'm sorry to hear that, Therese.

I really don't understand why does Airbnb treat its hosts this way.

Either they are overwhelmed by work and suck at customer support, or, for some reason, this T&S team has its own agenda on banning people they don't like and they are not held accountable by anyone.

What is even more annoying, is that they don't do it openly but they use these shadow bans, and there's no mechanism to appeal their decisions.

They basically oust you from the system and because they won't give any feedback and regular customer support have nothing to do with the T&S decisions, there doesn't seem to be anything you can do as a user.

The only option would be to talk to someone in Airbnb who has an authority to overturn or at least clarify these decisions by the T&S, but who can be contacted?

Can some Airbnb staff reading this post get in touch with us and give us some guidance?

[Valerie186]

Did you get any help with this at all? I know this is an old post but I would love to know if you ended up getting it resolved or leaving Airbnb

[Kate221]

I just had a guest leave that took all of the keys and burned items in the apartment. The guest denied all wrongdoing but the insurance eventually paid out.

My listing has disappeared from the search engine and it is very odd for me not to receive inquires. 

In the past, I have always been incredibly helpful with guests and have a 4.97 rating on 500+ bookings.

Has anyone actually been able to resolve this issue?

[Kate221]

UPDATE: Although my listing did not show up via the Airbnb app or via Desktop for at least a week, the issue was resolved by the technical team within 3 hours of being reported.