WARNING for all Airbnb Hosts and advice on taking Airbnb to the Small claims court

Rhiannon19
Level 1
Pyrmont, Australia

WARNING for all Airbnb Hosts and advice on taking Airbnb to the Small claims court

Hi, 

 

Im looking for any advice on how to take Airbnb to court in order to receive compensation for the below.  

 

When I set up my listing - my payout bank account was in AUD (I'm australian) and the listing including the nightly prices I set was in Euros (being that my apartment is in Dublin). Before I made my listing live Airbnb contacted me and requested that I make the listing currency consistent to the payout currency by switching my profile to AUD which I did 

 

Overnight I received 7 new bookings and I realised that the symbol on the nightly prices had change from Euro to AUD however the numbers had not i.e. Airbnb changed 100 Euro to 100 AUD rather than converting 100 Euro to 157 AUD. 


After some back and forth Airbnbs technical team finally admitted it was a glitch in their system (which I have in writing) but told me

1. I could not cancel more than 1 booking or receive a penalty and

2. they wont offer me any form of compensation 

 

That is airbnb can change a hosts nightly prices (without permission) and think they can get away with it!

 

So I want to take them to court to get compensation for the incorrect pricing.... any advice would be helpful 

1 Reply 1

@Rhiannon19  There may be an easier way to resolve this such as writing to each guest whom did the booking that there was a mistake of the price difference due to the EUR and AUD mistakes. You can ask them if you can adjust the price difference from your end and if they don't agree, ask them to cancel and you should agree to refund them their full amount, then  start to list with the correct pricing with new bookings.

 

It is confusing from your part that you are working with two currencies.

 

You can resolve this by explaining per guest. Its probably easier then dragging it through a court which is a much longer process and then you would have agreed to the terms in regards to the legal policy court waiver by joining airbnb.