Wrongful deduction from payment

[Thomas2116]

I had a guest who had to cancel his booking at the last minute in early July. He contacted Airbnb and requested a full refund. An Airbnb customer service agent then contacted me and I agreed to a full refund. He told me I simply wouldn’t receive a payout for this booking. I was OK with that! 
fast forward to today. A new guest checked in but I only received a portion of the payment. My transaction history shows that Airbnb deducted the full amount for the cancelled booking from the new payout for this guest. Which means I practically paid Airbnb or my former guest for not staying with me. How is that possible and legal? I never received a payout and actually paid his full amount to Airbnb now. Still waiting for an answer from customer service. I want my money ASAP! 

[Ann72]

@Thomas2116  You're right that it's wrong!  They're only supposed to do this after they've issued a payout for the cancelled reservation and you've issued a refund.  Hope you get some satisfaction from CS soon.

[Thomas2116]

thank you Ann! I’m still waiting for an answer from Airbnb customer service. When I called them on Sunday they told me that someone would message me. Nothing. Terrible customer service atm! 

[Nomads5]

Hi Thomas did they manage to solve up your case?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Nomads5 The issue was 5 years ago. If you have a similar problem you might be better starting a new thread.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Thomas2116 

You are not the only host to experience this. Many hosts throughout the world are complaining this is happening to them too in a deliberate attempt for Airbnb to retain funds. 

Your future cancellation for which you haven't been paid is being deducted from your immediate payout. This is just another strategy for Airbnb to not pay out fees to hosts and hold on to cash.

Despite Airbnb having had the money being refunded and it not being paid to the host, they want to hold that as well as retain the fess due to hosts.

It's immoral.

[Thomas2116]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 

Wow. In a strange way, I feel better I am not alone in this terrible situation. But this - along with some other incidents I had in the past - make me reconsider using Airbnb as a host in future. At the very least I will not allow guests to cancel for free and receive a full refund any longer. I feel bad for the guests but Airbnb leaves me no other choice.

I am lucky there are alternatives I can use in my country though. It seems Airbnb has slowly become the new Booking.com - having a one-sided customer service only. It’s immoral to retain these funds indeed.  Especially during a pandemic, when I was allowed to reopen my business only weeks ago and am heavily relying on my payouts. 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Thomas2116 

The worse situation for you is yet to arise. That will be if you rebook your cancelled dates. You won’t see any of that payment money either until after check-in, yet you will still be financing AirBnb. 

That would potentially be AirBnb holding three times the booking value. (3x). The cancelled payment, your financing of that cancellation plus the new booking payment received.

More immoral.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Thomas2116 

Wait though.. This has all happened and your future negative balance should no longer be there, but just be cleared. Any cancellation arrangements should just have been balanced out.

This is not some glitch, it's a convenient way to disguise company liquidity and bolster their bottom line. If I were you, I wouldn't wait for any customer service reply, I'd screenshot everything on your account now, open a new support case giving them 24 hours to remit you your payment and if it doesn't arrive in time, start sending your information to the German media. How long have customer service had to resolve this matter? Any time is too long.

Here's a post referring to reporting the matter to CNBC by @Stephanie365 , I was looking for another email reference for you but came across this..

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Payout-Delay-Missing-Transaction/m-p/1324131/highlight/t...

Found the email... @Ryan453 provided the email link I saw.. this is a contact at the San Fransisco Chronicle who are keen for information: **. If you Direct Mail Ryan (by clicking his "@tag" he might be able to provide you more help or information.

Good Luck. Do keep us informed how you get on.

@Katie @Airbnb 

**[Personal information removed in line with - Community Center Guidelines]

[Thomas2116]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 

I agree! They are making money with our money and we are not talking peanuts here.  My guests booked longterm stays (over one month long).

They are also clearly avoiding me. I have been waiting for an answer since Sunday and I have contacted both the US and the German customer service for help. Their customer service hotline in Germany is only open for guests at the moment and the agent answering the US hotline told me I should message them to receive an answer from the correct department. Seems like it's no one's job to deal with this. I have opened two cases so far (in German and English) to widen reach. But will follow your advice and open the third one now, giving them 24h to reply before I contact the media. Thank you for the media contacts! I will inform them about what's going on. 

P.S.: This morning Airbnb called me and I was hopeful it was because of this issue, but instead, they called me regarding a different booking. Guests seem to receive immediate help. When I told the agent I would like someone to answer my complaint,  he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about and told me to wait and message them (yet again). 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Thomas2116 

I feel for all the hosts being taken advantage of like this and hope your perseverence pays out sooner rather than later.

[Katie]

Hi @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0, thanks for the tag. If you do spot someone with an issue like this then please do try to tag one of us as soon as you see it - I appreciate you were trying to help here though 😊

Just a heads up that I had to remove an email address that you posted above - I'm sure you're familiar with the CC guidelines but linking them here again just as a reminder about personal details. 

@Thomas2116 I'm so sorry to hear you're having an issue with your payments. I'm sure you might have spotted that a few hosts were having an issue with payments due between 18th-20th July, but this issue has now been resolved and missing payments have been paid out.

Being that this relates to a refund for a previous guest though, it seems this is a different issue. We're flagging each of these other issues with the Payments team, so I'll do this for you now, and fingers crossed we can get to the bottom of the problem.

I completely appreciate the frustration over the delay here, but it's worth bearing in mind that opening multiple cases tends to be more of a hindrance than a help, as it tends to create longer delays, and mean you might not receive a clear response.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Katie 

Of course I was trying to help. I posted two links to Community Centre posts in which issues like this were being discussed and dealt with. One of those posts contained the email I reposted which accompanied the post link. That post was clearly posted next to a mod's reply, email address intact and not removed. It's still there !! In duplicate !

(screenshot can be supplied if you require supporting evidence). 30/7/2020. I can show you the one from 29/7/2020 showing the whole post too if you need to see?

If CC Guidelines are somehow broken in linking to existing CC threads containing personal information, I would have expected that personal information to have been already deleted, after being there for over a week now.. no? 

Why now are you deleting links to CC threads? The second link thread i posted was deleted . This was to the thread titled "AirBnb not paying hosts—news media needs to know!"

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/AirBnb-not-paying-hosts-news-media-needs-to-know/m-p/132412...

Why can that thread not be linked?

I'm loving the idea that if I see anything with an issue like this again, that I should tag the mod's, that'll save me a whole lot of time in answering. Thanks! Great Idea!

[Katie]

Hey @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 

Great to see you back over here. The only part of your post above which I had to edit was someone's email address - we pop a couple of asterisks wherever we have to remove info, and then pop a reference on what was removed at the bottom of the post. The idea is that we're making it clear where we've had to edit, partly for transparency and partly for education purposes. 

I can't see any links other than the one you originally posted there ('Here's a post referring to...'), but perhaps it didn't link properly when you posted? 

In terms of the email address being previously available, I'll take a look for you as it definitely shouldn't be there - thank you for highlighting 😊

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Katie 

It's definitely there. Twice. Just before Lizzies post. And it's still there. Here's the screenshot:

 

Feel free to delete the screenshot.