Airbnb cancelled all my bookings and deactivated my listing due to THEIR mistake in coordinates - Put me in NYC and I'm in Tennessee!

Deb75
Level 7
Altamont, TN

Airbnb cancelled all my bookings and deactivated my listing due to THEIR mistake in coordinates - Put me in NYC and I'm in Tennessee!

Terrifying situation yesterday. I am located in the mountains of Tennessee. I've been a superhost for all five years I've been on the platform.   I was booked for ALL weekends (only do weekends after May) through July, with several in August, October and November.  After being asked to 'update' my information (never was asked before in 5 years), address, link to my listing, name of my listing, AND my coordinates...then was told to go to a link they provided for my longitude and latitude , type my address, then the coordinates will be there, copy and paste to enter it on the Airbnb 'update' form.  Did so.  Then, a few hours later ALL my bookings were suddenly cancelled AND I got an email from NYC stating my listing was being removed because i 'didn't comply with their regulations'. WTH???  I was frantic. Then the angry and upset messages started from guests while I desperately tried to reach someone at Airbnb.  I finally got a message from the 'representative' that had asked for my update, she told  me I had 'given the wrong address' (??) AND wrong coordinates!..I said no way!  and I told her in a panic what was happening. She tried to blame it on me, saying I entered the 'wrong data' for longitude/latitude. I  am ashamed to say say I came unglued and told her I just cut and pasted it from the link she sent me, and I had double checked that the address was correct, so how could I have been at fault??.and that they had BETTER fix it NOW..said 'she'd fix it'. I finally reached someone at Airbnb, and after a ten minute hold they said they would correct it...and get the listing back up.

BUT I had to be the one to contact EVERY GUEST and ask them to rebook!  Because they had already been refunded.....13 reservations! AND all the dates were now open so the guest could lose those dates!  I was sick about this.  They finally got my listing back up. Took me a couple of hours to contact everyone and calm them down and ask them to please rebook, although 6 have not responded with a re book.  So that's about $1500 in lost bookings so far.  And the guests said that when they called, Airbnb would not tell them why they were cancelled. So some assumed it was on me...Can't blame them. I tried to explain it all to each, but I can imagine how insane it sounded.

This is totally unacceptable. I've been a superhost for all quarters of all 5 years.  I've had nothing but good things with Airbnb UNTIL these past few months, with several issues, mistakes on their part, allowing un vetted people to try and book, pulling my superhost status 6 months after my ONLY host initiated cancellation in 5 years, etc etc.   

Just got a note from one of the guests, she is booking elsewhere. Goosy about trying me again!  Two more said they decided not to re book.

It doesn't matter if this was a technical 'glitch' on Airbnb's part. I was certainly NOT my doing!  

Then, when I posted this on the Superhost Facebook page, found out TWO other hosts had this happen...and amazingly BOTH were relocated to.....wait for it....NYC!  what are the chances of THAT being an 'accident'?? That ALL the 'wrong' longitude crap was NYC for all three of us?  I'm heading to twitter soon if these 6 guests are gone for good.  NO host deserves this.  Disgusting.   And I'm tagging Catherine Powell, not that it will help, but this company is going to the dogs...I'm just torn up. Any suggestions on how to proceed? I've gotten 8 of the 13 bookings back, and one poor guest lost her dates that were a special mother/daughter celebration.  I feel so bad for them. No notice, no explanation, just cancelled...

 
28 Replies 28
Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Deb75 

It happens because AI (robots) are ruling the platform....

 

Yep..and they excuse themselves that way..I used to love this business...

@Deb75 

 

I felt ill reading your post, I really did.  WHAT a horrible ordeal for you-and THEN, all your guests too😫  The merciless “customer service reps” reacting to A.I.  reacting to algorithms or whatever - not a human brain in the mix!

 

Is this longitude/latitude process because you’re off the grid?  Still…. if a thinking human being had stepped in they woulKNOW you’re not suddenly going to give them a bad address after 5 perfect years!  And that was your first point:  why the hell NOW , and what’s the rush?

 

And you’re f*d financially as well, not to mention the loss of good will/rep and being a Superhost for 5 years.

 

I live about 30 min from Corporate at 888 Brennan in SF.  Want me to hand-deliver a message?

But seriously, folks on this forum and the others will have lots of ways to help apply pressure or at least get an actual human support person to take action.

 

Hang in there and so sorry, again, for this “attack” (which is how I would feel!)

Omg, thank you SO much for the support! I'm not off the grid at all,

( just peacefully feels like it!) I'm 12 miles outside of my  town and within 20 of three more. And you're right and all these years why was it all of a sudden so necessary for them to do this. I'm so grateful that others can understand how incredibly awful this is. And I am sure I sounded  frantic, trying to explain it to my guests, because when I think about it, it sounds absolutely insane. I'm sure some who've chosen not to rebook doubted my explanation, and that hurts. **bleep** the ' new' Airbnb! 

It's really sad because I've so enjoyed sharing this magical place with others. I felt it was kind of a calling for me after retirement from our farm and building business, and everything seemed to go so smoothly for so long. Everybody loved it. And when I lost my husband, I really felt I needed to share property with others, it was rewarding. But I just don't think I can keep doing it, I was hoping to get to the end of the year but if this keeps up... unlikely...thanks again and sure! Take them a message..tell them they are crapping in their dinner plate..hope they're happy hurting host and guest alike.

 

 

@Quincy@Sybe Could you do my a favor and see if someone can look at this. I asked this person to post here (this came up on a superhosts FB page). I'm seeing other posts from hosts about arbitrary suspensions and mistakes coming out of CS. I wasn't able to tag Catherine in this thread.

Clara116
Level 10
Pensacola, FL

@Catherine-Powell  the hosts on here are trying to tag you....will you please have your best folks look at this mess up and assist this host.... @Deb75 that is having such a challenge with her bookings and listing. all is really crazy and she truly needs support and help with navigating all this and it would be awesome if Airbnb would let each guest know that Deb is a fine host and this was a technical problem so she doesn't lose monies, as it looks like what is happening. Thanks very much for taking time to support us and fix the urgent things needed.

Blessings, Clara

 

@Christine615  got your back with the tag on Catherine here sista! hugs, Clara

Wow! I guess you do! It's so good to have a community like this of hosts who understand what we go through. Thank you so much and obviously I will keep you updated as to any results. I did get one more rebook from 6... I'm calmer now and I kind of have a fatalistic attitude, what will be will be. But boy it sure makes you reticent about staying in the business.

Ann72
Level 10
New York, NY

How awful @Deb75 - like @Marie6762 I felt absolutely ill when I read this.  To have one's hard work undermined and the listing that @Airbnb says we're "always in control of" snatched away by poor programming is horrific.  @Pat271 do you see why they need you??

Thank you! I am trying right now to figure out this Twitter thing so I can get the word out on that platform too. I just don't want it to happen anybody else. So much for them caring about the guest too! None of the guests were able to get a reason why they were canceled, so of course they came to me, upset, angry at times, scared because some of these dates were special events for them like anniversaries etc. Incredible.

Thanks, @Ann72 . Airbnb made a severe error that caused @Deb75  (and probably several other hosts) a significant loss of income. The hosts need to be compensated in full for their losses. Airbnb also need to have a post-mortem with their development teams to determine what exactly went wrong, and fix the code and the process. Developers are not being held to stringent unit testing standards, and the QA team needs to beef up their integration testing. Defective code has been making it out to the production version of the software that was not rigorously tested. This isn’t the first example we’ve seen.

 

I’ll only say this once, but I think these kinds of issues with code quality are far more crucial to fix than implementing new features like categories and split-stays. I understand that Airbnb want to provide something innovative for guests, and also want to keep ahead of the competition with shiny, sexy new features. But they really need to allocate a few development iterations to work solely on defects and robustness of the product, as well as hire, train and adequately pay a competent team of CS reps.

 

All easier said than done. I’ve been in the trenches many times in companies just like this, and these issues are complicated with a lot of moving parts, not to mention priorities are being set and decisions are being made at high levels that aren’t easy to undo, both technically and politically. It’s easy for me to sit on my couch and dictate what should and should not be done. Still, sometimes companies need gentle (or not so gentle) reminders to keep their eye on the ball, reaffirm their goals, and adjust accordingly to give customers what they really need.

@Pat271  "I’ll only say this once, but I think these kinds of issues with code quality are far more crucial to fix than implementing new features like categories and split-stays. I understand that Airbnb want to provide something innovative for guests, and also want to keep ahead of the competition with shiny, sexy new features. But they really need to allocate a few development iterations to work solely on defects and robustness of the product, as well as hire, train and adequately pay a competent team of CS reps."  Yes!!

Awesome stated..

@Pat271 I agree, I've been seeing a number of small technical issues lately that don't speak highly of the testing and QA process.  I'm worried the corporate marketing and planning timelines are overriding the software development realities in too many cases.  In a related matter the AI/ML automatic identification of "categories" for properties clearly was not trained with enough images in the data sets.  Time to fill in your off-diagonals in your training sets AirBNB!

@Michael5689  I can’t believe they are even attempting matrix math and building training sets, and meanwhile my Check-in time values get wiped out regularly, probably due to some simple SQL update issue when attempting to change other values in the same row. Where are their regression tests?