Airbnb is secretly STEALING money from hosts

[Henley0]

One of my guests recently cancelled a 3 day booking because they misread my listing. Although they cancelled less than 24 hours before check-in,  they called customer service who awarded them a full refund, and processed a 1 day payout for their 3 day reserveration. Their reserveration was $60USD a night, but for some reason, they didn't pay me that amount. I've spoken to three customer service representatives and they have all been unsuccesful in understanding that I simply was not paid the correct amount. All of the customer service representatives have been extremely unprofessional as well.

First cs rep: Told me that there is a policy that "as the smart pricing feature is enabled so on the day the guest cancelled the reservation the price of your listing was $55.00 and as per the Airbnb policy the host get paid out on the basis of the price calculated for that day by smart pricing"

THIS POLICY DOES NOT EXIST. I was told a lie, and I've done my research and this is not a real policy. I asked for a copy of this information, and I haven't received any response in days.

Second cs rep: I call this time for help. After explaining to her the situation, she responded saying that she will have to end the call and have a Case Manager respond to me through Airbnb Inbox. She also insisted the policy mentioned from previous cs rep indeed exist. I asked for her to send me a copy and she promised she will. I never heard back from her.

Third cs rep: Finally, I found someone who understood that I wasn't paid $60USD but instead $55 USD for my payout of this late cancellation. She said she raised the issue to her supervisor and Product team, and that she will update me via Airbnb Inbox. Surprisingly, she actually did update me, but she said that $55USD payout is correct because they used a conversion rate of 6.77766. She said "CN¥372.77(accommodation fee paid by Guest in his currency) divided by currency conversion rate which is 6.77766 equal to 54.99 or $55." This doesn't make sense, because my nightly fee was $60USD. Using the conversion rate she provided, that's $60USD * 6.77766 and it's CN¥406.6596. I explained this to her, didn't receive any response for a day and they closed the case without saying anything. Now I can't even write a response to this case..

Each new case I open, I have to start all over again and explain what my issue is.

I'm lucky it's only $5USD, but this raises concern on how well AirBNB treats their Hosts with customer service if this was a larger amount. Everyone watch out for how much you're getting paid. Airbnb is sneaky and stealing little by little from hosts to earn more money.

[Tony134]

You have no. idea.  Airbnb customer service reps lie so blatantly it's just mind blowing.  Recently I had a guest ask to cancel for a day shortly after booking.  I told him that was fine, as it was within an hour or two of making the booking.  I told him he would have to call in and have them call me to issue a refund, but I would honor it.

Airbnb rep calls me up, expecting that I will say no to refund because that' what I usually do and it's probably all over the notes.  This rep immediately starts making up some lie about this guy's family member being sick or something like that.

I stopped her dead in her tracks, pointed out that I had already agreed to a refund and the guest had already tole me it was for work reasons, and that clearly she was 100% making up a lie to try and 'make the conversation smoother.'  She started stuttering like a beast, couldn't talk straight, I told her to issue the refund and hung up the phone.

I've done over a thousand stays on the network, this behavious is systematic and comes all the way from the top down from Brian Chesky himself.  Bet your shorts the shareholders are going to kick Brian out of his own company in next year or two.

[Hector237]

I been trying to get 3 payout for 3 weeks now with no success.. No cancelations involved at all

[Sareh1]

Unfortunately recently we have a lot of issues with Airbnb regarding our payouts. The most important one that I called them thousand times including today is a $760 For a 2 weeks  booking since December 16th and they just asked me to wait until someone call me. The thing is that the guest said she called them and solved the problem. I have several questions;

1.how they can book 2 weeks without paying.

2. How does the host warranty work?

3. What are they doing during these three month?

During these three month I had 2 more problems with payouts. We have to check the transaction several times a day because they issue a transaction you can see in your transaction history and then, they will delete it in couple hours or couple days. If you forget about it and do not track it, you will lose money. I accepted a full refund cancellation on the check in day. There was +$250 and -$250 in my transaction history, then in couple days they collected money from my other bookings!!! And when I checked my transaction history, there was no +$250 anymore. Only $-250 for that full refund showed up. I didn’t receive zero money actually I lost 250 too! I had to call 4 times and put 2 hours time to take my money back. I delisted my listing for a while to see what happens with these problems.

[Sarah977]

@Sareh1  "I accepted a full refund cancellation on the check in day."

When you get a message saying the guest wants to cancel and asking you to accept or decline, if you click on accept, it is registered as a host cancellation. This is why you were charged. This is an atrocious trick that Airbnb plays, to the benefit of guests and the punishment of hosts. A trick I never would have known about if I hadn't been alerted to it from other hosts on this forum.

If you ever get a message like that again, decline the cancellation and then the guest will have to cancel it themselves and you'll be paid out whatever you are owed according to your cancellation policy.

[Kenneth12]

Airbnb CS is utterly incompetent,  and evidently outsourced via web platforms-- so the company does not even control its own CS experience. 

Good luck,  but if you time is worth more than $4.50/hour,   I doubt you're going to get anywhere.

[Emanuel677]

Airbnb is a terrible company. My money was blatantly taken by them - had to make an emergency cancellation due to COVID travel restrictions, only got 10% back on a stay (only spent one night out of multiple), and my host didn't even get paid for that night. Clearly, they're holding onto both of our money. Blatant lies from the staff whenever I called. Ridiculous how they think they can get away with it.