Arbitration Agreement Fail

[Tony134]

Hey All,

As most of you know, I've been pretty unhappy with how Airbnb has been dealing with CS and cancellations as of late.  As it has only gotten worse with no end in sight, I finally filed a complaint with and requested help from the United States Department of Justice.

Airbnb has a pretty flimsy arbitration agreement that prevents you, me, and other hosts from suing them, it requires arbitration instead with a '3rd party' that just happens to be... of Airbnb's choosing.  They are using this arbitration agreement to protect themselves from Employment lawsuits.  They reasons they are doing this are pretty obvious:  if you look at employment laws, it's pretty clear we're not really self employed.  Airbnb calls all the shots, handles all the money and the financial decisions, and most telling of all, hosts handle 100% of Airbnb's guest bookings.  Anything more than 50% and Airbnb shouldn't be qualifying us as contractors, but they do.

If I was totally wrong about this, Airbnb wouldn't need to hide behind an arbitration agreement; but I'm not wrong.  This is how airbnb skirts the law to use your home, furnishings, time, and money to make their bank account swell without accountability.

I have written the Justice Department simply to ask their advice on skirting or nullifying the arbitration agreement, or on how to get a true day in court with Airbnb.

For those of you that have been upset with Airbnb and not gotten resolution, or waited over a month for CS to call you back, only to close your cases with no good reason, please, do us all a favor and contact the Justice Department today.  Writing in these forums is having no effect, and Airbnb clearly paid someone at the BBB to instantly(overnight, I have the pictures, see below) put their rating up from D- to A+, so complaining at BBB useless unfortunately.  Magic! (Or Bribery)

[David126]

I actually meat up with a friend of mine who is a Contractor this afternoon and coincidentally he wants to get out of the business for very simiular reasons, including reviews https://www.homeadvisor.com/ for example and not being paid on a few jobs and the hassle and uncertainty of a lien for relatively not much money.

I am reasonably familiar with UK Employment law of this subject and followed the Uber case, US I assume it would be a State issue.

Let us look at it from a practical point of view and assume there was a case, it would take many years to go through the legalssystem and lots of money on Legal fees. So most unlikely anybody on here would have the resources or commitment to follow through.

I have stated my views, would be interested to hear any legal reviews and comments anybody has obtained.

[Kenneth12]

Oh,  FWIW:  contractor's liens get attention,  except from idiots.

[Inna22]

I do not want to be Airbnb’s employee for many reasons. I might not be happy with some things they do however involving Justice department to cancel arbitration clause is not a way to solve anything. Have you had arbitration and got unsatisfactory results? Have you heard of other’s in the same position?

[Kenneth12]

The arbitration clause issue has nothing to do with the employee/contractor issue,  in essence.  I haven't read the arbitration clause,  but the AAA is well-regarded FWIW,  and ABB's terms may be fair.   (Their 'case managers,'  on the other hand,  seem immature and arbitrary).

[John28]

Thank you! Finally, someone has taken action. I will do the same! Thanks for the initiative put forth by you! Many thanks!!!! 

[Ann10]

VRBO lets me handle the security deposit. They trust me. Now, I'm a Premiere Partner and I get to have the guest's email and phone number before the booking. I can also have the guest get Property Damage Protection for $59. Airbnb won't allow me to do that. So, I'm at their mercy. If a guest damages or steals my stuff, too bad. One of the incompetent "Trust and Safety Specialists", who isn't even fluent in English canceled a booking of mine because she thought I gave out my email before the booking was made. I didn't and the guest confirmed it.  Why would I if I'm going to confirm the booking and I can give it out a few minutes later, plus I've been doing this a long time. I would have known it would be blocked out. There would have been no logical reason for me to do it. I was in a different time zone than I normally am in, plus their site is painfully slow.

I don't know what happened to the rest of this message. When I went to post it, I got an error message so I cut and pasted it. Now, most of it is missing and I don't have time to write the rest now. Sorry, if it doesn't make sense.

[John28]

Well, this is more than interesting what I just found out!!! Airbnb is behind the corruption.  I had been telling them in emails and posting wherever I could that I could not tell who the real Airbnb was and who the hackers were, well it looks like I just stumbled upon the answer.  Airbnb and the hackers are one and the same.  So, I was locked out of my account, called the offical Airbnb number and the CS rep asked if there was another email I could be reached on, and then we began communicating through that email.  That same night I was to get a payout into my account, an account I have yet to get an answer as to why it went there b/c it was not set up to received payments or the default for any listing I have.  I watched as I got notified that my payout method had been changed, and then it was changed back as if nothing had happened, and if I hadn't of saw the email pop up and disappear, I would have never known.  So, I then began getting texts from Bank of America as someone was attempting to login to my account, this is the same night, I was locked out of my account, the Airbnb rep apparently created another way to get into my account as me using the email address I gave her to regain access to my account.  I never heard back from her or anyone for that matter as to the status of why the hell that happened.  I was never able to login to the account using that email address, but at the conclusion of the "investigation" the airbnb rep said that I should stop creating accounts with different emails.  That's when I was like, do what?  I never ever was able to login using that email address.  They are the ones who are hacking into my account b/c the phone call came from Airbnb and the emails came from airbnb.com, so either the hackers have spoofed their email addresses, phone number and even got into the online help chat forum, then the hackers are working withing Airbnb!  I have sent email after email showing them this, and I get no response whatsoever, the only thing that happens is I see things change like today, I noticed a help message where I had apparently said  "thanks Malakeley, or some strange name that I would have remembered typing and I didn't type it.  Then suddenly, I told them to please take down the public response from the cancellation that I was forced to make b/c I had no idea who had control of my entire financial records and I needed to have those dates blocked out anyway b/c I have already got that weekend booked on aonther platform, that platform is VRBO...I immediately got booked in one day.  I didn't even have time to set the **bleep** profile up and I am booked for that weekend for way more than what Airbnb was planning on stealing.  Suddenly, that response was removed and all of the "penalties" were also removed.  I have been logging into airbnb through Chrome browser and I just opened Firefox and created a different Facebook account with the email address they had created an account with, they said they were deleting it.  I just came over to Airbnb, and I didn't login and suddenly I see eight notifications!!!!!! I am logged in how they usually login and they have been hiding this **bleep** from me.  I am so livid right now.  They have my bank account information, paypal was supposed to be deleted, but who really knows?  I don't know who is the real airbnb and who is not, and seeing as though when I was telling them today that there was a hacker with an email address that ended in airbnb.com and they called from the airbnb number and I asked the person that never said anything back, what exactly is the policy?  Does airbnb ask for your email, phone number and payout method when you call or not?  No one answered my question!!!!! Somethinng is very off with this company, and I have a feeling if you all are not careful, there is going to be a lot of missing money soon!   They tried to get my money and I beat them to it, but the fact that I haven't heard a word back from anyone regarding the fact that someone created an account with my email address, and they called me and asked my permission to delete an email that I didn't link to my account?!  The emails were even sent to a Jason Brandon!  and they wanted me to name that person's name as well!  I said, "well, apparently they have made up a name Jason Brandon because that isn't my name".....and they need my permission and they need me to reply to an email from them telling them to delete that email?  That makes no sense at all.  What if I had no access to that email, then how would they get me to email them from there to delete it from the account?   Something isn't adding up here.  None of this is!  Airbnb is the guilty ones, if they weren't then why are they ignoring my proof?  And why were all of these notifications hidden from me until I used that other email address?  They haven't deleted that email address!  Someone is constantly trying to login to my bank account as well, and this all has to do with Airbnb, and they remain silent!

[Linda1109]

I am an Airbnb user, 

I am very disappointed with their services.

My ordeal began on Friday-08.17 evening when I erroneously deactivated my account trying to remove a credit card that I didn't want to be listed. I immediately called the care center to notify them of the issue.

1. The first call center representative was very rude- I still maintained my cool and called back a second time.
2. The second representative was very helpful and assured me that the issue had been escalated to the case manager who would get in touch with me. He didn't, however, have a turnaround time.
3. I called Saturday morning and was informed that my issue was being handled.
4. Meanwhile, I was also trying to get in touch with them using Twitter.
5. Sunday morning, I received a call from the case manager. Who let me know that my issue was being handled and would require an additional 24 hours to reactivate my account. Meanwhile, assuring me that she would be in touch with the host to make sure that the dates are reserved. She promised to call back, but she didn’t.
6. Monday morning, I called back and went through the tedious process of trying to identify yourself—and explaining the case all over again as I had done in all accounts. I was informed that my call would be returned 30 minutes later-which they didn’t.
7. I called back and insisted to talk to the case manager—I had lost my cool at this point. It was only at this point that my call was merged with the case manager. She went ahead and assured me that all was well, and she had been in touch with the host and the reservation had been blocked. I was relieved. She, however, informed me that a partial refund has been done and once the account has been reinstated—it would be reverted. In case of anything, she will let me know. She asked for an additional 24 hours to reinstate my account—assuring me that it wouldn’t be an issue as the booking is secure.
8. Tuesday, mid-morning—calls me with good news—my account has been reinstated but—the host has decided to go ahead and accept another reservation.
9. I immediately try, to reach out to the host again—whom by the way I had called to let him know that there was a hitch and to please give me time as we resolve the issue—assuring him that it was an error, but we are still on.
10. The host reaches out saying he has received an offer for the house and he is sorry.
11. I try to negotiate using different avenues—but seems like the house cannot host all out guests—as it can apparently only accommodate 21 even though the post says— ‘Huge 14BED Townhouse Near Manhattan!! Sleeps 25!!!’ · 16 guests.
12. As if that is not enough—I was first informed that I can only get a 50% refund—which later was revised, and the total proposed refund came short by almost 600 dollars.
13. I called the call center again—this time requesting for a supervisor. I am yet to receive the call and yet I have 25 guests without accommodation—the function (wedding) is only a week away.

Questions-

1. Why didn’t Airbnb freeze the account since there was a pending issue?
2. Why did Airbnb keep assuring me that all was okay –yet they didn’t have control over the reservation?
3. Why doesn’t Airbnb have a definite timeframe/turnaround window that they can resolve issues?

[Leplubo0]

@Tony134 great post. Please keep us updated.

[Ann10]

I've wondered how they had an A or A+ with the BBB with so many complaints of injustice from both hosts and guests. Weird!

[Kathy652]

Airbnb treats HOSTS like they are nonexistent although they are the foundation of their business. Watch for a competing service in the near future whereby the HOST has much more control over THEIR money.