Frustating payout issue from Airbnb

[Arief79]

What I'm writing here is my disappointment with the Airbnb system and to let everyone know. and I hope it doesn't happen to others.

Who am I?

I am a Host on Airbnb for more than 2 years. I have a list of 8 properties. I work as a host in Bali by helping many property owners with manage their online / offline property reservation. Then I get paid a commission from the production that I produce. I Did a good job with hosting Airbnb, you can see my profile.

This incident began 5 days ago,

(23rd of November 2019) where I received a very surprising email from Airbnb. Airbnb said it had the advantage of sending a payout of Rp 21,364,861.73 (USD 1,515) to my account between 5-12 November 2019 without any clear details. This is a very very fatal error. Then with ease in the last part of the e-mail it says that Airbnb will automatically deduct payouts from future reservations. (Oh my god, this is so crazy).

The Crazy part is :
- Airbnb said they overpay me between November 5-12, then Airbnb notifies me on November 23 (more than 1 week after the incident). 

- I haven't even gotten a detailed overpayment explanation yet. Which reservation? What date? what amount? (I have a lot of reservations)
- In the business world, we cannot just transfer any of that money to another party, then after that it imposes what happens to that party. In fact, it was the carelessness and fatal mistake of the sender of money. In my opinion, sending money improperly to someone else's personal account is the same as sending a virus. 

My Situation now : 

- In the last five days I have talked to one of the customer support. She really listened and helped me but the surprise was that she said that she had received so many calls for the same complaint. Then today she write me that there is no alternative solution on what has happened. The only option is for Airbnb to make the adjustments from my upcoming payouts so that they could make adjustments,  She said She cannot do more since only people who have the power to do so.

- I am only a host that cooperates with properties that I have listed on Airbnb (total of 8 properties). These eight properties are different and are owned by different owners. Me as the host only gets a commission fee of reservation we produce. As a host, I have a staff member who receives payment from Airbnb, then he will immediately give the money to the property owner, tax, and others for no more than 1 day. I have confirmed that the payment we have received from Airbnb (05-12 of November) has been allocated to property owners and others.

- Airbnb has overpaid me still without clear information and which payment details, which reservation, bank validation or others. and worse is that Airbnb notified me more than 1 week after overpayment error. If Airbnb becomes aware of payment errors and notifies me on the same day, the funds will definitely still be with me and I might be able to help. With conditions like now, how do I get the money back from the parties that I have paid ?? it's impossible, even asking about it to the property owners definitely will ruined my reputation.

- At the moment I should get 2 reservations payout for a total amount of IDR 4,947,000 (USD 350) but I have not received it or there is no confirmation of Airbnb. and the owner of the property has complained to me for not receiving payment

- the conclusion for me is : it is very unfair, Airbnb as a big and well-known company can make fatal mistakes like this and then impose this to the innocent party. and I am in this position very disadvantaged and frankly can not trust anymore with the Airbnb system that can not be relied upon. I have never experienced a fatal error like this in other online reservation platforms.

- I offered to Airbnb that i only can return the commission that I get from the property owner. but I can't help Airbnb more than that. I have tried to help and cooperate as well as possible.

- I still hope for the last time I can receive a responsible and wise answer from Airbnb.

- Airbnb only has 6 hours to give me the final answer. if the solution from Airbnb remains the same, I am forced to take a more serious decision that may lead to termination of cooperation with Airbnb forever. And i will cancel many future reservation and stop working with Airbnb.

- All is because this system error (i can not afford to loose again and now i can't trust this system anymore). There is no such a fatal error like this in other online reservation platforms/booking engine.

It is really sad to leaving Airbnb just because of this kind of situation  Where a lot of alternatives should can be offered to rectify the wrong that has been done. I sure hope, that management hears me, and they see, that creating more alternatives for users give more assurance that they are being taken cared off by the Company.

Dear any Airbnb host in the world,

has anyone experienced the same thing with me here?

and what you do if you are in my position. can you still believe in this system?

*please upload images that do not contain sensitive information such as email addresses and surnames*

Best Regards,

Arief

[Donna519]

Hi Arief,

I understand your frustration and we also have experienced the same thing very recently.

I own a villa management in Bali and we run close to 30 different listings.

However, when this "extra payment" arrived on our account, my accountant instantly let me know that we received twice the same payout.

Airbnb platform will not allow to send the "extra money" back to them but will deduct from futur payments - this simply is the way they work this kind of situation.

We are still holding this extra payout, hence when other payouts do not arrive as they will deduct from already received money, we will then use these funds to credits villa owners.

What I am not understanding in your post is that if you received twice the same payment, and as you said, send it automatically to villa owners, then one or several of your villa owners will have receive "extra payment" - I mean, this money is necessarily somewhere since it reached your account.

May be you should track any "double payments" you made to villa owners and kindly ask them to transfer back the overpayment.

That way you should be able to finance future non coming payouts.

As far as leaving the Airbnb platform for ever, it is a personal choice obviously, but we both know that they do generate a lot of bookings here in Bali and their commission is a lot less than many other platforms / agents - therefore I wouldn't recommend you do so.

I can see you have more than a 100 reviews, meaning you have generated a fair bit of bookings with them...

I hope you can resolve your issue swiftly.

Kind regards

[Arief79]

Hi Donna,

As I said, I didn't get any details from which payment, which reservation. So I cannot bring any data to the property owner. And this happened too long. And I can only guess everything.

I work for 8 properties with different owners. Can you imagine if the problematic payment before happened to property A and B. Then the future payments taken by Airbnb is belonged to property C and D?

I don't have or keep the funds like you. This will cause my cash flow to collapse, and will produce stories of money disputes with property owners. How can I get through it if my cash flow is destroyed? and also will bring me and also Airbnb a bad reputation in front of the owners?

Thank you,

Regards,

Arief

[Donna519]

HI Arief,

Yes tough situation.

I would recommend to track your incoming payments to see where that money is.

Play the honesty card with the property owners is also a good idea, as honesty will never bring you bad reputation.

Sincerely hope you can solve this shortly.

All the best

[Zeezah0]

Had similar issued too. Out of nowhere notice get deduction from a client. Almost contact the client why it happened, confused to be honest, since we dont have any problems with his stay. But heard from a friend about airbnb payment issued and I double check the history and  found airbnb make double payment for the same client to me and then deduct the amount again, without clear explanation! I need to figure & guess by my own.  This is bad. Airbnb cannot just play with payment like this. This make us worried for the future if we cannot rely on their system billing statement. Especially related to untrusted financial balance. Good thing I didn't contact the client, otherwise he will know airbnb error and think twice to book via airbnb if know airbnb not reliable. This is crucial and really bad error for a company as big as airbnb. Cannot happened again!

[Susan17]

@Airbnb 

When is this unconscionable madness going to end? As Airbnb loves to keep telling regulators, the media and the general public alike, a sizeable proportion of your host base is dependent on the timely and accurate delivery of their payouts, in order to meet their own financial and operational obligations. Airbnb's ongoing failure to adequately provide a competent, transparent, reliable payout system to its service providers (hosts) constitutes negligence in the extreme, if not downright fraudulence. 

Countless thousands of hosts rely heavily on their Airbnb earnings to feed their families, pay their bills, cover their /rents/mortgages etc, and to be deprived of that (often substantial) income for extended, unacceptable periods of time - with neither explanation nor apology forthcoming from the company - absolutely can, and often does, spell personal and professional disaster for many. This is the reality. 

Airbnb's technical incompetence should never be hosts problem. And host earnings should never be Airbnb's piggy-bank, to play with as they see fit. 

Sort it out, Airbnb. The eyes of the world are scutinising every move you make, now that you've thrown down the IPO/DPO 2020 guantlet, and in the light of recent PR disasters. It really wouldn't be prudent for the company to become embroiled in allegations of potential financial irregularities/mismanagement/misconduct at this crucial stage in the game, now would it? 

[Sally208]

This issue exactly has just happened to me also after years of smooth sailing with Airbnb.

I got a few random double up payments from the same 3 guests and even a payment from a guest who had cancelled and been refunded over a week prior.

These occurred between the 9 to 11 November.

I have not received a summary of what went wrong, how much i owe and when ill start getting payments again. I have two properties which are booked heavily and i'm receiving NO income since 10 days.

[Jamie350]

Same here. 

I've been running 6 properties for over the last two years in Seoul Korea.

I got an email from Airbnb on 23 November saying that they mistakenly overpaid 5 ~ 12 November (around $2500), and will be deducted from my future payment. 

My case is that there were duplicated payments from two guest groups and three same payments from one guest. 

I'm the owner and host so I don't have any further complicated issues from this, but the thing is the exchange rate discrepancy. During the last few weeks, the exchange rate was increased and I'm losing around $100 because of this Airbnb stupid and absurd mistake. 

Can we claim any other credit for this issue?

Are there any other hosts affecting this issue in other countries?

Airbnb is just ignoring all the complaints from hosts affecting this issue and make hosts bear all the losses which is not fair at all!!

[Misty11]

 

I had a guest from October of 2017 that canceled and Airbnb overpaid them their cancellation fee and due to a “bug in their system” just caught the overpayment almost 5 years later!! They just took the money out of my payout with ZERO notice or explanation.  When I challenged it they simply said they they were not refunding it back to me.