HELP!! We are in an Airbnb technical nightmare!

[Rich-and-Yan0]

Hi everyone,

Some of you may have met us already, but for those who haven't, we are relatively new hosts (less than one month) living in Hong Kong who have a villa in southern Portugal listed on Airbnb.

When we began hosting, we were really excited, especially because we had started so late in peak season but our listing garnered a lot of interest anyway. Then, about two weeks ago, we experienced the first of a series of SERIOUS technical headaches with the Airbnb site, and their support team has done very, very little to resolve these other than apologised and promised to "investigate."

Before I list our problems, let me clarify a few things straight off. We don't use Smart Pricing and have never once turned it on, even out of curiosity. We don't use any external software tools like Beyond Pricing or PriceLabs. And we do almost all of our listing arrangements on a fairly new MacBook using Safari--which may or may not matter, but I'll explain later why I mention this.

So, here's what happened, in chronological order:

1) About two weeks ago, a friend from France texted me on WhatsApp to ask me if some dates in early September were available. I said, "Yes, that whole period is mostly booked, but the three days you mentioned are available." She said, "That's what I thought you had told me, but I just checked on my phone and they are blocked."

I immediately checked our listing, and lo and behold, they were showing as available! So, I asked her to send me a screenshot, and then I emailed Airbnb support, showing them the screenshot as evidence as well as a screenshot from our side showing that the dates were listed as available. I also explained that we were possibly going to lose this booking, and maybe some others, because of this.

The Airbnb rep who replied told me that this might be due to a glitch with their app, in which some people who use iPhones can't always see available listings. I then pointed out to her that many people these days ONLY uses phones for such things as room bookings, and I asked them if they could please repair this for us, as we would be losing potential earnings.

Airbnb promised to "investigate" the matter...and that was the last we ever heard from them on it. (And yes, our friend did book another place--because ours was officially unavailable...)

2) About a week ago, our housing manager in Portugal, who is also an Airbnb host, texted me to ask why all of next year was showing as not available, but most of the month of August was open--and that the prices were all over the place, ranging from as low as €95 per night to as high as €593 per night! 

I told her that that was impossible, since we only have our availability set to six months ahead. But when I went on to look at our calendar, sure enough, everything after the six month mark was showing as blocked EXCEPT for next August--and there it was, staring me right in the face, with all of these crazy prices showing.

Again, we took a screenshot and contacted Airbnb, and they promised to "investigate." And once again, absolutely nothing happened.

We tried re-setting the prices to a normal level, but then the next day, they would go right back to crazy prices again. And we kept sending screenshots and would get the occasional reply with a promise to look into the matter, but nothing was ever done. I mean, nothing.

Finally, we figured out that if we just manually blocked the month, then people wouldn't be able see it. And we did that, and also re-set the prices--but each day, the prices would go back to their crazy levels (even if we were the only ones who could see them).

3) Our last Airbnb technical problem is the most serious of all. Right around the time that the mystery August openings started appearing, our prices for the coming months started being automatically reset--and almost always at prices MUCH lower than what he had set them at. 

We caught this simply because we had now become aware that some strange things were happening with our listing, and so my wife and our house manager began checking it periodically on their phones, as if they were customers. And every single day, at least once, our prices would get changed after I had set them back to normal, and the range of prices would be all over the place.

What makes this especially strange is that we keep our prices pretty stable for most months. For instance, except for an increase over Christmas and New Year, we had no variance in pricing at all listed between November 1 and February 28. But each and every day, the prices would be re-set by Airbnb, and the range between the highs and the lows would always be incredible!

Needless to say, I was contacting Airbnb support on a daily basis, with screenshots being sent each time as evidence. For a few days, I had a nice young lady representative who seemed to be trying to help. She did acknowledge that we hadn't used Smart Pricing or any external software to adjust our prices, and she said that they couldn't find any bugs. So, she turned it over to their technical support and I was told they were "investigating"...

Well everyone, if you've been following this story up to this point, you can guess the rest...

Nothing was done. Again.

And realise that in the meantime, I was trying every home remedy you could think of to fix this. I tried using a different browser (Chrome instead of Safari, as one of the reps had recommended). I tried emptying the cache and clearing the browsing history. I tried setting the prices on my phone instead of my computer. I tried setting the prices one day at a time instead of for multiple days at a time.

Absolutely nothing has worked.

And then yesterday, our worst fear came true. While we were sleeping in here in Hong Kong, the prices were yet again reset by Airbnb to levels as low as 45% less on some days than we had been asking--and some guests in France saw this incredibly low price in October and booked our room for a week. 

My wife and I both awoke to see this, and of course, we weren't happy. But we had to go to work, and so I immediately wrote to Airbnb explaining the situation and telling them that we needed help right away. And guess what? The whole day went by, and no reply. Hours were expiring on the guest's 24-hour booking request, and Airbnb support completely ignored us.

So last night, I finally called them. I was on the phone with an agent for well over an hour, and while she seemed like she was trying to help, she pretty well made it clear that Airbnb was not going to take any responsibility for this. Worse, she told me that I could not provide any evidence to prove that their site had been resetting the prices, because the screenshots that I claimed that I had sent WERE NOT SHOWING IN THE SUPPORT INBOX!

I told her that she must be mistaken, that I was looking right at the inbox and could see several days of screenshots that had been sent to them--but she insisted that she couldn't see them on her end.

So, I told her that I had kept copies of the screenshots and could send them again, and she said, "No, you don't want to do that. The last thing that technical support wants to see is a bunch of confusing pictures."

You can all guess how this turned out. Airbnb was simply not going to accept any responsibility or do anything to help us. And so, we were given a simple choice: decline this booking as new hosts, which we knew would negatively affect our placement as well as our chances of advancing to Superhost; or accept this booking at a dramatically reduced price, and eat the financial loss.

And so, we chose the latter. But we weren't happy about it. Then, to add even more salt to the wound, we awoke this morning to find that our prices had again been re-set lower. We had followed all of the advice from the Airbnb agent I had spoken to on the phone about how we might be able to stop this from happening, and yet, it happened again--and we are helpless to do anything to stop it.

Okay everyone, so that's our nightmare. Sorry for the long story, but it has been a very miserable and stressful couple of weeks. We cannot seem to find any resolution for this, but what is worse is that we cannot get over how Airbnb support has completely abandoned us. 

If anyone has ANY suggestions on what we can do here, we would surely welcome them. Truly and sincerely. And thank you in advance, both for your advice and for suffering through this long tale (though if you really do think that that was suffering, then you should try living it on a daily basis...)

Bless your hearts, fellow hosts. Even if you don't reply, thanks a lot for reading. 

[Rich-and-Yan0]

Okay, will do. Cheers!

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Yadira22 Just saw this one as being first in the thread. Yes, we may have to consider turning off Instant Book, if this problem is not remedied soon. Declining an inquiry doesn't hurt your ratings on Airbnb--to our knowledge, at least. But declining a booking does. 

Anyway, this is the second morning in a row where we have woken up to find that our rates weren't changed. I said above that they had been, but actually, that happened a bit later in the day yesterday--probably at around 11 am or so, as that is when we discovered it. (Yes, we have to check this periodically now, throughout the day. What a pain!) So, we're cautiously hopeful that this will be the first day in several on which our rates won't be changed again externally.

Fingers crossed! 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Rich-and-Yan0 

oh... a nightmare... I've heard some other hosts had problems with their calendars during August this year, I have no idea if that's resolved.

Change your password and take a look who logged in to your account, if you see something unfamiliar it might be your account was hacked. To see it click on your profile picture in the upper right corner /account/privacy/security... here you can change your password and see your Login history

Turn off instant booking, you can't allow renting for half of the price.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 Thanks for the suggestions. I hadn't thought about hacking, but we will definitely check that out today, after I get home from work. Cheers!

Yadira also suggested turning off Instant Booking, and I think that is a good idea. We are going to monitor things today, as our rates didn't change overnight. But yesterday, as I mentioned in a reply above, they changed on us somewhere about midday.

If the rates change on us again today and it is not done by us, then yes, we will turn off Instant Book, and I will also investigate to see if we have been hacked. (In fact, I will do that anyway.)

Thank you again. That's very helpful. 

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 Okay, so we just took your advice and went in to see if anyone had hacked into our account. It doesn't look it. No one had access, and the only link we had was to the community forum here (which, of course, wouldn't be able to control prices).

There was a link to Facebook showing, however, and I was positive that we had turned that off, as we decided awhile ago that we did not want to link our Airbnb with Facebook--for a variety of reasons.  

In any case, it's turned off now, and we've changed our password again. Thanks once more for the tips. Let's see if this works. 

[Susan17]

@Rich-and-Yan0 

You're not going to like what I'm going to say here, but it's the best advice you're going to get... if your account is already riddled with bugs and glitches - which yours obviously is - it's only going to get worse and worse over time, so you need to shut it down, and start a brand new account. Now, before the constant malfunctions have cost you tens of thousands in lost earnings. 

The reason I know this, is because my account started off exactly the same way as yours, but being a newbie, I really didn't want to lose the great reviews I'd already accumulated, so I soldiered on with it. Biggest mistake I ever made. I've had literally years of Airbnb's never-ending technical screw-ups costing me incalculable bookings and income (still happening now), with the majority of "glitches" recurring time and time again, month after month, year after year.

It's gone to the stage now where I don't even waste my time or energy calling them up anymore, because 9 times out of 10, the CX agents will feign ignorance of any known issues, try to insist that I'm the one who somehow messed things up, and even on the very rare occasions they do manage to rectify whatever the latest "glitch" is, several more will pop up within weeks (or days) anyway. 

So save yourself a world of stress and grief, and start over. At least then, you have some chance of getting an Airbnb account that doesn't drive you utterly insane, and cost you a small fortune. 

$38 billion tech company, my arse. 

[Susan17]

PS Don't pin your hopes on Laura's intervention being the answer to your prayers. Brian Chesky himself had my account checked over by the top techies in the San Francisco HQ. Took 6 weeks for them to come back to me, account was then functioning reasonably okay for a short while, but within a couple of months, had once again reverted to its old tricks. 

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Susan17 Oh, wow. We thought that it was just us. 😞

You're right about the CS agents. A couple of them have been polite enough, but it has basically been a waste of time and energy. I'm sure you read my own experience with calling them the other night and the lady trying to tell me that there was no record of our correspondence in the Airbnb CS inbox. I didn't believe that for a minute, and still don't.

Anyway, we have to run to work now, and at the moment, our rates weren't changed overnight. But we are monitoring it throughout the day, because we have to do so. If it happens again today, I am going to try turning off Instant Booking, as some others have recommended, and also checking to see if we have been hacked as @Branka-and-Silvia0 have suggested as a possible cause. 

If all of this doesn't work and the problem isn't resolved, then yes, we may have to take your advice and start from scratch. What a sad reality that would be. 

Thank you again. Oh, and we loved "$38 billion tech company, my arse," lol. That's funny stuff.

[Sarah977]

@Rich-and-Yan0  It seems crucial to screenshot written communication with CS when dealing with issues so they can't claim that there is no record of the correspondence. I even have a dedicated book where I make a note of all my guests', past and current, phone numbers and their personal email addresses if they have given those to me (I sometimes have to ask for that, as the coded email address Airbnb assigns to guests doesn't always function properly when including an attachment, which in my case is a map to my hard-to-find house) in case Airbnb disappears all that info and I have reason to want to get in touch with that guest again.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Sarah977 Thanks a lot for the advice. I've actually been keeping screenshots since the beginning and have been sending them to their CS support. This is why it annoyed me so when the agent I was speaking with on the phone claimed that none of them were showing--when I was looking right at them! And then, she didn't want me to send them again because she was afraid of the poor tech people being overwhelmed with pictures.

So yeah, all very weird. But if you scroll down, you'll see that there is an CS agent named @Wayne84 who seems like he is genuinely trying to help. In fact, he wrote me a pretty detailed email, that I just responded to, in which he had clearly gone through all of the conversations in this forum and was asking me all the right questions--ones that no one else in CS that I've been dealing with have asked.

Anyway, he seems like he is trying to help, and between his suggestions and those of everyone else on the team, I'm going to try to see if I can resolve this myself. But I just got home from a 10-hour work day, and that never makes it easy. (Oh, and I forgot to mention: our prices were changed on us again today...)

[Rich-and-Yan0]

Just saw your second message here now. Sorry I missed that--I was in a rush this morning, as this was a long work day.

Anyway, I discussed your proposed solution with my wife and some hosting friends today. They agree, as do I, that if we're going to do this, it should be sooner rather than later. However, we have two sets of guests coming from tomorrow for 19 days out of the next 21, and so it's going to have to wait until after that. 

In the meantime, we've just changed our password (again) and checked to make sure no one else had access to our account. We are going to monitor our calendar closely every day, as we seem to have narrowed it down to the approximate time each day when the prices changed. And we are also going to turn off Instant Booking, tonight, so that if our rates do get changed and someone tries to book before we can adjust them back, then we can just let them know what the situation is and give them the choice: do you want to pay the real price, or do you not want to book?

Thanks again, and sorry to hear about your ordeal. I thought our situation was bad, but it sounds like you went through a much worse time than we could have imagined. But good on ya for letting us, and the rest of the community, know that something like this not only can happen, but does!

[Mike1034]

@Rich-and-Yan0 @Susan17 @Branka-and-Silvia0 @Yadira22 @Sarah977 @Laura_C 

To add on the list of technical issues, I have had three times when the payments were missing from transactions list since I joined two years ago. When that happened, I was not get paid until I called Airbnb support and provided them information for unpaid reservations which have already completed in one case.

Now I have to put an eye on the transactions and payments frequently.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Mike1034 Geez, the problems keep unraveling. That's why we decided to put this out to the community--to find out if we were the only ones who had been having problems, and if not, to see what the solutions of others have been.

Thanks a lot for the heads-up on transactions and payments. Now we have something else to watch out for...

[Wayne84]

Hi @Rich-and-Yan0 , I'm sorry to hear about the experience you have had. It sounds really frustrating. Laura forwarded this thread to me earlier today.

I am part of the technical team at Airbnb that works on calendars and pricing, and our team has been investigating since this afternoon. 

I reached out to you via email for some additional details that would be really helpful for our investigation. I hope it's not too much trouble. Let me know if you didn't receive it. 

We hope we can find out what's happening soon! 

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Wayne84 Thanks a lot. I just replied to your email with a lot of the evidence you asked for and answers to all of your questions. I'm about to see if I can find out if anyone else has accessed our account as @Branka-and-Silvia0 wisely suggested might have been the cause. I'll keep you posted if I find out anything.