Honest people open up their houses and are not paid by airbnb

[Laura1653]

Is airbnb just a scam? There are tons of people who are having the same problems of not being paid by airbnb. Honest people who open up their houses and are not paid by this company.

They tell you nothing and never get back to you.

[Bruna-and-Siana0]

Can you provide more info? In which country? Do you use PayPal, bank account...?

We never had an issue with payments, we always receive it after the first night after the guests checks in.

[Robin4]

@Laura1653

That is not the experience of almost all of us here Laura. I have hosted over 140 guests with Airbnb and every payment has arrived on time and for the correct amount. 

This is one of the great things about dealing with Airbnb....you never have to discuss money with the guest.

The only scenarios where you will not receive a hosting payment are....

A/. You have not set up a payout preference account for Airbnb to pay your hosting payments into.

B/. The guest has used a stolen credit card and Airbnb cannot get the money from the guest.

C/. You have cancelled guests confirmed reservations and Airbnb have penalised you and that penalty has been taken from your next hostings.

D/. The guest has found something unsatisfactory with your reservation or the listing and has requested, and been granted, a refund.

A 38 Billion dollar company with over 4.5 million listings around the world is definitely not a 'scam' Laura.

If you would like to give us a bit more information here there may be some way that we can help with advice, or we can at least point you in the right direction.

Cheers......Rob 

[Lynette57]

@ Rob. Another senario is When a new to ABB guest dosnt push the confirm booking button then ABB has their money ( or access to said money) but does not pay it until the guest actually accepts the booking. I just had lovely guests check in recently although they had not been confirmed by ABB , Just a quick phone call to ABB confirmed there had been a tech hitch and was fixed the same day then every thing ran smooth again, Sometimes communication is the key. Technical hitches are not uncommon.

Cheers Lynn

[Robin4]

@Lynette57 @Bruna-and-Siana0 @Michael956 

That would be an unusual occurence Lynette! 

The guest can come to the host in three different ways.

1/. They can IB a listing, pull out their credit card and pay, and are immediately issued with a 9 to 11 digit confirmation code which will look something like this..... HMXK75GDAL8. At that point it is a confirmed reservation.

2/. The guest can send a reservation request which will require the host to respond within 24 hours, and from the time the host accepts the reservation request the guest has a further 24 hours to complete verification (if required) and payment, and as soon as that is done that confirmation code will be issued. If payment is not completed in 24 hours the reservation lapses and no confirmation code is given. 

3/.The guest can request a pre-approval by hitting the 'Contact Host' tab and submitting a question with pre-approval dates attached. The host can either pre-approve or decline the enquiry. If the host grants a pre-approval the guest has 24 hours to proceed to a paid reservation. If the guest does not respond to a pre-approval in 24 hours of it being granted the enquiry drops off the system.....no penalty either way.

The big thing here is that confirmation code. If there is no confirmation code, there is no reservation, if there is one the booking has been accepted and paid for.

Every now and then Lynette there will be a glitch in the system but these glitches are not common when you remember that Airbnb can transact up to 1.5 million hostings on any given night! On the night of August 10th 2017, 2.5 million guests were accommodated in an Airbnb listing! Glitches are not common.

Cheers.....Rob

[Michael956]

I suspect it's not an Airbnb problem but that you haven't set up your payment system properly on the Airbnb website.  One thing that works very well with Airbnb is payments, and Airbnb has never missed sending me a payment.  

[David126]

The one thing I will say is that I have never had payment problems, on time and correct.

[Robin4]

@David126

I feel that is the experience of every host who has set their listing up correctly David. I did not mean to be patronising to @Laura1653 but Airbnb have been wonderful to me and nearly all of us here.

I personally don't like it when I read comments like 'Is airbnb just a scam? There are tons of people who are having the same problems of not being paid by airbnb'....

There are occasionally 'people' who may experience a payment problem but, in almost all those cases the problem has been created by the host themselves, not Airbnb. 

My thoughts are, if Laura had genuinely wanted help with a situation she would have followed this thread that she created and volunteered a bit more information so that one of us could help her. I know she did not specifically ask for help but, it seems she has made her statement and moved on by the look of it and that devalues what we all do here. She would not have come here and made the statement if she did not expect responses to it!

I have an invalid wife to care for, I spend 3 days a week doing volunteer work in the local community, I have a house to run, meals to cook, washing to do, bloody gardening! I have listing to keep up to speed with for incoming guests....I don't need something else to fill my life up, and neither do you @David126, @Bruna-and-Siana0, @Michael956 @Lynette57 and so many other here. I do this because I want to help! But from three years of being here I still can't seem to pick when someone wants help, or they just want to blow their horn!

Cheers.....Rob

[Fred13]

@Laura1653 Four (4) million listings, 100 million booking a year, nearly 400,000 subscribers here and you ask if it is all a scam? If so, it would be the world's biggest secret.

Go over your settings (or understanding of the Airbnb system) and there lies the answer.