Judge orders AirBnB to issue an apology and explanation after AirBnB lawyer "commits fraud" by lying in court claiming that AirBnB completed an "investigation" when they had not.

[William1246]

In this video a host successfully sues AirBnB for automatically accepting the word of a traveler and applying punishments to a host who didn't deserve them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIrFlISFC1w Go to the 30:18 point in the video to hear the judge say, "It's not right, what AirBnB is doing."

AirBnB may be big now, but it is like a tree that is rotting on the inside. It is going to collapse unless it addresses some of these issues!

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@William1246 Sadly this demonstrates that Airbnb only take true notice when they are taken to court. The process is not difficult (certainly in the UK). I just hope they get their act together rather than delete your post. I would flag Christine Powell but can't find her address

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Catherine-Powell Apologies for mis-remembering your name. Fascinating post above. If it had happened in a UK court then the concept of an unfair contract between a business and its customers would also have been in play. The sooner you sort out the review system the better!

[Nathalie-Et-Gilles0]

@William1246 

+1 

In Europe, they are good for the Uber common law because it proves Airbnb has an active role in the relationship between traveller and host.
They are not simply an intermediary between the host and the traveller.

Uber common law obliged Uber company to hire drivers and to pay payroll costs and work taxes.
And Airbnb is much more confortable not to pay anything.

Airbnb cannot pretend to be a simple intermediary when they are not.

And this difference can cost them a limb!

[William1246]

@Nathalie-Et-Gilles0 The courts are starting to catch up to AirBnB now. Earlier, when something unfair was done it was possible to appeal the situation, call in and speak to a manager who would fix the problem. Now that AirBnB has outsourced their customer service to a company which in turn has outsourced it to yet another company, which then in turn hires thousands of individuals who work from home and who have absolutely no power to fix anything, they do care to have hsots get positive results. They only care about terminating the calls as quickly as possible. 

I did, however, force them to stay on the phone with me the other night for three hours! That is what it took to finally speak to a manager. That person still refused to elevate my call, but they did provide me with an email to forward to my lawyers to pursue the matter.

[Robbie54]

@William1246  if I'm getting the jist of it correct the judge is saying hosts are signing contracts that, in practice, is hard to adhere to in specific situations, and that Airbnb are morally bankrupt when applying the contract. Well done that judge in telling airbnb that what they're doing, in that specific case, is wrong, contract or not. This was last year I believe, yet going by the many hundreds of threads on this forum Airbnb have no intention of siding with the host when an issue occurs. This company is out of control if you ask me, they need to be reigning in. 

[William1246]

@Robbie54 that is correct. AirBnB SAYS that it cares about owners/hosts, but in reality they lean toward the people who are spending the money with them; the travelers. This is a profound shift from the previous way that the industry operated in, which was that property owners just paid an anual fee to list their property on a given website. So if a guests stole or broke things, then they risked being banned from the sites because the owners were risking their assets worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars and a system was needed to help protect those assets.

Now, AirBnB has turned that upside down, giving preference to travlers in order to protect the flow of money; even if they've stolen or posted bad reviews, AirBnB doesn't want ANYone to stop giving them money so they continue to let them post reviews even if they're thieves. Instead of being focused on protecting property owners, AirBnB focuses on maintaining the flow of money into their hands, no matter what. They seem to worry more about losing a thieving guest as a future client than in losing access to a property. They seem to think that there is a limited number of travelers, but an unlimited number of properties.

For now they may be right, what with the virus. But that will change. There is such an obvious gap in their business plan which is creating so much resentment and even outright hatred of AirBnB on the part of owners, that other options are springing up all over. And sooner or later they will put AirBnB down unless they smarten up.