LISTING REMOVED

Peter6
Level 2
Barcelona, Spain

LISTING REMOVED

Hola,

 

I have received an email from Airbnb Customer Experience telling me the they are going to remove one of my four listings because I'm not delivering the kind of hospitallity experience to my guest.

 

I’m in shock ! There are a lot of work and effort behind this listing and I have never received a complaint about it….NEVER !!

 

Actually my rating from guest are great:

Last 3 ratings were each 5 stars. Overall, I’ve received 5 stars 86%of the time. On average, hosts near me get 5 stars 57% of the time.

 

My current guests are happy in my apartment and they are enjoying it.

 

Has somebody has some similar experience ??

 

All the best !!

Peter

120 Replies 120

@Maxine0

Hello Maxine, I'm afraid I've not expressed myself in the right way. I've wrote that me and my friends we DO live on the property we manage, exactly as the opposite as most people do in Rome.

And yes, we DO invest a lot, really a lot of money in these properties.

 

However, I think that the point here is not to be more or less prone toward one or the other way of using Airbnb (even if I'm totally with you and your ideas). The problem is another: Airbnb shutting down listings without telling why and leaving everyone so attonished.

I think that Airbnb could have its own business decision, but at least giving some reasons about what is going on is the very basic of business etiquette. Both of all of us hosts who have been suddenly shutted down and as well for other you guys out there, scared it could happen to you as well, as you do not have any idea of what is going on and why.

 

@Pietro

 

There is an easy solution for you although you will lose your reviews. Have all your friends list their apartments individually.

 

Hello @Monica and thanks for the suggestion. In fact, this is exactly what we've done. The problem is that we had 1500+ reviews helping each other and working as a whole team, and now we have to start everything from the scratch, loosing all our internet-reputation.

But at the end of it all Airbnb is lonely internet reputation, isn't it?

 

So yes, we will do so.

But still the question remains open.

 

Why Airbnb decide to defeat some of the most prominent hosts without giving any explanation?

Would you trust someone who behave in this way? Not just one, two or three times. Dozens, hundreds of time around the world.

Account or listing closed without any explanation. And the one that have been closed were the best-behaved hosts.

 

How do you feel as a host?

Thanks for sharing Pietro. The account from kelly the thailand superhost was so very dignified yet distressing to read. He echos what most hosts would feel if treated so very badly.

If a host breached the rules that's one thing and sympathy might be undeserved but it is airbnb who have changed the rules or at best reacted to changes in local bi-laws and poor press regarding the threat to affordable housing.

 

We can all understand such business pressures that threaten the continuance and growth of the business. However, treating affected hosts in such a shoddy manner is simply inexcusable.

 

Being ignored and disespected is humiliating - the worse feeling ever, we are human beings not emotionless robots.

 

I guess the message from airbnb to all hosts is 'suck it up' and go away. Nice one.

 

Nothing anyone of us either individually or collective can do about it.

In Italy, Rome I do have exactly the same problem.

Customer care is bouncing me and quality department not answering

How do you call airbnb customer service.  I can't find a number anyehere and I want to delist my house Thanks

 

Juliet

you can de-list your house by going into your dashboard --> manage listing --> pricing, listing details there is a little box at the bottom that says "listed/unlisted".  Just chose Unlisted.

My listing has also been removed despite my excellent reviews. I have written to Airbnb customer service at least ten times but they are completely ignoring my emails. I have no idea what I have done to deserve this and feel a company with the standing and reputation of Airbnb should at least provide some indication of what motivated them to make this decision. I rely on this income for the survival of me and my kids and am in complete despair. Is there anything we can do?

If this is related to municipal laws requiring permits to operate guest houses, hotels and b&bs then the least that airbnb can do is be honest with the hosts and give them the proprer reason for the decision to shut down listings. I have heard that airbnb has received demands from municipalities to hand over records containing the names and addresses of hosts operating airbnb listings. It is happening in Quebec, Canada - where the "Tourist Police" are out scouting for illegal airbnb listings. This is why I now have a proper legal license. It will come to that so my suggestion is that if you are hosting in an area that you know is on the witch hunt for airbnb listings, get legal...! You need a permit from your municipality, liability insurance, yearly inspections and you need to pay lodging tax and inspection fees.

Here where I live in Barcelona they have not issued any licences for tourist apartments for almost ten years now!! Plus my apartment was actually a self-contained space inside my own apartment where I live with my children. However, since the only thing we share is the front door key, Airbnb customer service themselves thought I should list it as an entire apartment as opposed to a room. I even changed my listing to a room a few weeks ago just to avoid the risk of having my listing removed, but they still went ahead and eliminated it. I have done absolutely nothing wrong, and have tried desperately to explain this to Airbnb, but it looks like my emails may be going straight into spam. Could anyone send me a mailing address and fax number of Airbnb San Francisco head office? From here in Europe I can only get as far as an address in Ireland, and they are not responding either.

Hi Susan,


Have you tried calling your local support phone number?

 

Have you tried communicating with AirBNB management and with AirBNB Support via their Twitter Accounts?

The customer service at local support phone numbers say they don't have any informtion and will ask the quality control department to contact me, but they never do. Do you think it is possible to get a response from Airbnb management or Airbnb support via twitter accounts? If so, I would be interested to know how to do this? 

Hi @Sergi, I found your profile in another conversation.
You said you are "Online Community Manager from the Spanish Airbnb Community."

Can you give us some response about this conversation subject?

Your colleague @Lizzie0 also posted two weeks ago, but she didn't say anything about it, and since it's been a while from the beginning of this issue, its very worrying that you still haven't anything to say.

It's been weeks for us with this problem and nobody is taking any responsability, not a single answer about what's going on here.

I also received the same email everybody is talking about here, none of us has received any explanation, none of us has any idea why this happened.

Can you help us?

Regards,
Alejandro.

Deborah0
Level 10
California, United States

I wonder does this have anything to do with what you folks in Barcelona are experiencing about your listings being removed:

 

http://www.thelocal.es/20151222/barcelona-city-hall-fines-airbnb

 

 

And I wonder does this have anything to do with the same problems experienced by some hosts in Amsterdam?

 

http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/10/28/court-upholds-e24000-fine-on-amsterdam-airbnb-landlord/

 

I know very little about regulations for hosting in countries in Europe, but I just found those articles when doing a Google Search on these areas.  And the Barcelona article is recent.  

 

 

 

 

Julia0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

As always, thank you for the research Deborah. Just wondering how long before London councils implement this.

 

However, Airbnb surely has a duty to inform these hosts of the reason for their listings being de-activated. It must feel awful when you have worked hard to give guests a great experience in your home!

 

Shoddy treatment of people who have made a lot of money for Airbnb. Disgraceful treatment actually.