Payment reversal in Australia

[Leanne99]

Hi All,

Just a heads up in case anyone else is affected November 6 2018

We received an email from AirBnB this morning informing us that our payment was reversed. We contacted our bank to find out why and they could find no reason or evidence that any money had arrived. So, we re-entered our payment details as per the Air BnB email and then received another email from them to say the same thing had happened 14 hours later.

I've just got off the phone to AirBnB help and found out this is a problem at thier end and maybe happening Australia-wide due to a problem with their payment partner here...

They said they have had a high volume of calls about this.

I made the point that early communication about this would be helpful and save us worrying, changing details and calling them.

Hope this saves others the trouble of chasing up Air BnB

Cheers,

Leanne

[Robin4]

@Luca579

Luca, the Superhost number is the normal Sydney number 02 85203333 but the trick is you must ring from the phone number that is registered with Airbnb. If you use another phone, say a house phone or someone elses you will just get shuffled into the phone queue....which for Austarlia at the moment is massive!! By far the heaviest traffic I have seen since I have been with Airbnb. 

Does this not tell these turkeys they need to make an announcement?   

Back to the topic, if you ring on your Airbnb registered phone as soon as you dial the system compares the incoming number with any numbers on file. and as soon as it senses that a superhost is calling an electronic gateway voice will say 'Welcome Superhost someone will be with you shortly" You will be asked a couple of questions....'are you a guest press 1,  are you a host press 2'....'tap the sms link for verification' and within a few seconds you will be talkking with the first available CX in the world! It may be Manila, it may be Dublin, it may be San Francisco and when they answer your call your information will already be on one of their monitors. Luca it is that quick.

Mind you as I said at the moment there is an unprecedented amount of traffic here in Australia due to this payout business so a n minute or two of patience may be required.

Cheers.....Rob

[Ann-And-Mad0]

did not recive any email saying issue has been sorted... can you post a copy of that email here please

[David944]

A thought, I wonder how Airbnb might react if we started canceling guests, the reason being we are not confident of being paid given the present non payment and no explanation (to me so far anyway) aside from some assurance from phone operatives, most of them being blissfully ignorant of the payment difficulty in calls trying to work out what was wrong with my bank account?

Might canceling guests get their attention?  Some Airbnb spokesperson sending an email of explanation and resolution.

Nup.

Nothing from Airbnb by way of explanation, nothing from Airbnb about what they are doing about it and nothing from Airbnb in the form of an apology after 3 days of knowing the problem exists. 

Perhaps they are troubled that Trump will get rolled in these  mid term elections.

Best news though, 15 mls of rain has fallen, and more to come, hopefully very widespread

[Laura-and-Jesse0]

As Americans, it is so frustrating and and disheartening for us to be associated with Trump.  We find his demeanor and governance terrifying and offensive, and we are ashamed that he is president of this country. Airbnb may be incompentent at times but it is probably not related to Trump. Looking forward to visiting Australia in the (hopefully near) future! 

[Gillian34]

Just had another conversation with AirBnb regarding this issue.

It is disconcerting when information is so general and I do have sympathy for the phone operators who are only doing their job.

However..... This a a major failing of the payment system affecting the entire country.

It is imperative that AirBnb communicates daily with all its Australian Hosts until this issue is resolved.

[Kevin616]

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@Gillian34 wrote:

It is imperative that AirBnb communicates daily with all its Australian Hosts until this issue is resolved.

---

Absolutely agree! 

This company's distain for the people who make their very existence possible is quite a wake up call 

[Peter1260]

This has been going on for a couple of days now. AirBnb's management of their technical problem is disappointing. I have tried numerous times to re set my NAB bank account details and upon reading this forum, find out it’s an AirBnb issue. Get your act together Airbnb and communicate to your customers now about acknowledging your known technical problem and what you are doing about it.

[Vaughn9]

I agree with all the above comments, some sort of notification of the issue from AirBnb was in order for this critical payment issue.  Receiving our payments on time from Airbnb is a big deal for hosts.  It is unacceptable that we have had to ring up Airbnb support to actually find out that it is an Airbnb issue (vague on details) with no indication of when it will be resolved.  

Who is the local payment partner, what is the issue, who does it effect, when will it be resolved, how will we be notified, what will we have to do?  Lots of questions...  There has still been nothing - crickets!

Come on Airbnb - communicate - talk to us!

[Vaughn9]

Looks like Worldpay is the local payment partner, who has caused this issue.  Airbnb - you have better options for payment obviously.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/airbnb-hosts-say-the-site-owes-them-thousands-of-dollars/...

[Robin4]

@Vaughn9

Vaughn, Worldpay seems like it is being made the scapecoat here but if you look in your transaction history anything after the 1st of November has not been processed. Any payment since the 1st are showing as upcoming payouts, they have not been released yet. If it had been released to Worldpay there would be some notation of processing.

We are not being kept in the loop and it is now time to limit the damage. I am starting to contact upcoming reservations and explain to them that Airbnb's  failure to meet their hosting committments means their reservation has been compromised. We want to host but we need to be paid. I am suggesting they cancel their reservation with Airbnb and re-book through another platform and when I see the reserevation I will cover a part of the service fees they will lose by cancelling. I see this as the only way forward.

This could go on for weeks or months and it will effect the quality of the service we offer, so at this point I go into damage limiting mode. I stuck with Airbnb through all the review foibles and damage resolutions because at least they were reliable with payment. Even that has now been withdrawn!

Cheers........Rob

[Gillian34]

Wondering if any Guests that have booked and paid in Australia will have the same problem with getting paid ....

[Jeanet-And-Andrew0]

Hi Gillian, yea, all payments

[Kevin616]

Absolutely agree with all of that.

If only there was another platform I could use!

I'm giving them the 48hours they claim it will be fixed by (see another post in this thread), then I'll have to start contacting guests.

NOT IMPRESSED!

[Anne273]

After speaking two times with Airbnb support, I got the clear impression that there is no definitive resolution time frame for this matter.   I understood from the second operator that it was an issue with Worldpay and I could change to PayPal to ensure back payment and future payments coming through timely.  I’ve now done this and hope it works!   I would welcome other’s input. Thanks.

[Gillian34]

Am surprised there has been virtually no comments on any of the Social Media platforms..

AirBnb is having a fairly major challenge from a number of councils, Sydney in particular. 

Surely in the interests of AirBnB's Global credibility a far more professional approach to what amounts to a serious breach in their ability to function efficiently as a company should be forthcoming.