Why I will never Host in Airbnb

[Sam795]

Looking for extra cash? Of-course we all think of Airbnb as a solution. Here is why I suggest you take Airbnb as your last chance because everything they say about the host protection is a lie. I am sharing my own story about my experience of learning he bitter truth.

I was trying to pocket some extra cash, so I decided to host. When I said Hosting, I mean I took it really into the heart to welcome guests to my home. I made an investment of $1k plus to make the home ready for the guests. After listing the ad, I started to get enquiries in short period of time. I was excited to welcome my very first guest. I did everything I could possible do for them to make their stay comfortable. But to my utter dismay, the guest left my apartment breaking the soap dish with handle flushed into my marble wall which would cost 1000 plus dollars to fix. I was saddened and disappointed at the same time as the guest didn't even bothered to inform me about this damage. I then thought of Airbnb's host protection scheme and felt little comfortable after calling them where the agent calmed me down by giving all the false promises. I continued hosting and waited for Airbnb claims dept. to respond to me. Finally, a person named Beatriz wrote an email to me asking me to share more pictures and invoices. He then reverted to me after 1 week plus saying that my claim is successful, and they will pay me $46 as a settlement for my expense which is $1350. I was astounded by this. I contacted them again and they assigned another person, Gloria to work on the case. She reverted to me with the same answer but with an email saying that it is final and closed case with no option left for me to reply. I contacted them again as the extra income has now became an extra expense for me breaking my already broke bank. But to date they have never replied to me and it seems they will not respond at all. Their talks about the large protection and guarantees and insurances are all lie. They are just here to make use of millions of Airbnb hosts to fill their own pockets and don't care for you at all. One last information is that, Airbnb values the guests more than the Hosts, as they get paid more from the guest that a Host. They have separate algorithm for guest reviews which make them less affected by your overall reviews. 

I will never host again in Airbnb. I will spread my bitter truth to every media place possible so that my fellow Hosts would know what you can really expect and what you should be careful about while hosting. For sure someone from Airbnb would reply to this post saying he/she is a host and had great experience with their claiming dept. Don't be fool enough to believe it.  

[Etienne-Marie0]

Very sorry for that.

Airbnb insurance policy is nothing. They do not even provide one. When a guest cancels ; despite strict conditions.

As you say, guests pay more fees than us. So, hosts are good enough for cleaning. And bear all risks. 

[Sam795]

You are right a 100%

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Sam795 

thank you for sharing your story and I am sorry your hosting experience was so bad.

If we are here it doesn't mean we don't know how things work on Airbnb, booking.com, VRBO... and trust me, after few months of hosting or just a few hours, spent reading posts here on CC we are well aware of a Russian roulette we are playing and everything that could go wrong 😞

[Melanie33]

While of course it seems you should have been recompensed for the damage there are numerous stories here with the same outcome. To a certain extent seems to be down to luck with which agent you get to deal with your case.   However can you not claim on your own household insurance?  At least then you would not be so out of pocket.

[Sam795]

Well in Singpore we can't claim insurance for this type of damages. Insurance is only for damages caused by fire.

[Anonymous]

@Sam795  This forum might not be the ideal audience for your grievance, as it is comprised mostly of experienced hosts who have already chosen to use Airbnb.

One key takeaway from experiences like yours is that Airbnb's "host guarantee" is emphatically not a home insurance plan. If you're making a big investment to make your home ready for short-term rentals, that investment needs to include insurance that includes STR coverage. And this is doubly true if you have features and materials that are costly to repair.

[Inna22]

@Sam795 you can charge a deposit. It is a little easier to collect on

[Sam795]

I do have a deposit, but I wasn't able to charge it as Airbnb has to approve it. 

[Alexandre205]

In our 2.5 years of hosting, and keeping superhosts status all this time, we've been treated sometimes gracefully by Airbnb's Customer Support, and sometimes with total disdain.

It depends on the nature of the case, on who's in put in charge on their side.

From our experience, if you want to be rightfully compensated, either from damage deposit or from host guarantee, you have to fight real hard.

Even if you have evidences to support your claim, you'll probably have to explain your story 2-3-4-5 times, resubmit your documents, to different staff, different departments, etc.

After hosting our worst guest until now, we spent 2 weeks fighting to claim our rights. TWO WEEKS.

It means spending all this time because of a very uneducated/dirty/dishonest/rude/etc. guest. Losing so much time on the last person you'd like to deal with on earth is an indescribable nightmare.

It demands perseverance and you have to be ready for that, even if the guest behaviour's brought you to tears. Initially, Airbnb will give as much credit, or more, to the guest than to you.

When they see that the guest is unresponsive to all their messages or calls, they may start treating you respectfully. It depends on you also, on how much of your time you're ready to lose.

[Cheryl389]

If you think you have a legal claim, you may want to consider small claims court since it's under $3000. I am involved in a similar situation, but it involves the use of additional crimes to extort money from me in the form of a refund. I was forced to agree to it, and since the potential damages go beyond what Airbnb could reasonably account for, since only the courts can confirm that these were indeed crimes, I will be taking a legal-based method to resolve it. I am waiting on my outcome from Airbnb first, but I did also contact a lawyer for a consultation to determine if this would be small claims, or Civil, based on what occurred. 

[Elodie-Et-Raja0]

We had been hosting one year, and we even became super host on Airbnb, before we stopped working with Airbnb. I wish I had seen this thread before. I have had different businesses in my life and I know that in any business you have to accept random. But I’ve never been used to work in such unlawful atmosphere. @Anonymous , I don’t agree with you. This thread is very useful to those who wants to consider risks in their business plan. This thread learns you not to trust any support web pages or commercial web pages claiming that Airbnb is here to support you (once we had an agent that did not respect the Airbnb rules explaining us they have opposite « « internal doctrine »). That it is almost impossible to contact the Airbnb support and when you contact them they treat you with disdain. You will almost never win a case against a guest unless you spend weeks fighting and a lot of money with attorney (time is money, isn’t it). You can never claim your deposit. Your internal rules are nothing if the Airbnb agent decides he doesn’t want to respect them. Finally, if you want to do serious business on Airbnb, you should really consider finding a dedicated insurance for small and big damages. There are many alternative to Airbnb much more serious and with way much better deposit systems. I’m not here to share them but google will help you. Cheers to all of you and thank you for your comments.