Airbnb keeps canceling our guests bookings!!!!

[Blair110]

I am writing for my wife who is  a super host in Toronto for many years now. Her nerves are shot and cannot take any more.

5 days ago ALL of our bookings in one of the two bedrooms we host in our family home were cancelled by Airbnb.

When questioned she was told there was a problem with the city of Toronto registration. We  immediately contacted the city and we’re  told there is absolutely no problem with our registration as far as the city is concerned.

After 2 days of back and forth communication with all of her guests most of them were able to rebook.

Now after just one day,  she was horrified to find the exact same thing has happened to all of her guests bookings again!

We have been on the phone to airbnb host support a half dozen times now and keep getting the run around blaming the city and the city say not them. Every time we are told it will need to be escalated to an ambassador to get back to us. Like I said it has been 5 days now and we have yet to hear back from any ambassador from airbnb.

[Chandra114]

Hi Michael,

I have rented my place for crew in Toronto - especially for director friends here in Vancouver - when they travel to TO. I can help you out if you like. I am considering another platform or booking privately. 

You can reach me at chandrawaddington@gmail.com

I tried sending a DM but I didn't see that option for your profile.

No pressure - just thought I would offer to help. 

Chandra

[Phillip325]

What a terrible experience. I am a host, I and my guests have experienced the same lack of support from Airbnb. Most of their replies are laughable. They take great pleasure in seeing how long they can keep you going before you give up. 

There is no way that any Airbnb senior management and monitoring these unintelligent responses. There is no way to speak to Airbnb senior management.

My last correspondence from an Airbnb support person was

" You have definitely reached the right team at Airbnb to help you out with your issue. Unfortunately we are not able to help you in this matter. We are also not able to escalate this matter to any other department, this has gone as far as it will go"

[Carlos-Omar2]

Last week was so stressful. We booked an Airbnb in Toronto back in March for July 26-31. Last week, without any warning our Airbnb was cancelled. As we waited for Airbnb to help us, or at least give us an explanation, we started looking for another Airbnb, since our original one got booked right away, but realized there weren’t many available in the area we wanted to stay at or they had double or tripled the price we originally paid (understandable since it was so close to the date). We still went ahead and booked another one, only to have it cancelled again the next day. We ended up booking 2 more times and each one kept getting cancelled. Airbnb first tried to blame the hosts, then it said it was something related to the city. When we finally were able to talk to an ambassador she said that she didn’t know why our reservations kept getting cancelled, but that she would escalate it to find out for us (we never got a definitive answer) and when we asked her if she could look at our latest booking to see if everything was fine she said that everything looked good and that we should not have any more problems. An hour after talking to that ambassador our reservation got cancelled once again. Ultimately we decided not to go because we didn’t have any confidence in Airbnb and didn’t want to risk showing up to Toronto only to find our reservation cancelled. 

[Curtis156]

I finally received a response from an AirBnB "Ambassador" and it comically fails to address the issue. It claims the city ordered the cancellation of the bookings for license violations. My license is in good standing, so not applicable to me. 

The main point of my email to them was requesting they provide a solution for all of the cancelled guests looking to rebook. They did not even address that. Hard to believe it takes 96 hours to say nothing at all. 

[Phillip325]

96 hours...you got off lucky. I have been waiting for over a month for my call back from a supervisor. I have asked 13 times. Crazy

[Michael7871]

Guys I just for the second time got all of my listings including cottages which are totally in a different municipality Suspended and their email says City of Toronto says I am using invalid license.

I have a valid license since Dec 2022, and shockingly never ever have been able to get one booking via that. it is due to discrepency between "Boulevard vs BLVD" between Airbnb and City.

Basically, City doesn't even respond to me anymore and just sends crazy messages to Airbnb.

I never ever seen a tech leadership that allows government officials to simply ruin the experience of their users due to their lack of competency.

I personally stopped using Airbnb as a guest since 14 months ago when I saw how my guests can get desperate and lose their bookings.

[Michael7871]

Hey Guys

We are all losing a tone of money due to this incompetency in City of Toronto for enforcing their own bylaw. Would you be interested to go for a Class Action Lawsuit against the city? My wife is a lawyer and she has a huge circle  of lawyers who she can ask from.

Let me know if you are interested and you think we can gather 100s of hosts to run this class action lawsuit.

[Chandra114]

Hello, 

I have experienced the same numerous times! I feel bad for the guests and am irritated (understatement) at the loss of income as well as the time it takes to re-book and calm angry guests who think you cancelled them! 

Keep me posted. 

Chandra

**[E-mail address removed due to safety reasons - Community Center Guidelines]

[Elaine982]

And again. All my guests cancelled this November 2023. 

This seems to happen every 6 months or so.

Last time, (March 2023) it was because my city license MUST say "St", (no one told us that BTW) and somewhere in Airbnb, my listing was "Street". We are unable to change this, so after a month back and forth, we managed to get them all changed to "St". There are at least three different addresses in Airbnb, some of them, as a host, you cannot even see them. let alone change them. 

Everything was good, everything was perfect, licenses were acceptable. We managed to rebook many of our guests, but we lost a month of revenue, and many of our guests were upset and scared and had to book elsewhere. 

They do this without warning.

No email from the city

No email from Airbnb

I'm just in the car driving somewhere and my phone starts going ding ding ding ding ding as all of the cancellations start popping up suddenly.

Guests are told we cancelled. Airbnb is no help. the city ignores our calls. 

I understand that the city wants to crack down, but destroying the people that are following the rules and meanwhile letting entire apartment buildings full of apartments be rented on Airbnb that just have people to deal with this bureaucratic nightmare and know how to circumnavigate the rules...

I am a single mom, living with a special needs son, who rents the extra bedrooms to guests. Am I really the person that they need to crack down on?