Suspended Superhost Account Due to Problem Guests that Threw a Party?

[David9313]

Hello Airbnb community.

My Airbnb superhost account was suddenly and inexplicably suspended.

On Saturday night, 9/17, guests at one of my Airbnb's threw a party.  We contacted them, spoke on the phone, and they informed us they were having a birthday party with several families for their daughter.  I informed them that we cannot allow parties of any type to happen, due to both Airbnb policies, as well as restrictions on our vacation rental permit.  They did not give any assurance that the party would stop.  In the subsequent hours, guests continued to arrive and the party grew.  We contacted Airbnb and they promptly cancelled the reservation and informed the guest to leave.  The guest packed up and left.

Problem solved, right? Wrong - this is where the problems began.

On Sunday I pulled up my calendar to see what the week looked like and noticed that any open days were blocked, and that my listing was suspended.  I opened my second listing and saw the same thing.

No one from Airbnb contacted me to inform me of any suspension.

I immediately reached out to the dedicated super host support team and they informed me that a "specialised" team was handling the matter, that they would notify said team and mark the issue as "urgent".  It is now Tuesday, 3 days removed, and after daily follow ups on my part, I have heard nothing from Airbnb.

I am now running in to open nights that would otherwise be booked, costing me thousands of dollars.  I have a mortgage to pay, and a newborn infant and family to support, and Airbnb is endangering my ability to do so.

Tagging @David6391 as I saw you had a similar struggle that was resolved perhaps with the help of @Emilie ?  If either of you, or anyone else can point me in the right direction to help me find a resolution that would be greatly appreciated.

[Huma0]

@David9313 

Well, there is a feedback form, but that's not a formal complaints procedure as far as I am confirmed because there is no case number assigned, no follow up, no way of knowing if anyone is looking at it or not...

Apparently, some of what is posted here on the CC is fed back to Airbnb. Whether that results in action or not, it's hard to tell, but I think it does occasionally, e.g. I suspect that the titles were returned to listings after the Summer Release due to the protests of hosts here. I could be wrong though.

[Stephanie365]

@Quincy  @Lizzie @Catherine-Powell 

Why is this even a Thing?  Why are listings suspended without ANY communication with the Host? 

And why does it take For-Freaking-Ever to get any kind of a response?

[David9313]

Great questions @Stephanie365 

Can anyone from Airbnb ambassadors please respond to these?

[Terry642]

I too am in the middle of having a payout of over $1,000 refunded to a guest because a customer service agent interpreted the AirCover policy to mean "Guest says the word cleanliness = full refund".  I was not contacted before the refund was given and have seen nor heard no specifics or evidence of cleanliness issues. I've a 4.98 rating, perfect in cleanliness and dozens of glowing reviews. The multiple CS reps I have spoken with report my claim has been "elevated" to an Ambassador but after one week there has been no contact from any type of supervisor.   As hosts our only recourse is to pull or properties and go with the competitors - at least the fees are less than AirBnB's.

[Terry642]

update : I was just sent a message on the AirBnB platform from Andrew, "a Supervisor on the Escalations team in AirBnB"  After a week Andrew assures me "this case will stay with me until it's resolved".  Hmmm, we'll see.

[Evan-And-Anja0]

@Emilie @Sybe @Liv @Katie 

Any of these admins want to address the issue here? The forum is littered with the same story over and over. It's an easy policy fix. 

[David9313]

I just had a guest reach out to me who was wondering why they were unable to book my place.

What will Airbnb do for that guest?

What about my lost bookings? No doubt there were others that would have booked that I missed out on due to this nonsense.

*Private conversation removed as per the Community Guidelines*

[David9313]

Interesting that Airbnb removes this "private" conversation, however their very own "specialized team" reached out to the entirely WRONG HOST and WRONG LISTING about the original camera complaint.

My privacy was completely violated and another host was dragged into a completely unrelated issue causing her undue concern about her own listing.

@Quincy where is the accountability???

[Stephanie365]

@David9313 I see the admins have been here long enough to edit your comments (again) but not to actually address the ISSUE. 

[Property2]

@Stephanie365 Stephanie, it looks like the admins job is to spam us with the messages like this:

[Personal conversation hidden]

This is what they are good at instead of actually helping to resolve the issues. I think their job is to maintain piece here and leave the tough part to a poorly trained, inarticulate, barely knowledgeable group of "ambassadors". (I am still curious who's bright mind decided to give this name to someone who can barely read a script and speak English). 

How can anyone believe Airbnb after reading what came out of  Catherine Powell's mouth: "Before submitting a claim, whenever feasible, the guest must notify the Host and try to resolve the travel issue directly with their Host. If guests contact Community Support first, we remind them to reach out to the Host directly, so that you have an opportunity to resolve the issue" and actually seeing how the things are handled? 

I am not sure who gave any kind of legal right to some ambassador to be a judge and a prosecutor at the same time,  but this frightening level of incompetence, lack of accountability, and a complete loss of credibility shows you what Airbnb is to become... 

[Quincy]

Hello @Property2, First of all, I am really sorry if some of the interactions here on the Community Center have caused you any distress, in particular the message you have received. 

My team and I actually do read every comment here on the CC, and ensure that they are seen by the appropriate teams where necessary (as my colleague Jenny mentioned earlier). As you can imagine, this is not an easy feat to do as there's a lot of feedback that is shared on the CC. 

Certain tasks aren't always visible to the public, but rather happening in the background, and with that said, all actions that are taken are in the best interest of our members and the community. We will always try and do our best, and help out members wherever we can. 

After all, the community is a space that is meant to be welcoming to everyone, and all perspectives, experiences, and voices have their place here, but in order for this to be possible, we need to ensure conversations happen in a constructive and respectful manner. 

@Stephanie365, thanks for your comment here, but I must also raise that upon joining the community, members also agree with accepting the Community Center Guidelines.

[Property2]

@Quincy Thank you for taking time to reply, but how exactly did you contribute to solving the issue at hand with your response?

And I have to respectfully disagree with your asserting that "all actions that are taken are in the best interest of our members and the community". I think you forgot to mention that these actions are taken in the best interest of the guests as evidenced by numerous posts by the hosts. This business model of ignoring people who keep Airbnb in business and unfortunately treated as annoyance is not sustainable. The sooner this light bulb goes on, the better chance Airbnb has to survive...

[Huma0]

@Property2 

You might be right, but this stupid policy of treating hosts as guilty until proven innocent doesn't really help guests either because how is it helpful to cancel upcoming reservations at short notice, greatly inconveniencing those incoming guests, when there might not be any problem with the listing/host at all? 

Of course, guests should have an avenue of reporting dodgy listings and hosts and their allegations must be taken seriously, but how does it even help them to have the listing immediately suspended prior to investigation? 

The only people it helps really are the scammers.

[Jenny]

Hi everyone,

We appreciate all your feedback here, and we understand that this is an issue that you feel strongly about. Your feedback has been passed over to the right people and we hope to come back to you as soon as possible.

However, while we hear your concerns we’d like to ask you to please remain respectful and not make personal and hurtful comments about a person or people here on the Community Center. Regardless of who you are or what you do, we do not tolerate it as per the Community Guidelines. It is not conducive to a healthy, constructive and safe community forum.

Once again, I would recommend you all remind yourself of our guidelines here.

Jenny

[Catherine-Powell]

Hi @David9313,

Thank you for tagging me in this discussion.

I’ve asked our team to quickly investigate what happened to your account and why. They have told me it’s now active. There are a number of reasons we either temporarily or permanently suspend accounts. Oftentimes it’s because we feel the safety of our community is at risk and need to investigate an incident that was reported.

What I do know from reading Community Centre comments, and capturing Host feedback from elsewhere, is that we really need to explain to Hosts what is happening in real-time. This level of transparency is really important and we are prioritizing these changes. In the coming months, our agents will start sharing more details so that the Host can quickly address and understand the situation.

If there are any additional updates, our team will be in touch.

Best,

Catherine

@Evan-And-Anja0 @Sele-and-Jesse0 @Helen3