I was an Airbnb Superhost with 3+ years hosting experience and 100+ positive reviews. All of a sudden one day Airbnb emailed me saying my account was being deactivated due to a violation of their terms of service. All my existing bookings were cancelled and my listings were removed.
I was never informed exactly how I violated the terms of service but I suspect it was due to some guest filing a (false) complaint against me. What for, I have no idea and Airbnb refuses to tell me anything. I guess I’m guilty until proven innocent, despite my stellar host record.
Thousands of dollars in lost income is bad enough but to be treated by Airbnb in such a terrible manner was shocking and emotionally distressing. What’s laughable is that a couple weeks after my account was deactivated I received an email from Airbnb congratulating me on becoming a Superhost again. Shame on you Airbnb.
I too have had my account deactivated with no explanation, which ruined my 2 month trip to the US and left me stranded. How many people who have posted here live in Australia? If we can get enough numbers, we can make a complaint to the ACCC for breaches of the Australian Consumer Law’s unfair contract terms provisions.
shame shame shame on Airbnb great host being held hostage by con artist guests.
We had the same thing happen. But we also filed a damaged property claim, the claim was finalized and we were promised they would wire the funds – AND THEY NEVER DID. I follow up once a week and they are completely unresponsive.
Has anyone tried arbitration? There seems to be no way to resolve this through them directly.
Airbnb was my favorite platforn, but no more! They deactivated my account despite being a 5 star host because of a claim made by a VERY BAD guest!! I am devastated, and confused, there was no phone contact, just a generic email. I lost all my bookings and feel horrible for my lost guesrs! I am horrified that airbnb would treat a host with a great record as well as alot of bookings this way!
So, this has happened to us this week. My husband’s account were pulled down (main-host) and mine also (co-host). After calling yesterday, they said my being deactivated was a mistake and immediately pulled it back up but hey ho, the communication with the current host disappeared. I am disabled (deaf) and messaging was the only way I could contact them. They had breached the equality act here in the UK.
They kept on apologising and I had to meet the guests in person and try my best to speak (we deaf people can’t really speak that well). It was intimidating, stressful and upsetting to be put in this position.
But there were one guest staying with us and his reservation were unpaid. Airbnb kept telling us to call the police to kick him out as he has no rights to be inside (what the f?!). This is the worst hospitality they could offer. The guest returned back quite drunk, hostile and said he had no refund sent over and that he had not received an email of cancellation. It was horrendous. Being nice and fair, we offered for him not to pay for the first two nights and is welcome to leave and check-in a hotel. This left us in the limbo but there were nothing else we could do.
Two other guests checked out today, nineteen future reservations cancelled and my husband had no response about his account.
Then this morning, I found out my account had received a ‘ticket’ this morning… WHAT?! I couldn’t help but laugh! Why?! My airbnb has my real name, real ID, real email address and real picture. We had really good ratings and raving reviews about our apartment and hospitality, none of these makes any sense whatsoever.
We did get a bad complaint recently but a very stern elder Australian couple whom shared our furniture to be mediocre, terrible and more negative points completely contradicting all the other reviews just before them. It was a little bizarre to find a private feedback to say I had ‘tried my best to make their stay more comfortable’ however they didn’t allow me as they were not interested at all.
Now we are in the limbo, not a clue what to do, feeling very hurt and left on the web waiting to be reactivate or eaten alive for no reason whatsoever.
Same thing! We had horrible guests last weekend who actually physically assaulted my husband, actually had to call the Sheriff, and who gets punished…..US!, hosts with multiple reviews and five star ratings……and all of our future guests! We were never even allowed to speak to a real person, no reason other than we somehow violated their terms of service?? What violation i have no idea, I dont even have any idea what claim was made against us? I was one of your biggest fans airbnb, loved your platform, but If this is how you treat your hosts airbnb, I want no part of it! Really really sad.
Dear Carol -Anne
I had exactly the same problem Carol on Saturday 30th.March, I am in the process of writing numerous letters , and am being assisted by legal help in Australia. I plan to take action to clear my name. My story is exactly the same as yours. A security breech by the guest resulted in a terrible incident of denial and I believe a totally untrue story being told to Airbnb. I experienced being judged without a jury. Airbnb is accountable for their actions, and I firmly believe the guest made up a very untrue storey about me to cover the incident.( something very defamatory ,to my character ???). I am devastated. I was de-activated immediately without notification, and lost forward bookings mounting to approx. US$2,000. They will not give me a reason, and refuse “point blank”. I have found their address in San Francisco and will email to :
888 Brannan St.
Floor 4
San Francisco, CA 94117
Host or Guest Concerns: Aisling Hassell, Global Head of CX aisling.hassell@airbnb.com
Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb can be reached at either brian@airbnb.com or brian.chesky@airbnb.com
I had a lot of confidence in Airbnb for some years. I am now beginning to think they are becoming too powerful like the rest of them …….This is scary.
Keep in touch if you are interested. I am sorry you experienced this terrible one sided stuff. My Guests lost nothing and were moved to another Villa, without penalty. I lost everything! They are bullies.
Thanks for listening.
Well Peter I wish you luck, but I am not going to waste my time, energy, or $$, on a company that treats people this way.I would be lying if i said i wasnt going to miss their platorm or exposure, but there is other companies out there that I would rather support.I am going to sit back and let Karma do its thingI will never again recomend or use airbnb, I am going to go all in with VRBO & HipCamp,com………and to hell with airbnb and their kangaroo court~
Do keep me posted though!!
This is exactly what happened to me today….host from Thailand.
Airbnb has become a bully that disregards all policy, and has no respect for their suppliers. I hope the day comes when they don’t have the suppliers to meet demand
One is permitted to take payments and bookings from outside Airbnb. So long as the booking did not originate from the Airbnb platform.
In most cases these terminations where no reason is given are a mistake.
If one politely perseveres and keeps contacting Airbnb via Twitter and Facebook, eventually you hopefully get a support person who actually investigates, and you will get your account restored. Unfortunately they do noting about all your list future bookings.
Where there’s smoke there’s fire…… Accepted payments outside Airbnb maybe?