Make sure Airbnb is not shortchanging you

Today, I want to have a little rant about Airbnb. Twice this year, I have been shortchanged and I want to share these stories so that you don’t have these same issues. I have written previously about the complicated relationship I (and many other hosts) have with Airbnb. Click here to read my previous rant. But I want to share these real situations from my hosting business so that you too can make sure Airbnb is not shortchanging you too.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that I do try to keep on the positive side of Short Term Rental hosting. Personally, I don’t see the point in moaning about things (or people) I can’t control or whine about bad guests. I would much rather focus on building my business around hospitality, market to attract the amazing guests and improving my standards and systems to make it easier to make money. So I tend to write about these positive topics in the hopes that hosts like you will find value in my scribblings.

However, this is not one of those posts.

My Love/Hate relationship with Airbnb

I love that Airbnb make it easy to reach a big marketplace which as a small business owner, selling a niche product, is not possible on my own. However, I hate that they hold all the power, have very opaque guidelines that are applied unilaterally without any real recourse for hosts who feel poorly treated by guests or even by Airbnb themselves.

Read on below for my two recent issues – perhaps you can tell me if I am being unreasonable?

1. “The Scammer”

A guest made a last minute booking – for a 10 day booking to check-in later the same day. When they realized that they wouldn’t be self check-in (we meet every guest), they made a few different excuses. Blah blah about COVID nervousness and blah blah elderly relatives and blah blah don’t trust masks. I could tell it was total BS and they simply wanted to avoid meeting me. They asked for a full refund despite my moderate cancellation policy which would just give them a partial refund. I was annoyed of course but I said I would agree. I had just been put out while writing a few messages. They hadn’t actually checked-in. It wasn’t worth the bad blood as they were going to be a bad guest.

Now here is my mistake which I fully own.

While this was all happening, I was out and about and not at my computer. I saw a request for resolution come through on my phone email which I needed to accept. I didn’t read it fully and assumed this was the cancelation – however – the guest didn’t cancel but just asked for money back for the full amount of the booking. So I clicked “yes” to agree.

NOTE TO SELF: Read the emails carefully.

Resolution requests look like cancelation requests

When I got back to the computer, I realized that the booking was still valid. This held up my calendar and I couldn’t get other bookings. I wrote to the guest and asked them to cancel. With a moderate policy in place, the cancellation went through and more money was refunded.

HUH? More money? Why was I out of pocket for a booking that never even showed up?

Over the next few weeks there was much back and forth with the guest and I involved Airbnb naturally. The guest returned some of this money but steadfastly REFUSED to pay for the Airbnb fees which Airbnb collected for the booking. This amounted to a shortchange of around $300.

So the guest was not out of pocket and Airbnb sure took their piece of the pie.

But I was left $300 in the red for a booking that never happened!

Airbnb as a “neutral third party”?

The infuriating part is that Airbnb claimed they were merely the conduit (I think they even used the words “neutral third party” HA! ) between the guest and the host and they can’t force the guest to pay if they refuse. That was a completely gutless response and disingenuous at best.

When I asked them why they were collecting the $300 service fees for a booking that didn’t happen, I was told they use service fees to pay for customer support and other services that support the business. I asked them to reopen my case but they refused stating that their decision was FINAL.

Subtext being: “don’t fight this or else!”.

Giving up

Sure I could possibly fight this further but it takes SOOO long to actually get to speak to a human and the humans you do speak with are trained to avoid, obfuscate and deflect. If a ticket has been open too long, it is summarily closed. Then you have to start all over again. Rinse and repeat.

So I have written off this money and learned a lesson. Airbnb will not help you much in arrears. They are always happy to take your money but not very helpful for you to retrieve it.

Why did I call this guest the scammer?

The guest used the resolution request to circumvent the cancelation policy. Yes I shouldn’t have accepted it so quickly so this is my learning – a $300 one it seems – but what happened after that was just galling. Airbnb claiming they were not able to force a guest to pay the fees and for Airbnb to keep them and for me to be the only one who has lost any money.

Post-script on “The Scammer”

I did some digging and found the host the guest actually ended up staying with – that host had left them a bad review. I called this host and it turns out that there were many more people staying in the property than had booked – as proven by the door cameras. Also, it was likely that the original person who’s ID was used to make the booking, wasn’t even in the group. This is clearly the real reason the guest didn’t want to stay in my place as she didn’t want to be caught out in her lie.

The whole thing stinks but I am really best to write off the $300 and focus on my business and making that up. Sure I recognise that I dodged a bullet with this bad guest but it shouldn’t cost me money.

2. ”The Software Glitch”

Each month I check my bank statements to reconcile the payments that I am expecting from Airbnb.

In October (2022), I noticed that one of the payments was around $1,300 short. The amount they said was being released said one figure, the amount that landed in my account was another. If I hadn’t checked the records, I may not have noticed it. Money did arrive – just not the right amount.

Getting the run-around

I contacted my bank. The bank said to get the payment record. I got the payment record. The bank said it was just a typed sheet with nothing trackable on it so I needed to get more information from Airbnb/Payoneer.

Back to Airbnb/Payoneer. I received the notice of payment. it said that I could expect this by Jan 6, 1970. 1970? WTH! That seems a bit odd for an October 2022 booking and payout.

This is what arrived:

As you can see, ¥40,521 (~$300) is much less than ¥215,907 (~$1,600). The short fall is around $1,300.

Every other payment matches to the yen. So clearly an error.

Now Airbnb/Payoneer are insisting that I get an official bank statement showing the payments for the month of October. I have already send them screen shots from my account but they are being completely ridiculous about the format of the document.

There is so much delay and back and forth asking for different formats of the same information that I think this is a deliberate tactic to wear me down. Again, the original ticket has been closed and I don’t have a way to track this myself.

Is this a policy to get people to give up? I wonder how many people do give up? How much does this add up to for Airbnb.

Why this has likely happened

This booking had been moved and changed a few times and I have noticed that this is often when glitches appear. But at the time of writing this, it has yet to be resolved. Unlike the SCAMMER issue, I will not be letting this one drop. I have asked for a ticket number. But one was not provided so there is no real way for me to stay on top of my claim.

Clearly there is a problem. The 1970 payment date is absurd and indicates a software issue. But they sure are taking a long time to a) track it down and b) pay me what I am owed. It is so frustrating.

Trust but Verify

I found this discrepency as I routinely match up payments that land in my account with the amounts that Airbnb tell me they are sending. Each month, I do this manually – there are some things I don’t trust to automation. I wouldn’t have found this otherwise. If you are not doing this too, I recommend you set aside 30 minutes each month. If there are discrepancies, you need to jump on them quickly. Resolution takes ages as you can read here. This isn’t the first time I have had similar issues.

My rant about this toxic Airbnb relationship

Airbnb customer support was fairly useless in both situations. They say they were “very sympathetic” and “understand my concern” in the modern vernacular of doing absolutely NOTHING.

This non-apology apology is infuriating as the subtext is that they know they hold all the power. There is nothing small players like me can do. The ace card Airbnb hold is to cancel my account at any time, for any reason. For many hosts, that would mean the end to their business and so really we have to just accept their final decision. Or we run the risk of being accused as the aggressors if we keep pursuing claims – even if we are in the right.

Airbnb know this. It is a very toxic and unequal relationship.

For other claims like my software glitch, you are likely to be shunted around to different departments without any transparency and no single person who I can call to check on the progress. The staff read off prepared scripts or copy-and-paste useless platitudes that are supposed to show concern but in reality do absolutely nothing.

The system is built to wear you down so you will give up on your claim or they will point to some fine print in the agreement to avoid responsibility. I realise that these agreements are written by very highly paid lawyers to protect the company at all costs. But the fact they hold this power over hosts who don’t have this power is borderline abuse.

Another reason to embrace my marketing strategies for direct bookings.

Rant over.

So tell me in the comments – am I over-reacting? What other actions could I take?