Thrown off for absurd violation?

Dear Forum after 5 years and 700 stays and 400 plus 5 star reviews, without a phone call I was thrown off and blocked from airbnb. All my reservations were canceled. The ones they told me I can keep a week out have not been paid. They said I was biased against same sex renters. Funniest thing I ever heard. I never have been or would be biased against same sex renters. I do however have a problem with 4 men booking a 2 bedroom then telling me on the phone they plan to have 4 girls over. Now i have 8 in my two bedroom. I just don’t want the overload of this on my apartment. It’s my fault I let instant book settings be on most of my places. It’s those settings that get us the extra bookings. They won’t talk to me about it. I can’t get through to a supervisor. They say they have the ticket someone will get back to me. They erased $28,000 in future bookings, without even speaking a word to me about it. I could care less if your preference is men or women. What I care about is 8 people in a place that was meant for 4 people. I don’t know what to say or do i just lost about 40% of my business because of this. Account says locked. Can’t get them to call me back. I just don’t like how there treating me over this. Anyway be careful. As a host your always 2 days away from being removed.

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This is crazy. Can you tell us more detail of what transpired? What was the conversation during the phone call? And were these girls also supposed to spend the night?

If they were just coming over for dinner, what is your policy on day visitors?

I don’t mind about dinner. I mind if they stay over. Which is the feeling I was getting when I called them right away to ask them about it. Dinner is fine. Day visitors are fine. I just didn’t want 8 people sleeping here. They say I made comments about same sex couples. It’s not about same sex couples. It’s basically about people cramming double the amount of people into my condo to save money. Saying it’s 4 and then bringing another 4 people. It’s upsetting. Because i doubt anyone would want to double the amount set fourth as max occupancy,

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OK…so they mentioned 4 girls coming over and you got the feeling they were also staying the night.

Yes, I agree that no host wants 8 people sleeping in a place meant for 4.

But what was the correspondence of them informing you that 4 girls were coming when the booked? And what transpired during the phone call?

They seemed like the rules of how many people the condo had a max for didn’t apply to them. Almost upset that I asked them. So i said he be best if we canceled it out. I canceled it and was charged $100 fee from airbnb. A week later I got a email with these guys info and that I was being removed.

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I don’t care what your preference is. I again just do not want double the people sleeping here. That’s all. I be willing to turn off instant booking on all rentals. And even be more forgiving of 1 or 2 people over the limit. But double?

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I hope Aribnb will be able to give an explanation why the account was blocked, but I suggest you to work with several platform not just with Airbnb.

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I do. I work with flipkey. Vrbo. My own website. Expedia. Booking.com. Roomarama. But if you put all these together airbnb was still 30% more bookings.

Try chasing up via social media.

Thanks. I would just like someone to contact me over the phone. I feel like they do there best to not contact you.

I suggested social media because you said you weren’t having much joy by phone, If you prefer to chase them up by phone, then call them again.

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so your saying facebook group?

Twitter I think is what @helsi meant

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This sounds like a total misunderstanding. Contact Air via Twitter, which will assign a new case manager to things and give you a second look.

Never cancel first. If they are breaking your house rules you can cancel without penalty but call Air and open a case first so you have backup.

Do you have the history of this transaction on the messaging system? I hope so. It sounds awfully harsh though.

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They locked me out completely from airbnb. Says your account is locked.
They kept this weeks worth of rentals.
canceled all the rest. Have not notified me of payment coming on 5 guests at our 5 properties.
I can’t look at the conversation anymore it’s locked going to ask them on twitter. Thanks

I’m wishing you luck Barry … my suspicion is they won’t overturn this but please keep us updated:(

I’m sorry your misgivings seem totally understandable and these guests have clearly fabricated a story in retaliation.

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I’m positive that is it. After canceling. They told them i am against gay couples. Just did not want 8 people in a 2 bedroom. Totally unfair to me.

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Just keep it in the back of your head it can happen to any of us. We are at the mercy of anyone wishing to lie. They did not ask me anything. I noticed all my icalc calendars on other sites stopped working. Then 2 days later a email. And a bunch of cancellations.

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Yes it’s like the two female friends I had stay at my place who suddenly became a couple looking for a romantic getaway in their complaint to Airbnb. Personally I think I was lucky they didn’t think to pull the we were a gay couple and we felt uncomfortable ruse (and by the way I have had a least three sets of gay couples stay with me and no issues to date…)

My point is my most recent guests fabricated a story in order to try and get a refund and I doubt they thought much about the consequences. Yours have likely done the same. I felt that Airbnb let me down and failed to protect me from what was clearly a ruse so I understand your frustrations.

And no I don’t know what we can do about it… it’s a big problem that will only grow as more unscrupulous people use the platform.

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That’s my gut feeling too. They’re pissed so they made up a story that they knew would get you kicked off because of Air’s public policies.

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