Account locked due to fraudulent payment of customer

[slamme]

Hello all!

I am an Experiences host for nearly 2 years with hundreds of bookings and nearly 300 reviews. However, today I was surprised to see that my account got locked due to security reasons. All of my upcoming reservations have been canceled, and I was not paid by Airbnb for my Experiences that happened yesterday (value 1000 USD approximately)

The explanation from Airbnb regarding the closure of my account is absolutely ridiculous:
“Your account was removed because we determined that reservation TAT95QQN is associated with fraudulent activity.”

The funny thing is that I am not even able to find reservation TAT95QQN, this is not even a booking of mine.

Over the past months I am getting a huge amount of messages from potential “customers” who ask to communicate outside Airbnb. I report them as these are scammers. I am also getting scam bookings. I receive an email of a new booking, seconds later it gets canceled. Some time later I get an email that that booking was involved with a fraudulent payment. So Airbnb has a lot of issues with fraud.

But now I am falsely accused of being involved in one of these fraudulent payments, and it is truly insane. I am not getting the right support from Airbnb, as their emails seem to be standard responses. I am a victim of Airbnb’s incorrect judgment here, most probably done by an automated program. This mistake from Airbnb is costing me a huge amount of money, all of my future bookings got canceled with a value of 30000 USD. This is a big part of my business, and Airbnb is causing the downfall of that.

What can I do? I have already done the following:

• Responded to the Airbnb Trust team
• Contacted Airbnb help on Twitter, no help. They just said I need to wait
• Filed a complaint on the Airbnb website P2B. This complaint gets redirected to the Trust team, and I get the same standard response.

I have literally send them all the proof that there are frequently fraudulent payments for one of my Experiences where it always goes like this:

1. Customer books for a ridiculous amount as it is regarding a private speedboat tour and therefore expensive if you buy for 10 people.

2. 1 minute after booking the booking gets canceled.

3. The day after I receive an email that I should be careful that the payment of that customer was fraudulent.

Seems to me that one of these payments somehow was linked to me, but it is absolutely not. I have all the proof that I am a fair host and I would not do that, but all Airbnb does is getting back to me with the same standard message:

“We’ve given your case and its details careful consideration. At this time, we won’t be able to restore your account or offer you additional support on this matter”

I am devastated by this, and it frustrates me that they are treating a 5-star host like garbage. Any help or advice is appreciated.

[JBMN1]

Yikes! It’s possible you can’t find the reservation “TAT95QQN” as it has already been removed by Airbnb. I receive an email & text when guests book. You might be able to locate the reservation notification for this one if you search through your emails & texts (even if you deleted your emails they would be in your trash folder).

That being said, wow…just wow. Don’t know if you use the Airbnb Community center. But I would post this there and ask for one of the administrators (@Bhumika) for assistance and bring your case before the correct department at Airbnb.

Community Center

Hoping you can get this resolved…let us know how it goes!

[slamme]

Thank you so much for your response @JBMN1 !

I keep all of my emails regarding Airbnb bookings in my email, even if they got canceled. I am not able to find anything in my email regarding reservation TAT95QQN, so I am pretty positive that this reservation has nothing to do with me.

I wanted to post on the Airbnb Community center, but that requires me to log in to Airbnb and my account is locked. I keep on getting this message:
Someone from our team will review your account and follow up with you soon at XXX@gmail.com.

I tried logging in with another account but did not seem to work.

EDIT: I tried again, and it did work this time. Thanks again @JBMN1 !!!

Account locked due to fraudulent payment - falsely accused..

[JBMN1]

Hope you will get a response on the CC! Hindsight is always 20-20…but since there are so many scam issues for your Experience Listing, when your account is restored, I would probably stop offering it. Not worth all the drama and issues Just a thought .

[slamme]

Yes absolutely @JBMN1, I did not know it would be harmful as a host to be honest. I have about a dozen Experience Listings, but just this one attracted scammers due to its high price I suppose. But never would I have thought that they would punish a host for that, as it is clearly a problem from Airbnb’s side. But yes, it would be the first thing to do once I get access back.

Thanks again!!

[JBMN1]

Hi again…
Noticed your post on the CC but it’s under Topic “Help With Your Business”. I would also post this under “Ask About Your Listing” as that is the most popular topic on CC and tends to get more views and attention.

[JBMN1]

Also…your email might be deleted on CC as I don’t believe they allow you to post email addresses. Another option…you can send a private message to @Bhumika or any of the other CC admin

[slamme]

Thank you! I have also posted it under “Ask About Your Listing”:

Account locked due to fraudulent payment - falsely accused..

Regarding the private message, how do I send it on the community platform? When I check her profile, I don’t see any button to message her.
https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1300503

When I click “Messages” in general, I get the following:
"Hello! Unfortunately you do not have sufficient permissions to access this content.

Click your browser’s Back button to keep browsing the community."

[JBMN1]

Ok…rats! It must be because your account is locked.

[muddy]

@slamme

I have also posted it under “Ask About Your Listing”:

I think it belongs under “Support with your bookings”. That’s where hosts amd guests usually post about issues.they are having.

[Christine_Shirtcliff]

How horrible. Hope you are booking from more than one platform to regain some of the canceled business. We are all at the mercy of Airbnb staff, but you have the worst case that I’ve heard so far.

[HostAirbnbVRBO]

This situation also underscores the value of @muddy’s advice elsewhere here to keep an ongoing record of guests’ contact information so that if the Host’s account is suspended the Host can still contact the guests.

Best of luck. Appreciate @JBMN1 's spot-on information and guidance.

[dpfromva]

Tweet, Facebook and email directly to brian.chesky@airbnb.com, keep it succinct:

“As a 5-star host, why am I being punished for fraudulent guests? Airbnb shut down my Experiences account, with hundreds of prior bookings and great reviews, because fake guests tried to use fraudulent payment. “We won’t restore your account” is the response I get.”

[slamme]

I created another account to post it on Airbnb Community, so should not be related to my locked account unless it is also on IP Address level. Do you see a button to message Bhumika?
https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1300503

[slamme]

Thank you so much, that is a great tip @dpfromva, I have done that on all platforms. @dpfromva

@JBMN1 @Christine_Shirtcliff @HostAirbnbVRBO, thank you all for your compassion and tips too. Overnight I received an email from Airbnb, again another disgusting standard message where they are not even giving any details.

Up until now, I did not receive any proof or more information about the actual reason of locking my account. Just the first email where they mention that reservation TAT95QQN is linked to fraud. But I am not able to find this reservation, I keep all my emails.

I am desperate.

[muddy]

Try the little envelop symbol in the top right corner of the page. If that gets you into the private message area, use her name with the @ in front of it.

But she can’t do anything for you. She’s just a forum moderator. All she can do is nudge customer service to get in touch with you. And half the time when she tells posters she has done that, they come back and say that it’s been 2 weeks and no one has gotten in touch with them.

Just tag her in the thread you started, you don’t have to send a private message. She’ll answer in the thread.

I wish you luck. Sounds like Airbnb isn’t going to look at this anymore, but all you can do is be persistent. There was a long time host who used to post a lot on the CC years ago. Airbnb deleted his listing and wouldn’t even tell him why.

[slamme]

Thank you so much for your help @muddy, I hope that I somehow can get a clear answer from Airbnb nevertheless.

I am also considering to take legal actions, as not only did they cancel my upcoming reservations. But they did not pay me money of an experience that happened on the day that my account got locked. I hosted those guests and the payout did not happen due to the locking of my account.

[HostAirbnbVRBO]

@slamme

I am also considering to take legal actions

You’ll have to go through the arbitration route per terms of service.

[Spark]

If you are in or near a major media market try connecting with a reporter on the business/commerce beat. One phone call from credible media (not “some guy with a blog”) to the Airbnb media relations team will get this looked at someone in P.R. with the sense to involve a senior operations manager/exec in a position to fix it before the story goes to air/print. Airbnb invests a lot in recruiting new hosts, and they do not want a story like this to get legs and undermine the recruitment.

[slamme]

Thank you so much for the tip @Spark ! I will definitely do so.