Airbnb Closed Your Account. Now What?

1

I wrote this post in reference of Kelly’s account being terminated. I recommend to view the below post at my page, since I have screen grabs with instructions:
http://tiny.cc/Airbnbclosed

Imagine. You have been a host for over two years. Hundreds of guests have walked through your door. You’re a featured speaker at Airbnb conferences. You’ve been awarded by Airbnb for your abilities as a host. At every opportunity, you speak to the press about your amazing life, made possible by Airbnb, which has allowed you to start new business opportunities. You are the ideal Superhost.

Then suddenly…Airbnb terminates your account.

You wake up to a call from a random customer support representative who gives you next to no information. He only tells you that more information will follow via email. You try to get answers but they are barely communicating. Your account is gone. Reservations cancelled. Future income evaporated. Within 24 hours, your life will be upside down.

On August 19th, Airbnb Superhost Kelly Kampen wrote about Airbnb terminating his account. As of today, Kelly hasn’t updated the article revealing any new information.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of them closing of hosts’ accounts. In 2012, when the New York Attorney General was requesting data from NY hosts. Unannounced, Airbnb closed accounts of any hosts who had multiple listings.

No warning. No severance package. YOU’RE FIRED. Right or wrong…the life you knew is no longer there.

LOGIN INFORMATION
In the article, Kelly insinuates that his account might have been hacked. He doesn’t know for sure. But his login information and his account showed activity in parts of the world he had not been to. Here are some steps you can take to protect yourself.
To see your login information:

Click on your Dashboard
Click on Account
Click Security
You will see Change Your Password
Then Login Notifications
Bottom of page Login History

Confirm your login history. If you see login information from a place you didn’t visit, IMMEDIATELY:

Change your password (on the top of the same page)
Contact Airbnb.

PROTECT YOUR ACCOUNT
One way to protect your account from hackers is set up a notification for every time your account is logged in from a non-trusted browser. Your computer, phone, and tablet will be in your trusted browsers, as long as you have used them to access your account. If you log into your account from a computer or device the system doesn’t recognize, you will be asked if “this a trusted server” and you will be notified of the login via email.

To set up your notifications: On the account page click notifications
For my own safety and peace of mind I prefer getting notifications for everything, so I select all the options.

PAST GUEST INFORMATION:
Airbnb used to provide us with the guests email information but since they no longer do that. Upon booking, I ask my guests for their personal emails. Not everyone shares it, but it is still worth asking. Some guests ignore the messages that come to them through Airbnb, and I prefer to remain in touch as much as possible. In addition, it gives me more dependable means of communication should my account suddenly vanish.

DIVERSIFY:
I have written before that I have accounts with other platforms. Right now I use FlipKey, another short-term vacation rental website, and I have had a few bookings. FlipKey isn’t my favorite but I don’t want to depend on Airbnb. Do your research to see what other platforms might appeal to you as a secondary space for your rentals.

YOUR OWN WEBSITE:
I also have my own personal website and Facebook page for my house. I route inquiries and reservations to Airbnb, but I have an online presence beyond the vacation rental companies.

Maybe right now, for you, Airbnb is a part time gig and a bit of extra pocket money. I make a living as an Airbnb host. I can’t even imagine what I would do if I were to lose this income. Protect yourself from hackers and keep your eggs in different baskets.

Do you have your own website? How would you manage if Airbnb suddenly closed your account tomorrow? Sign up to my newsletter to get insights, webinar announcements, and get the ultimate room-to-room checklist - a must for any new or experienced host.

Until next time.

Your host,

Evelyn

2

Watching news on airbnb actions in New York, I would suggest all hosts who have multiple listings to actually delist and get down to single listing per account. You still have family members and friends who could set up their accounts for your other listings and I would really recommend you to move those as soon as possible.

Now you may ask is it possible to move my professionally made pictures? Yes, it’s certainly possible. If you don’t know how, ask me and I can point you the guy who can completed this quickly for you.

And if you’re worried on management of multiple accounts, there are some solution available already, check on airbnb multichat software.

3

Are they doing this in NY? Shutting down hosts with multiple accounts?

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No, they first of all shutting down accounts with multiple properties. Putting your properties to multiple accounts would actually save it. But you need to comply to airbnb T&C, so you can not have multiple accounts on your name, but you certainly can bring your partner, relatives and friends and even make extra $25 on referral. Running multiple properties on single account? - isolate your risks - bring your friends and let them be a host for one of your props. Management is still on yourself, of course. Thanks to this software http://www.airbnbmultichat.com/ you can manage multiple airbnb accounts from a single place.

5

When you say multiple accounts, do you mean more than one account as in using different email addresses, or multiple accounts, as in multiple listings for one account.

6

HI there, don’t know if you’re still active on this, but I’m really curious about this shutting down business. I may start another airbnb and need to know if this is going to affect me. Can you answer?

9

Multiple accounts where each is made with a separate email address and on a different name. Basically ask your family members to open up airbnb account and hand them off a single listing each. I would not suggest to create more than one account per name/ID you have, airbnb likes to shut copies down when detected.

11

It’s the law… If you happened to be a host in New York you have to obey the rules, and only host a single place per person to comply. Taxation is of course the next thing that comes and if you really went wide and got multiple properties to run this type of “business” you have to pay taxes on this income. Or do you have another legal solution at the moment?

13

Wives or Kids or just two forms of ID. For those of us with multiple listings looking at how the hosts in New York were put out of business its a decision between giving up Airbnb altogether and staying in business.

Airbnb have stated that they will cease allowing entire properties in cities with a housing crises and that the business is built on sharing rather than working with professional property managers. In the words of a founder “Staying with a professional who owns multiple properties is the same as staying in a hotel. You might as well just stay in a hotel”

Airbnb is not doing this because it is illegal or because it provides a bad service to guests. They are doing it in an attempt to pacify the municipal authorities who are considering regulating the market. Restricting the platform to shared rooms only allows them to claim that they are allowing the ordinary man to earn a living rather than enabling rich owners of second homes to evict long term tenants for greater profit. They are doing this in the hope that the platform itself will not be banned in the way some cities have banned Uber.

I would rather list under two accounts to avoid my account being terminated when the alternative is to surrender my business just for the sake of Airbnb scoring a few karma points with the authorities

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14

Are you opening another Airbnb private apartment in NY? My recommendation is NOT to do it.

15

no. somewhere else. Big Canadian city.

16

Find out the law and if the city is having any “Airbnb” issues.

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I already know. They do not have issues with my borough. There are no hotels nearby at all. Young, hip urban planners are on board.

18

Best of luck with the new space then.

19

What happens to future reservations when this happens? Do they get cancelled? Are hosts still expected to keep the booking?

20

No, Airbnb contacts the guests and gives them options to stay at other places.

21

Hello everybody. We have an apartment listed and we are planning to open up a second one (in Sofia, Bulgaria.) Now I wanted to kindly ask you - can we list the second apartment with the same profile or should we open up a new profile? Since we have good reviews on our first one it would be nice (and fair) to use the same profile. Please help! Banana

22

You can create additional listings with your same host profile.

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23

Thanks a lot Sarah! I was just wondering and we take business very seriously :slight_smile: Best regards

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24

I think hosts who illegally running airbnbs should be closed down. They are ruining neighborhoods, driving up real estate, and being greedy little shits. So are people renting out subsidized low-income housing and illegally subletting their apartments and houses when they don’t even own it or are not commercially insured. And this?

Maybe right now, for you, Airbnb is a part time gig and a bit of extra pocket money. I make a living as an Airbnb host. I can’t even imagine what I would do if I were to lose this income.

How about just reverting to long-term rentals, if what you are doing is legal?

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