@jaquo OH! Lol…No end to my ignorance.
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I think we must have been reading a different post
@Fahed clearly said his wifi was down that’s why his ring camera wasn’t working
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I also interpreted it the way @DozerPug did. The offending guest turned off the wifi so the camera would be disabled. The party went on and the neighbor didn’t call Fahed until the guests had left because he thought Fahed was the one having the party as he posted here:
However, in re-reading it does seem that the wi-fi was out and not turned off by the guest as this statement reveals:
The problem isn’t that @Helsi and @DozerPug read different posts, it’s that not all the details are together in one post so that the story is easy to follow.
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I had AirBnB do me the same way for someone who owed for sneaking extra people in but would not pay. AirBnb tried to pay 50%. I kept politely telling the agent to try again. It took a week or more and lots of ranting messages I’m not entirely proud of but they paid 100% and made a point to tell me they don’t normally do that but they would this once for me. Good grief.
I had a guest drive a car through the house & AirBnB wanted a line by line hand-entered (pic/description/cost) , via their tedious e-form, itemized list of over $40k in damages. Really? The guests insurance finally sent out a adjuster & we handled repairs (& revenue loss) through them. But even they were a pain. AirBnB was useless in this case. I never even got a call back from the many messages I sent.
Hello!
Sad to read your story. Even though I haven’t experiences such a wild party, I have experienced people having parties, making a mess and stealing from my apartment.
My problem is that it’s impossible to pin small theft to a single guest when I have back to back guests for 6 months and I’m away. My co-host cannot check the whole apartment AND clean it (it’s not a “stripped down” Airbnb apartment, it’s an apartment I actually use and have stuff in).
Here’s my point; Airbnb takes NO responsibility in cases like this and it’s very frustrating. They want to be a no-risk platform and any problem is between the host and the guest. They could very easily skim of some percentages of the large fee they take (and scammy exchange rates) into a host-insurance fund that could be used in the cases where a culprit guest cannot be pinpointed OR the guest simply does not pay for damages.
I really feel Airbnb is not on our side when we really need them. We get the polite canned email responses, but that doesn’t remedy damages after a guest have stolen something.
For instance; if a guest brings bedbugs to your apartment it’s going to be costly to get rid of it both in terms of lost bookings and the extinction (tens of thousands of euros). It’s impossible to pinpoint this to a guest given the incubation time. And thus Airbnb does nothing for you. This is putting an enormous risk on us as hosts, which Airbnb would be nothing without.
I want to petition Airbnb to change this unbalanced behavior by updating the T&C to give us more slack when we can’t pin damages to a certain guest. More generally; I’d like to go through the whole T&C and weed out any sneaky / scammy provisions that none of us read anyways. I’m sure this initiative has been put forward earlier? An Airbnb-host-union of sorts… We would have much more impact if we speak with one, clear voice to further our needs. Does something like this exist? It definitely should. Do you agree? What’s your opinion? And btw; how do I start a new topic here? I could only figure out how to reply 
Have a great day everybody, wherever you are in the world 
Best regards, Fredrik
You need to participate for awhile before you can start a topic.
What do you think will happen to your listing once you become a militant host…?
Airbnb has a never ending resource of new hosts who drink the Lime Aid and believe the advertising until something happens and then they see how thin the facade really is.
List elsewhere, set up your own website and take control of your business.
I am running at 85% occupancy and only 15% of those bookings come from Airbnb.
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You are correct I read his first post and worked out he meant he’d let the listing with no wifi working which was confirmed by his later post.
Might be because @Fahed and I are both from the UK so I picked up what he was saying colloquially more easily . 
Get a new co host then, because checking the listing and taking care of cleaning is what they are SUPPOSED to do.
JF
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I can’t believe he knew it wasn’t working and rented anyway. I think he just found out as a result of what happened.
Hopefully he’ll return and update us.
Sure, this is suggested all the time. But everyone expects someone else to do all the work and magically get results. When you start this international host “union” you will learn that we don’t all speak with one voice. Partly it’s because we have different kinds of rentals. Some of it has to do with the attention and skill of the host.
Honestly, I don’t know how many hosts would agree with your idea that Airbnb should pay out money to hosts who can’t be bothered to monitor their own rental. Put in a one or two day buffer between bookings and start hold guests accountable for their bad behavior or theft. It’s ridiculous to think a corporation thousands of miles away should take care of this for you. Airbnb is a booking and payment platform.
Or, if you don’t want to put in that work, just raise your prices a few euro per night and self insure.
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Some commercial STR insurance covers bedbug infestation. Lost revenue coverage is standard.
Let’s say you make $50,000 per year on your Airbnb. They charge a 3% fee, totaling $1,500. Basically that’s their platform/marketing fee. And it is well below what you would pay for a robust STR policy.
It’s interesting that they’ve not gone the route of the host paying the full fee. I think the figure they were proposing was 14-15%? That equates to $7,500 on the $50,000 per year rental income., which is getting closer to commercial insurance rates. But Airbnb is still basically running a platform/marketing business. And an all-host fee doesn’t change their revenue; they’ve just shifted the revenue source from guest to host.
I think the retention of the 3% is to ensure very low barriers to entry and encourage a constant stream of new hosts. So less investment in retaining hosts is needed. If I recall, It’s an even split, 8%-8% on VRBO between hosts and guest. Thus the constant pressure from Airbnb on pricing, discounts, etc. as they’ve got to keep an eye on the competition.
So, providing extensive coverage is just not part of their business model. It probably takes into account that statistically only x% of hosts will even bother to apply for coverage of small damages. So if it is worth your time to relentlessly pursue Airbnb coverage, you may prevail. Unlike commercial insurance, multiple small claims will not “raise the rate.” Of course, they can always delist you if excessive.
Recap, they offer a limited service. It either fits your business needs or it doesn’t, and there are alternatives.
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If this helps, just document all your correspondence and telephone calls. Then show the damage that was done to your listing. We were able to get a judgement for $500 USD. Our cleaning service is $225, the stolen and damaged items in the house, the goodwill gifts to our neighbors for the nuisance we created with the Airbnb listing.
Airbnb has not paid the judgement as of yet, and we limited our listing because they were not properly vesting the guests which changed our status from SuperHosts. We brought another civil action and will have another judgement for $8,000.
Remember Airbnb Hosts that you have the legal right to seek damages in your areas.
Why the delay on the payment?
Could you explain this please?
This is very interesting given that we all agree to arbitration when we sign up with Airbnb. So maybe you could explain better what is going on in your case in order to help hosts in a similar situation.
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I don’t know where you are, but in the US hosts agree to the Terms of Service which require that disputes be settled by arbitration, and they pick the arbitrator. Because of that clause, any legal action filed in the US would be dismissed quickly.
Or was the $8000 a suit against the guest? In that case, having a judgement doesn’t do any good unless you can find something to attach to satisfy the judgement. Good luck with that.
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The consumer protection policy is very strong in my community. The AG is aggressive with this company and has set legal precedent in this legal area in the courts. Hence, why we were able to obtain a judgement because the terms of the service violated the consumer protection policy.
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This is literally amazing – what country and what local jurisdiction are you in?
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they were not properly vesting the guests
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*Guests were coming from areas that were restricted to the listing’s area during COVID-19. The guests were endangering the community because they were allowing to instant book on the platform.
The listing is located where the AG has successfully challenged the terms of service in the lower courts because it violates the consumer protection policy.
Hope this helps.
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I’m confused. You filed for damages and theft of property according to your post. But the finding was that Airbnb didn’t prevent violation of COVID travel restrictions?
Did you complain to local AG consumer protection office? Or did you file in small claims court? Or?
Did Airbnb even show up or respond? More info, please.
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What state are you in? Or is this outside the US?
I was encouraged to pursue claim after a hairy messy untrained pet was in our unit… a no pet condo. Renter did not respond to their calls and they denied us our own securitydeposit. Beware. Lots of runaround and excuses.
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