I am a host. I have had hundreds of guests. I recently had a guest try to extort me. They did this in the Airbnb discussion thread. The extortion is extraordinarily clear. Meaning, it’s impossible to not see the extortion as what it is. But Airbnb determined that there was no extortion. And the case is closed. When I essentially tried to reopen the case, they made it clear that was not an option and that the determination had been made.
It’s a company, not a legal system. They can do what they choose to. And in theory I shouldn’t necessarily care. It does not exactly directly affect me whether or not another person is held accountable for extortion.
I’ve seen Airbnb be a great partner, and I’ve seen them do very problematic things. But it’s never previously shaken my faith in continuing to do Airbnb.
But this has been very disturbing for me, and I’m now looking at alternatives for how to earn money from my property.
My question is, is there some way to get another set of Airbnb eyeballs on the same case. Is there a way to escalate this inside Airbnb. Because again, the extortion was impossible to not see.
I have no interest in going public with this. And I have no interest in pushing things in a way that might get my account shut down. I’m not going to sue. In a previous challenging situation (which I discussed in this forum), I called Airbnb over and over again. It was seeming like it might get different results, but I never did. In this case, with the extortion, I specifically asked for the safety team. And with the safety team, everything gets directed back to the investigation that was already done, and in this case apparently concluded.
I guess in the end my question is whether there’s a way to safely escalate within Airbnb. But I’m fairly positive that the answer is “no”.
So again, I’m now looking at alternative ways to monetize my property. This feels like a real loss to me, because I really love doing Airbnb. It’s been a chance to meet so many amazing, wonderful people.
I have a good friend who owns a house which he was using for Airbnb. He also got extorted, and Airbnb was fully unwilling to help, and because of it he left the platform. Even before a similar thing happened to me, he’s been trying to tell me that the extra money from airbnb doesn’t add up to enough to be worth the extra hassle. And how he’s been much happier just having renters.
I’m not trying to convince anybody to stop using Airbnb. Everybody should do what’s best for themselves.
But I’m very disillusioned. Airbnb has been a jerk in some ways in the past, but never with something so horrendous. It’s literally impossible to not see the extortion as extortion. And Airbnb insisted that no extortion was found and then closed the conversation. I’m being repetitive here, but It just keeps hitting me again and again how insane this is.
There’s sort of an assumption that Airbnb or any reasonable company will be reality based. Probably overly self-protective and selfish, but that’s how business usually works. In this case, it wouldn’t have cost them anything to agree that there was extortion.
I’m not sure what I’m expecting from this forum. I don’t think there’s any real answer for escalating this issue or anything like that. But I guess I’m still processing this, and sharing it with you folks is emotionally helpful for me.
The next thing I will be doing is running the numbers. Figuring out to a great level of detail. How much money I make with Airbnb vs how much money I can make with other ways of doing things. If I can make 80% of the money that I currently make with Airbnb, but not need to put in as much effort, that’s likely to work well for me. I need to make my mortgage payment. But my time also has value. And besides the normal airbnb tasks, there are 1 in 100 guests where the amount of emotional energy and time It takes from me is extreme. But that’s expected.
And maybe Airbnb will never do the kind of thing that they just did to me again. Maybe this is a one-off. But I am extraordinarily disillusioned.
I could discuss this using my real name in the official airbnb forums. And that would increase the chances of me making a fuss that got some attention. But I’m not interested in risking having my airbnb account shut down. Whoever the person was that made this determination is someone who works on the safety team. And the safety team specifically decides which accounts should get removed from the airbnb platform. So poking that bee’s nest with a stick doesn’t seem smart.
No obligation, but I’m curious for any thoughts you have.
Thank you!
-HostHost