Post by jessa on Oct 21, 2015 10:26:15 GMT
I was extorted by a guest who blackmailed me to pay him off not to leave a devastating review. Airbnb only referred me to community experts. A tall and scary Dutch bully. When he did review, all I got was "sympathetic" ppl on the phone who obviously hadn't worked at airbnb longer than 2 weeks and two completely incompetent case managers via response who didn't even as much as read into the extortion situation, only the review, stating that the review didn't violate anything and how amazing I was. This has been beyond agonizing and extremely humiliating for me. Aside from having a baseless, disgusting, vile and completely false first review on a listing now shut down (reopening a new one later, the system isn't that clever) - Now they thank me for being such a valuable member of the airbnb community and thank me for my patience and will no longer reply. This is the point where I snap. They actively supports guest abuse. They ask me not to contact them again. They're spitting in my face. This is the point where I would like to tell a journalist not inclined to the sharing economy the nasty things that I have shut up about in loyalty to this brand. When I had a studio listing, it was destroyed by a prostitute. She didn't just do her business from my flat, she and her pimp wrecked it and stole valuables before departing. They threatened me after and during their stay too. I had to fight to get less than 2000USD from airbnb at the time. I had to nag and complain and cry and plead. I had to clean and repair the entire place in time for the next booking because airbnb wouldn't relocate the next guests. Airbnb wouldn't reimburse cleaning costs. At the time airbnb was strictly illegal in Belgium (as in most European countries) so I couldn't go to police. I knew that if this went public, it was powerful arsenal for the politicians wishing to shut airbnb down. There was a debate on airbnb legality and this would have tipped it into the hands of the hotel lobby. One year ago I was woken up by screams in my living room one Sunday morning. A man, his wife and their little toddler. The man held a knife, the woman had her throat cut. She cried he was trying to murder her. I separated them. The little toddler cried in panic but didn't want to leave his dads side. Police intervention team stormed the building. Airbnb paid my lunch. I kept my mouth shut, our politicians had just said airbnb was kind of legal after all. I didn't want that opinion swayed by a murder attempt at an airbnb. The man who had tried to kill his wife was released two hours later and demanded to continue his stay in my house the next three weeks. I was terrified when he returned. He said the police had told him to look for the knife, there I was climbing my roof with this man looking for the weapon. They were Vietnamese. The Belgian legal system is malfunctioning and heavily racist. They had decided against a trial against someone there on a tourist visa, that would have made it very difficult with involving the embassy and so forth so they'd gone with his statement that she slit her own throat. This is not a system that gets much involved in affairs not involving blonde people. I called the police, they came again and told me that he had a legal contract with me for the next three weeks and that they didn't think he would be violent against me but should he be then I could call the police. That's the legal reality. Now airbnb managed to get him out by setting him up with the host he had stayed with before coming to me. I do not know to which extent that host was aware of what was either a suicide or murder attempt in my living room and the imminent possibility of the wife returning or the who-gets-the-kid drama. I shut up about these two traumatizing events because I felt loyal to the brand. My apartment had been used and destroyed by the mafia, a family tragedy had played out in my living room, crying baby, man with knife, wife with slit throat. You'd think they are both freak events but they happened within a year of hosting. They were both dangerous events that completely alienated me from any sense of belonging in my home. I've been standing up for airbnb but airbnb is not behind me. Airbnb does not have my back when I am attacked. So I want to talk. I'm done with being quiet about the dirty things that happen in our homes. Airbnb is not as safe as it wants people to believe. There are risks to hosting. Including physical danger. Abuse occurs and when it does, we are pretty powerless as hosts.
it was taken on the Garden Route in South Africa, was doing this 'Out of Africa' thing.
