Hello everyone,
On Saturday night, I received an email from AirBnB, titled "Your listing will be removed" stating "This listing appears to be a duplicate of "James McCool House" which had recent issues. Because creating a duplicate of a listing with reported issues goes against our policies, your listing will be removed from AirBnB on July 15th, 2024".
I immediately contacted ABB customer service line for clarification as to where this message is coming from, and what "duplicate listing" they are referring to. As of today, after speaking with 6 customer service representatives (the latest one, today, is supposedly part of the "escalation team"), my listing has now been "paused" since Sunday and we are not showing in the guest search, and cannot take any new reservations from new guests (I currently have 4 upcoming booked reservations with ABB, the soonest is this coming Friday, which ABB states they will "allow" me to keep and honor those reservations!)
The current ABB listing for my home has (5) 5-star reviews, and "Guest Favorite" badge, earned since listing in January 2024. The old listing (previous property manager, who we fired in January 2024, which is when I, as the owner of the home, started managing my own property and created the new ABB listing), also had Guest Favorite badge, and had and currently still has, Superhost status.
ABB is claiming we have negative guest reviews (1-star reviews) which we don't, and even the old listing, we had 70+ reviews, and I believe there was (1) review from over 1 year ago that complained about 4th of July fireworks, and gave us 1-star for the noise... Again, we had Guest Favorite badge as of January 2024 at time of transition between old mgr and myself starting the new listing. (ABB refused to remove the 1-star review for 4th of July noise).
ABB then shifted gears and was claiming we have been associated with the duplicate listing that has many cancelations! Under the previous manager, as she has Superhost status (and still does) and if she had too many Host-instigated cancelations, she wouldn't have "Superhost" status.
I've had the run around from 6 of their customer service representatives, 2 so far have told me "there's nothing they can do, as we see you associated with this duplicate listing".
I've asked each of them to send PROOF of what they are telling me (1-star reviews, reported issues, excessive cancelation, duplicate listing), and none of them can see any of this on their end, or send me anything that supports this claim.
All the while, my property is officially "paused" from taking any new reservations (which hurts me as Host, and ABB as the host website!). Our home receives about 50% of our bookings from ABB, and the other 50% from VRBO. We currently have a hosted website thru OR, but yet to receive any direct bookings (we are working on this actively).
A few online STR forums state similar experiences from other hosts with ABB, including a few that are going thru this same situation, completely unfounded. One fellow Host said the only way their properties were reinstated after similar situation, is they had a "friend of a friend" that held a higher level position at ABB and was able to correct, after SEVERAL weeks of being "paused" and lost revenue.
Does anyone have a higher level contact at ABB? I'm just getting started with my hosting career (self managing my own property) and have 2 more properties that are coming on board later this year after our busy season is finished. I don't want this issue to plague any of the new houses coming on board (both of which are currently with this old property manager we fired...)
Any assistance or feedback would be greatly appreciated! Frustrated, upset and feeling helpless, in Walla Walla, WA.
