Answers To The 3 Most Common Questions Airbnb Hosts Ask About COVID-19 Refunds?

cases like this. So that's one of the incentives here. If we have 10,000 arbitrations, the $10,000 average cost of arbitration adds up to $100 million in fees, and they still have $2 billion in liability on the COVID-19 refunds. So, you know, that gets you a seat at the table, trust me.

And Carol, I just want to reiterate, uh, you might have joined later, So the contingency base is one option available to hosts, but the other option available to hosts is 10,000hosts.com self-help platform to file those arbitrations. So you will be paying $200 filing fee, as Enrico said, to AAA, which is required by Airbnb. The cost of using the platform is only $150 for you to use. And A lot of, um, uh, not, not just a lot of, but all necessary, uh, self-help videos for you to file that arbitration yourself. So that is the beauty of this, um, this platform, is if you have a smaller claim, like some, some hosts only have $1,000 or $2,000, uh, going into contingency base might not be the best option in that case, but self-help platform is, um, what will be best available option for, for smaller accounts.

Yes, thank you, Svetlana. And so it's $350 if you go through the 10,000 hosts. That includes the platform fee and the arbitration fee. And under the terms of service, you can ask for both of those fees back as part of your award.

All

right, and then the third thing that we tend to hear sometimes is, is about Airbnb retaliation. And is Airbnb going to kick me off the platform if I file arbitration? Um, it's interesting because I've been doing this work for 30 years. I represent platforms like Airbnb. I have brought class actions on terms of service before, all the way through jury verdict, uh, and punitive damages. And I have never seen anything like this where there is this pervasive concern about Airbnb, um, You know, beating them. And, and, and all I can say is this, is before I answer the question, think about this. If the number one concern of people who use a service is that, uh, is don't hit me again, that tells you everything that you need to know about what's going on at Airbnb. And I think a lot of this has to do with the lack of transparency, right? Because Things happen and there's a lot at stake and big mortgages and big investments and there's a lot going on, and yet you never know why. You never know why they did what they did. You never saw the evidence that, that resulted in the 100% cancellation. You never saw the communications that Airbnb had with the guests who had already told you it was unrelated to COVID, right? So the lack of transparency creates a lot of issues and a lot of questions. And then all you— you have all the bugs and glitches in the system which change your settings, and they say couldn't happen and they could not have been a part of it. It has created this culture which I think is probably— if I were an investor, if I was doing the IPO, one of the biggest devaluation items that would be on the list would be the paranoia of the user base. Think about if Google, you know, we have— so the analogous thing is privacy, right? We're worried about privacy on Facebook. We're less worried about privacy on iPhone. You know why? iPhone's got a lot more data than Facebook, but iPhone doesn't allow anyone access to your data, right? And so their policy has always been, you know, it's a lockdown. They'll fight the government in many instances to get that data, whereas Facebook's model is has been until recently, share the data, they can do what— it's the same thing. It's if you— our platform, we can do whatever we want with the data we want. And oh, by the way, there's these ambiguous contradictory terms in the terms of service that our lawyers are now going to rely on to say that we were justified in doing whatever we wanted with the data, right? So same thing, terms of service are drafted so that the lawyers always have a club to beat you with, right? And, and so that's a really bad thing. And look what happened to Facebook, you know, in the last 3 to 5 years, 3 to 4 years especially. They have been called up to Congress. They have had to completely revamp their platform to put your data privacy in front of you, to remind you to control it, to give you absolute control, to support regulations of data privacy. Apparently Airbnb never got the memo that users have rights, that this is the age where users fight back, and that users— that the, the question is not, oh, if you don't like my platform, go somewhere else. That's not the question. You have an absolute right to use Airbnb and Google and any of these other platforms, and they have an absolute obligation to comply with the law And to be user-centric, and that's not just guests, that's hosts, and to be transparent about what they're doing. And so, as I know the industry really well, as I look at the industry, there are few companies as far behind as Airbnb in terms of being user-centric. Airbnb seems to think it's their universe and they can do whatever they want, and if you don't like it, leave. Right, and that's not a great model for any business, and it's not going to result in maximum valuation. And eventually users will go away and competing products will emerge that support users. All right, so let's get to the answer, the answer to the am I going to get kicked off the platform issue. And the answer is, from my, my opinion, no. And, and here's why. So we've been filing arbitrations for over 2 months, almost 3 months now. No one has reported issues that linked an arbitration filing with any sort of retaliation by our, uh, by Airbnb. Okay, as I've noted in my videos, it is not expected, um, that Airbnb is going to retaliate, and there would be serious consequences to Airbnb if they did. And here's why. If you're a big platform, you've got credibility issues with your users, and we know Airbnb certainly has those. But there's no bigger credibility issue than favoritism. And penalty. So if Airbnb started penalizing people for exercising their God-given contract right to arbitrate these claims, right, and they did even more to cause paranoia about hosts about what's going on with their algorithm, um, not only could they lose their IPO valuation, this kind of thing puts companies out of business. Companies as big as Airbnb. And there's lots of instances through time on the data privacy side where that happened. So when I represent platforms like Airbnb, it's the same thing. You're not looking to retaliate against someone by changing your rules or algorithms against them. The other thing is we're going to have access to all that information in arbitration. So if they've done anything like that, an arbitrator can demand that they— can, uh, can require that they turn it over to us And that would potentially be a company killer situation for Airbnb. Now keep in mind, you're one of many, many, many hosts, some of whom have, you know, million-dollar losses over COVID-19 refunds. You are a grain of sand in a very large beach, so, um, you're not going out on a limb here. All right, so this is something I just touched on. We've been representing and bringing, uh, actions against platforms for 30 years. We represent big companies. They're just extremely careful about things like this. I get the paranoia based on all the clubbing that, uh, that hosts have taken from Airbnb over time, but this is one that I would not expect, uh, to have any issues with, um, as a result of exercising your rights. Which brings us to the next point, uh, Svetlana, which is the terms of service give you the absolute contract right, and they in fact demand that you bring all disputes To them in arbitration. You can take a small claims court as well, but you have the right to bring arbitration. So any interference with your right and obligation to resolve disputes in arbitration would be a violation of the terms of service, and I will represent you. Okay. On a contingency fee basis if there is any evidence that they've retaliated against you, and you can imagine the damages in that instance. would be, uh, way more than a few COVID-19 refunds, which did spit out huge damages for many people. Okay, hundreds, soon to be thousands of host freeing claims. Here's something that I think we talked about early, Svetlana, which is we're not attacking Airbnb. We want Airbnb to be better and to follow their terms. So this isn't about animosity. This is about, you know, I say it sometimes, it's like putting your kid in timeout. You still love them. Right, we love Airbnb, but dang it, they need to go into timeout for a little bit because they've lost their way. The bean counters and the IPO pushers have, have somehow taken control of the C-suite, and we're gonna help the real, the real champions at Airbnb get the C-suite back, and it's gonna be for the best of everybody.

Yep.

Airbnb's trying to get to an IPO. It doesn't need any more issues on the table, and if this became an issue, this retaliation thing became an issue, it could be an IPO killer. So lots of reasons why we're just not expecting any sort of issues with regards to retaliation. By the way, I'm a host. My listings come back exactly as they always have. We're booking guests for our summer season, which is our big season. I have zero concerns about retaliation by Airbnb, and I think I might be at the top of the list of people that they probably aren't super excited about right now.

Yeah, and I would be second.

Yeah, Alana would be second. And I represent a lot of hosts who have really great relationships with top executives at Airbnb, people who have big, big operations and have day-to-day contact with Airbnb, and they're bringing arbitrations, and they love Airbnb, but this was wrong. And they're not gonna, they're not gonna take it. So,

we have a really good question, um, here from Facebook user. If I file for arbitration now, can I include future cancellations, or do I need to refile? So all those reservations that were made prior to March 14th, at this point all hosts, um, are expecting them to be either canceled the last moment, uh, or canceled in the very near future. Um, but, um, the, the guest has an opportunity to cancel up to 24 hours in advance, I believe. And so how can we address those?

It's a great question, and it is one that I have seen before. And the answer is that until we get to the point of actually having a hearing on your arbitration, which is 6 to 12 months down the line, we will roll up every claim that you have between now and then. So in our demand for arbitration and in the 10,000 hosts demand for arbitration through the document automation system, it doesn't— it's going to ask you your estimate of damages, but it's not going to put any amount of damages into your demand for arbitration. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is we don't know. The damages are ongoing, right? Uh, and so damages are continuing. So let's just say, um, that, uh, that tomorrow was, uh, was, was you know, Sally Smith's arbitration, right? So we'd have a number of everything we know until today. We'd put that in tomorrow at the arbitration hearing. She would then decide only on those damages that we put in, which would be identified by not only listing but by guest. Any guest for any listing that wasn't included in that list would remain a cause of action after the case was over, meaning you could go back and arbitrate again on those, right? So you're only going to have those claims resolved that you put in at the time of the hearing. Now, the other exit for Airbnb on these cases is settlement, right? So it's the same concept there. If we had a settlement, we would put all of the, the listing, all of the reservations that we know about, right, as of that date. And then the settlement agreement that I would draft for you, or that would be provided through 10,000 Hosts, is going to make sure it identifies exactly exactly what's being settled and exactly what's not being settled. So this is a really important concept that lawyers are— hopefully lawyers are aware of and that we, we account for when we get to that moment of truth. All right, so the other point I guess I would make there, Svetlana, is this something that you and I have heard certainly a lot is, but Airbnb deleted all my reservations from my account when they were canceled. And so how would I even know what my damages are? And the answer is that, you know, some hosts have that information still because they collect it every day. Uh, other hosts, many hosts do not because Airbnb, um, interestingly deleted that information upon cancellation. Um, and, and so we have a right to discovery in arbitration, and that right to discovery allows us to ask the arbitrator to force Airbnb to give us all of the communications with customers, all of the, uh, cancellations that occurred, and all records related to those cancellations. So if you don't have a detailed accounting, we'll get it for you in arbitration. And if you go through 10,000 Hosts, we'll get you the questions to ask the arbitrator to force Airbnb to answer, and the documents that you should ask for from Airbnb in discovery. so that you can get that information too. The last point I would make is we're doing these kind of COVID-19 refund claims, but we're telling hosts, and we include in our sample language in both the platform and in the ones that we're filing, that we're, we're saying however many losses you've had on property damage claims with Airbnb or otherwise, we'll add those at the right time to your claims as well. So, and we don't know exactly what Airbnb will argue as to how far back you can go, But most, most states, it's, it's 4 to 6 years, right? So if you've had other losses over the years that you were frustrated about, we'll be adding those to your arbitration as well.

And that's a great point because, as I mentioned in the previous, uh, Q&A, uh, with Enrico, I've been hosting for 10, 10 years and I host about 7,000 to 10,000, um, guests a year, and a lot of that traffic comes from Airbnb. Not a majority, but a lot of it comes from Airbnb. And I host in large properties, and we do have some damages sometimes. We do have our own insurance as well, but when I try to file any claims with Airbnb— I have not filed many because I know how it works— I have not won one through Resolution Center. I have not won one claim. And when you look at it and I describe the damages to you, it's very evident that Airbnb has wronged me in not accepting those claims. So those claims I will be attaching to my claim in this effort.

I hear that. Hear that a lot, Svetlana. You know, the, the, the, the, the— I've heard the word fraud, um, scam, uh, with regards to the, uh, the Property Damage, um, and Resolution Center approach. And again, there's no transparency. You have no idea why they decided what they did. And those kinds of policies are under law subject to attack. You make the argument, unless there's an objective standard and accountability in a contract clause, then you can make the argument it's invalid and unenforceable. So getting an arbitrator to rule or getting a settlement with Airbnb in a collective action, that they have to provide a decision that cites the evidence just like happens in arbitration. And because we don't know, like, that's the beauty of it. They, they win in, in every way that they can win, including making sure you have no ability to attack them. Because they never tell you enough to be able to say, you know, that's wrong, right? You've got your information that tells you you're right, but you have no idea what's, what's going on on the other side of the fence. And those types of practices are unfair trade practices, are consumer deception practices that are subject to attack. Now, let's get out of the legal thing for, for a minute, right? I'm a super practical person too. Think about this from a pure business standpoint. You've got hosts; they're critical to your business model. They're the ones doing the heavy lifting of everyone involved in all of the sharing economy, right? They helped create Airbnb. They were the reason that Airbnb succeeded. What when you ask you know when you ask what does the customer want? My customer is the host. What do they need? Well, they need protection on property damage. Why wouldn't you come up with a system that provides hosts protection on property damage? This is not rocket science. You know, we're not asking— you know, Elon Musk is not the CEO, and we're not saying we want to go to Mars in a couple of weeks, right? Although he'd probably get us there because his approach is the one I'm talking about, right? Airbnb and Brian, they seem to have completely become blind to this critical thing of what does the customer want. Give the customer what they want. Part of what's going to be happening over the next couple of months, Svetlana, with us and with others is we're going to start asking the question, how could we make Airbnb better? What do hosts need from Airbnb? We're going to ask the questions Airbnb should have been asking for a long time, and we're going to start assembling those answers. And so for folks who say, ah, you know, maybe I'll just suffer through the, the, you know, the, the $5,000 I lost on, on refunds, Here's what I would tell you. It's not just about refunds. This is about changing the game. So think about not that $5,000. Think about how much money you're going to lose in 6 months, in a year, how much unnecessary risk you're going to be taking because you've got a business model, a platform that you can't build a business model on reliably. Think about how much more money you could be making with just a few simple changes. Transparency and accountability is not asking for a lot. Right? So if we do this together and we think beyond the arbitrations, we could change the game for ourselves. Like, this is self-help. We are trying to actually create the platform we require in order to succeed, and that should spit out a lot of success for all of us this year, next year, and well into the future. So think about that. Go ahead, Svetlana.

I would like to add to this. When, when you, when you think about your cancellation policy and the fact that you as a host chose a particular cancellation policy, if you chose flexible, good for you. If you're able to afford flexible cancellation policy and you're able to implement it in a way that is productive for you and profitable for you. But if you're a host who that wants this particular cancellation policy— strict, super strict, super strict 60, super strict 30— you are eliminating, uh, minimizing your risk and, and splitting with the customer basically, right? So it's— you're guaranteed 50% income regardless what happens, whether or not guest shows up, whether or not guest, you know, gets hurt and not show up, or snowstorm comes in or alien ship lands in the middle of New York City, whatever those consequences could be, you have chosen that cancellation policy for your business. It was your choice. The same thing, you go and it is a guaranteed income to you. You are relying on that income to pay your payroll, to pay your taxes, to pay your mortgages, etc., etc., etc. So when, when Airbnb comes in and says, well, I'm sorry, but there's pandemic, Well, if you bought a gift certificate to a nail salon and this gift certificate will expire within 12 months, that nail salon has a guaranteed income of that $150 that you spent. So now imagine, um, somebody coming in and reaching out into the nail salon bank account and just pulling that $150 out because there is a pandemic. That's just insane. But that's what Airbnb did. Airbnb literally reached out, whether or not they paid out those payouts or didn't pay out those payouts, they reached out and removed that money from you. What would happen if they— if the nail salon or hair salons, somebody reached out into their bank accounts? Do you think they would not collectively take action? They would. And so are we. We are taking action collectively to, to make sure that what our cancellation policy is, it stays that way. That is our choice. And extended circumstances policy— I pardon my language, but it's complete horseshit. It is insane. Extended circumstances policy is an insurance policy, essentially, that does not require premiums to be paid to hosts but makes hosts completely completely liable. I actually spoke to an insurance agent. I will invite him on this call next week. Hopefully he will agree to shed some light on this. But if I may paraphrase what he discussed is, yeah, it smells like insurance policy, tastes like insurance policy, it is insurance policy, but we're not getting the premiums that we are entitled to if we are held liable for it. So our demand to Airbnb is not, uh, it's not much. It's really not much if you think about it. Add insurance policy that every single, uh, guest must, uh, purchase an insurance policy which will prevent them, uh, which will protect them for, um, unexpected cancellations. Have them buy it. Have insurance company actually be partnered with you, um, whether it's optional or not optional, but they have that that option to buy an insurance policy and replace the extended circumstance policy. That's all we're asking. It's really not that much, but it will change the game a lot. It will.

It will. And I think, Svetlana, you know, you and I know because we've been in this for a while, but, you know, the lawyers for Airbnb actually anticipated pandemic and they excluded it from the ECP, right? So what you might not know is Pandemic is specifically not a reason there to provide a refund. They changed that on March 13th, Airbnb did, added the word pandemic, and then hid that change from you so that you didn't know that it happened and pretended as though it is always there, and then applied it retroactively to reservation contracts, to rental agreements that already existed between you and your guests, as though it was the judge, the jury, and the executioner in that instance. And You know, that's why the claims from our point of view are so strong. So, um, before we get to this next question on 10,000 Hosts, let's just keep going on this thread because Airbnb doesn't like your strict cancellation policy. They, they sign you up telling you you're in control of that key feature, of the key, the most material term in your rental agreement, your cancellation policy. And so they come up with then the ECP, which is the left-hand giveth to you You get to control cancellation and refunds, and then the right hand taketh away. And then once you're in the system, you start to realize the CC— how evil the CCP is. Because Airbnb can do whatever it wants, doesn't have to tell you why. And here's the language that we say is invalid. You say, uh, horseshit. Legal— the legal word for horseshit is invalid, right? And unenforceable, right? So, um, this smells. In certain circumstances, Airbnb may decide in its sole discretion that it is necessary to cancel a pending confirmed booking and initiate corresponding refunds and payouts. This may be for any reason set forth in Airbnb's Extenuating Circumstances Policy, or where Airbnb believes in good faith, while taking the legitimate interests of both parties into account, this is necessary to avoid significant harm to Airbnb, other members, third parties, or property. Or for any other reason set forth in their terms. And this is what their lawyers are relying on. This is what Airbnb never relied on, the sole discretion language, because they know it's not enforceable, right? So we get it that Airbnb can broker the transaction and the payout to make sure that the, the property is available on the time and date of the reservation and is habitable. Right? That's it. If those two things occur, then the host should get the payout. Period. Period. Hosts are in a great position to resolve any other disputes with guests. We don't need Airbnb acting like they're God running. You know, can you imagine a bank saying, "Oh, we'll decide whether or not we're going to honor that check in our sole discretion," or a credit card company saying? Yeah, you know they yeah they they they bought the couch from you and they paid for with the credit card. They took the couch away, but you know what? We're not going to pay you, right? No one in the world has Airbnb as a fiduciary and escrow for the money that is the host payout. They have zero interest in that money, and yet here you have property management activity by Airbnb where they as property manager as the As the listing manager determining whether or not money is going to go one way or the other in their sole discretion for any reason that they decide. So they hate your— they hate your strict cancellation policy and they take it away with the ECP. That's the point of the ECP. It helps them make sure guests always win so they come back. And then they've got this concept of the retroactive application of that March 13th change in the policy. Did they have the right to do that, Svetlana?

No.

And here's why. Airbnb reserves the right— this is, this is one of the terms of service— reserves the right to modify the terms. We will provide you with notice of the modification by email at least 30 days before the date they become effective. Svetlana, I'm still waiting for my email on adding the word epidemic to, or, or the new COVID-19 policy that they implemented. I never got an email telling me about a change in policy. I certainly didn't get 30 days notice before it became effective. In fact, Airbnb is applying those new policies retroactively to contracts. They're modifying contracts to which they're not a party that were made months or sometimes even more than a year prior to COVID. And so you can understand how now we can win these cases, right? Uh, it doesn't add up. And of course, they've been pushing you to change your policy with their SEO and glitches and with constantly, you might want to change emails all the time. It just shows their intent. Their intent is to bait you in by allowing you to pretend that you can control your cancellation policy and then taking it away on the back end. All right, let's get to the next question. Um, if my losses reach $15,000, I'm not sure that they will. Should I still file now or wait to see if If it's better to have your firm represent me. And so it's a good question. And look at— this is all soft, right? Uh, if you think your claim's $15,000 now, I can almost guarantee you it's gonna be more than that by the time we get to arbitration, right? So you would go ahead and contact me. Let's schedule a call and talk, and I'll let you know which I think is the better route to go. And if you're going to use the 10,000 Host platform anyway and you're not looking at representation, just go ahead and get into the platform. And guess what? If at some point later on you've got a significant claim and you want to hire us to represent you for the rest of the proceeding, to engage in the settlement negotiations, to handle the hearing, just come to us and we will sign you up on a retainer, a contingency retainer agreement, and get you into our system. So we're extremely flexible. Our, our only, our only goal is to accomplish the big things that we're setting out to accomplish here. And we're willing to do whatever is necessary with hosts as teammates to make that happen.

The next question is pretty similar to this one. I don't know if you want to reiterate a little bit, Enrico.

If you take the 10,000 host path but then later decide you'd like a full representation, can you switch paths? Yes, you can. Just contact me and we'll, we'll get you going and And get you going in the right direction with the right option that's going to work for you. So what I do tell folks sometimes, if you're unsure and you're one of those people that likes to get educated anyway, go through the 10,000 Hosts process. Because like I said, you go through the whole thing and then you only pay in order to get your documents at the end. So you'll see what it's all about. If you pay to get the documents and then you decide you want us to represent you, come on back and let me know and we'll put you into our system. So we're really flexible on this. We're just here to help, and the 10,000 platform is just there as a resource for hosts. Platform taking on a platform— I love that.

We're gonna wrap up, guys. Thank you very much for attending. Um, please, again, if you haven't shared, uh, the, the change.org link, if you haven't, uh, um, Join our group. Ten, I'm sorry, Airbnb Host Collective for Change. Please do join the group and do share that link on change.org. It is making we have 1,400 signatures so far. It is making its way out, and it will be basically our representation, our louder voice representation by hosts around the world. I have been seeing that it has been going around in Europe and Southeast Asia. So it is very cool that it had made its way around the globe at this point. We have a few people from Brazil, and I am very, very excited what this can— what this change can make, what changes can it bring. And I thank you all for attending. I thank Enrique for his knowledge here and very explanatory question answering and all of you with participation in your questions.

Yeah, it's awesome. We'll see you next Wednesday. We'll be here to continue the dialogue. And again, thank you, Svetlana, for participating, helping set this up, doing the change.org, being an advocate and a champion for the cause. We need champions, and we have a lot of them out there working really hard on this for everyone's benefit. And so we'll see you next week.

See you next week.