Attorney Enrico Schaefer, who represents Airbnb hosts in disputes, says the biggest risk is sudden deplatforming without explanation. Airbnb cancels all future bookings, withholds payouts, and marks you unsafe, often without showing a material breach or allowing appeal. Common triggers include algorithmic errors, false background checks, and fabricated guest complaints.
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My name is Enrico. I'm an attorney who represents STR hosts, Airbnb hosts, VRBO hosts, and file arbitrations on behalf of those hosts sometimes when necessary against the platforms themselves, arguing that the host has rights under the terms of service for receiving a payout they never received, host guarantee claim, air cover claim, bad review. From a guest that was unjustified, that was maybe based on extortion, and also for being kicked off the platform. Did you know that the number one risk you face as an Airbnb host is Airbnb just unceremoniously, without providing any explanation, and often for no good reason, throwing you off the platform, canceling all of your future reservations, And telling your guests that you are an unsafe person, that they're being— that their reservations are being canceled without the guests wanting them canceled for their own safety. So those guests will never come back and rent from you again. And in many instances, Airbnb had absolutely no right to do that. Airbnb's defense is, well, we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, for whatever reason. We want, but that's not what their marketing says when they convince you to sign up for the platform. And that's not what the terms of service and policies say. They say that Airbnb has to show that you breached one of the terms and policies. It has to be a significant material breach and that they have to provide you a right to appeal. So the number one risk you face is Airbnb throwing you off, canceling your reservations. You don't receive any of those payouts. They won't tell you why you were thrown off, and then you're forced to arbitrate using self-help or hiring an attorney, which can take many months in order to get an arbitrator to say that Airbnb was wrong and forcing Airbnb to put you back on the platform and potentially to pay you for all of the canceled reservations, the payouts you should have received if Airbnb had not canceled all your future reservations. So we're going to be going through some tips in the next couple of weeks on how not to get thrown off the platform. Now there's no guarantee because Airbnb all the time throws people off because it makes a mistake, because the algorithm did something erroneous, because they received a false background check report, because they think you were associated with a property that was previously had some red flags on it that it was a prior owner because you're associated with another account by something that someone else did that got you thrown off the platform because a guest made a, uh, a completely made-up complaint about you about a camera or entering the property or some other thing, right? So how do you avoid getting kicked off of Airbnb and having that kind of nuclear event happen where all of a sudden All your summer reservations are canceled. You receive no payouts. They lock you out of the platform. Stay tuned. We're going to be going through the top tips for avoiding that nuclear catastrophic consequence over the next couple of weeks. Go ahead and subscribe, and if you have any questions, legal or otherwise, go ahead and drop them in the comments. I'm always willing to help. My name's Enrico. See you next time.
