welcome back my name is Sean I'm your host here at Airbnb automated I've been
a host for five years I have over 60 properties on the platform generating
over two million dollars per year so in December I got robbed a two-bedroom
apartment was completely cleared out by a guest all the furniture and everything
was stolen and I had to invoke the hosts guarantee to try to get my money back
and a lot of you been wondering whether or not Airbnb actually paid me well it's
April now I finally have an answer and we can answer a couple questions you
might want to know what is there being the host guarantee what are some of the
terms and conditions that matter will they actually pay you if you get robbed
and really what is your exposure as an Airbnb host how risky is it to host
people in your home of course five years 60 properties I
have some horror stories to share but this is going to kind of give you a
level-headed objective approach if at all possible to what really are your
risks and how to best prevent problems and go about fixing it if you do have
them so without further ado let's jump right in alright so welcome back
everybody family a lot of you have been waiting for this video
Shaun gets robbed $7,500 in furniture stolen Airbnb of course is always Airbnb
aren't they and how do we go about handling our hosts guarantee our
resolution getting paid if possible all of it so let me get down to brass tacks
for you because it's a rollercoaster some tips right away because I don't
want it to get lost in the explanation because I'm gonna give you kind of my
whole testimonial here take all of your purchases and document your purchases
whenever you start a new listing everything you buy document photographs
copies of receipts do it keep it in a folder set up smart locks so that way
you can lock doors and you can manage when doors are getting locked or
unlocked and if you hire somebody like I have to manage reservations in and out
that person could watch the make sure nothing fishy is going on so smart locks
are good wall mount your TV because it's much harder to steal if you want to
prevent theft there and make sure that you are quick and diligent
your resolution attempts here's one thing that I'm going to tell you - they
will there there's there's a term inside of the host guarantee that says that you
have to be cooperative and you agree to be cooperative because if you're at ever
one point not cooperative or combative they can just shut your host guarantee
down right and they just cancel the whole claim because you were like
misbehaving through email or you weren't cooperative with the hosts through email
with a with the host support staff through email so keep that in mind keep
those tips those are the big chunks of this so what is the host guarantee well
the host guarantee is something Airbnb came up with it says that if you get
robbed or something gets damaged Airbnb will cover up to a million dollars in
loss and they have this big long terms and conditions that you have to follow
if there's a link to it it's going to be in the description for this video and
like I said this most previous one that you have to stay cooperative that's
probably the biggest one where people will lose their resolutions is because
you get emotional you know and I think I hate to say this that Airbnb I think
designs their resolution procedure to to kind of like needle host and cause hosts
to get emotional and if you do get emotional because they change what they
ask and they made they put you into have spots if you do mess up they can shut
you down so how did this go December I was robbed two bedroom worth of
apartment stuff stolen it was an 8 day long reservation and so we showed up the
day of checkout and everything was gone our cleaners took a few photos reported
it to me I reported it to Airbnb because by the time we found out the guests like
profile was gone Airbnb removed that guest profile for something else that
they did wrong so we started the resolution but we could not do it
through the guests I had to call Airbnb say hey I need to start a resolution but
I can't do it the normal way so we we started let me screenshot the email that
they have for you they want you to like give them certain things those certain
things will include you know you know proof of ownership of stuff or
indication of the items age in this case since it's a theft
they don't initially claim this but they will ask you for a police report okay
since the that so I gave them everything that they
wanted initially then they later asked me for a police report then they asked
for more stuff like proof of ownership and then I send them Brian Chesky
interview said dating that proof of ownership is no longer required Brian
Chesky said so but they're like no we need something from you and they
restated proof of ownership or indication of the items age so then I do
my best to show them what we started our we started our listing at less than a
year ago we got our furniture at that time etc of their like that's not good
enough we need receipts or something so I did go dig through Amazon and dig
through my communication with furniture companies to prove that I purchased
furniture at that time so and they want to proof that my furniture costs
exceeded the amount that I was claiming for loss I'd then gave them an invoice
from the new furniture company when I had everything replaced as proof of
replacement I don't think that was needed but still do that and then they
wanted more photos they said the few photos that I sent them was insufficient
to prove that it was the same room and I told them well our cleaner only took
these many photos in the moment and I sent them screenshots of my
correspondence with my cleaners to prove that this wasn't fictitious but overall
the way that this worked is they changed what they wanted for me a few times and
then they kept giving me really like silly deadlines like you have 48 hours
you have 24 hours that puts stress on the host and so I think they do this in
order to make it so that way the host could screw up because if the host
screws up then they don't have to pay the guarantee right so I kept choosing
my language that I'm trying to cooperate I'm doing the best they can and giving
you everything that you asked for and it kept coming in snippets then they
started asking for things that I already gave them like they missed the first
email or that they were missing pieces of information so over 20 30 40 emails
it kind of just became this convoluted mess so what I did at the end I'm like
here is absolutely everything I've ever sent to you and I'm sending it in one
email and in that same email I said here's the things you asked for that I
could not give you and here's why and then here's just a recap of everything
we've discussed send crickets a few days later I'm like what's the update on this
crickets a few days later what's the update on this I started pinging them
every single day the same guy every day and then finally
I got a response going okay we're going to honor this guarantee yes thank God
right then there's more problems they release the payout for my $7,500 on the
10th and that's after I there's a document let me show you there's this
document that you claim like I understand that I'm getting paid for
this resolution I will not sue Airbnb or do anything else this is final
right so I sign this document that they make you sign and then the 10th is one
of those to get paid the 11th I get no payments from Airbnb for the hosts
guarantee or for any reservations for two weeks they just shut it down
I get $0 thankfully this was middle of the month it's not like I had to pay
rent or anything but they essentially broke the system trying to pay me my
resolution and there was this long mess of them claiming it had to do with my
minimum payout and it had to do with the you know the payout timeline and all
these different things and they said just contact us in five days contact us
in three days well I had to I had to pretty much hunt these guys down and get
a few offices at Airbnb involved until they could figure out the bug and then
they finally fixed the bug and they finally paid me it was a mess but I got
paid so how at-risk are you right in total
here I have about about 60 properties I've been doing this for five years and
I've had three major resolution claims in the last two years this being one of
them one of them was in Fort Worth I screwed that one up because I was too
busy it was gonna be for like a little over $1,000 but I didn't get a police
report because I couldn't do it over the computer or by phone which was sad and I
was in Philadelphia at the time when I tried to get this resolution done and so
I just couldn't get it I just couldn't get it done in time and I kind of missed
the window so I needed to do a better job of empowering my staff to act as
employees of the company because if I did that then my Dallas manager could
have filed a police report in Fort Worth and it could have gotten done but I
screwed that up then somebody stole a TV right and I could have reported that but
I didn't I just replaced the TV and moved on at this point some things are
small enough that it wasn't even worth my time but at any time that's a theft
they will want a police report and that's kind of
the kind of the sticky part of this situation when I first hosted like four
or five years ago I did have a few resolutions that I tried to do and I
lost all three of them because I didn't know how to properly do the resolution
and it's that you always will be cooperative things and I was always a
little entitled I'm like your guest stole our stuff and I was always a
little angry a Taylor Airbnb when this first happened and I think that's why I
lost my resolutions so to recap the tips here never get impatient or angry at
Airbnb never verbally communicate in a way that could be combative or
uncooperative make sure you read the terms of the house guarantee make sure
that you're swift thorough diligent and persistent keep documentation of
everything that you've ever purchased document all the stuff that you've
placed and try to keep everything in a file for each individual apartment so
that way if you ever need to invoke the guarantee it's all in organized like
electronic file or something like that there is a document that one of our
viewers sent me and I'm going to dig it up and try to leave that in the
description - of how you can list employees of your business as
representatives of your company so they can file police reports for you do that
moving forward and you know get smart locks Walmart your TV just really
practice good prevention so that way your risk of theft is lower another
crime stat I read is that 90% of thefts happen on the first floor of properties
so if you want to get robbed less don't get first floor apartments that's a good
one with all that said Airbnb will pay you if you do it right I think it's
there there protocol to try to make it so that way you'll screw up because then
they don't have to pay you and they did their job so watch out for those little
hurdles and those roadblocks and if you have questions about this because this
has been so long I've probably missed a few things in this self report feel free
to ask questions in the comments I of course will get back to you I hope you
guys never get robbed and I will say take it with a grain of salt I do not
think that the risk of theft is great enough that you should really ever be
concerned if you own one home or two properties and you get robbed from one
of them then that really does feel like a significant problem but your sample
sizes release so I guess take it from me if you had 20
properties instead of two and you got robbed at one it would feel like less of
a deal right and you be like okay law of averages comes into play but no matter
how many properties you have you have some risk no matter what so I think the
best way to manage your risk is just get more properties so when you do get
robbed this you know your representative sample size is larger and your loss
compared to your profits it's less overall on average the more money you
make the more you'd lost you can take when you do get robbed if it ever does
happen there are insurances that will reimburse you for loss of business
because Airbnb will not reimburse you if a guest cancels because of the robbery
so there are different types of insurances that could replace a guest
cancellation in this case I don't have that insurance because I don't think
it's important enough for me but I wanted you to know that it's out there
if you care so thank you for watching Airbnb automated stay safe keep your
doors locked and I will see you on the other side