Company pays out massive sums annually to repair damage and to ease guests’, hosts’ pain after horrifying experiences using service

Details of a confidential Airbnb document have emerged this week, revealing that the company has had to pay out an average of US$50 million each year to placate guests and hosts who have suffered negative experiences using its service.

Bloomberg, reporting on the document it said it had viewed, said the company spent around that amount on legal settlements and repair damages to hosts’ homes in recent years.

Among the largest payments was a cheque for US$7 million paid out to a woman who was raped at an apartment rented through Airbnb near Times Squares in New York, where she had earlier that night been ringing in New Year 2016.

About an hour after the incident, when the police had already arrived at the apartment, the man was caught when he returned and peered in through the door. It turned out that, along with some of the woman’s property he was also in possession of a duplicate copy of the keys to the apartment.

The story had never come to light until the Bloomberg report as the woman signed an agreement not to talk about the settlement “or imply responsibility or liability” on the part of Airbnb or the host.

In its report, Bloomberg said it spoke with current and former members of Airbnb’s safety team who said they were authorised to spend as much as they felt was necessary to make guests and hosts who had suffered traumatic experiences feel supported.

Among the expenses taken on by Airbnb were booking alternative accommodation and flights and paying for counselling and tests for sexually transmitted infections for victims of rape.

According to Bloomberg, the current and former employees said Airbnb also pays to repair hosts’ homes, including hiring body-fluid crews to clean up blood, repairing bullet-holes in walls and and covering costs related to the discovery of dismembered body parts.

On the flip side, the company has also paid for round-the-world vacations and dog-counseling sessions.

Staff reportedly said that, in addition to being instructed to take care of customers, they felt pressure to protect Airbnb’s image, particularly through convincing people to agree to settlements in sensitive cases.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Airbnb said the majority of its spend was in relation to property damage and that it was “exceptionally rare” for settlements to be made in excess of six-figures.

“People are naturally unpredictable, and as much as we try, occasionally really bad things happen,” Tara Bunch, Airbnb’s head of global operations, told Bloomberg.

“We all know that you can’t stop everything, but it’s all about how you respond, and when it happens you have to make it right, and that’s what we try to do each and every time.”