Reportedly Airbnb’s spend an average of $50 million a year dealing with guest and host while trying to protect the company name.
According to an Airbnb document, the company spends money on settling legal disputes and repairing damages to hosts’ homes.
Former members of Airbnb’s safety team said they could spend as much money as they felt necessary to make guests and hosts feel comfortable.
This could include booking alternative flights, paying for counseling and paying to have rape victims tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
Airbnb also said they paid to repair host homes.
This included hiring body-fluid crews to clean up blood, paying to have bullet holes in hosts’ walls repaired, and covering costs relating to the discovery of dismembered body parts.
Staff members said they were instructed to take care of customers and felt obligated to uphold the company name.
In some cases they would persuade customers to agree to settlements involving sensitive cases.
Reportedly in 2015 there was a case involving a woman being raped in a New York Airbnb.
The woman was offered a $7 million settlement that prohibited her from suing the company or blaming it for the assault.
The head of global operations, Tara Bunch said, “People are naturally unpredictable, and as much as we try, occasionally really bad things happen. 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.”
