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You can't just ask Airbnb to delete your account. The procedure to delete the account yourself that's explained all over the internet does not work, at least in

by fwn 6y ago

You can't just ask Airbnb to delete your account. The procedure to delete the account yourself that's explained all over the internet does not work, at least in europe. I requested the removal of my deactivated account four times over the course of 8 months via their email support. It was always the same script: first they purposefully confuse it with account deactivation and they confirm your removal, but formulated in a way in which it could also mean deactivated, then, after you answer to the ticket that what you meant is actual deletion, not deactivation, they tell you that they forwarded your request to someone who will delete your account and that they will write you once it's done. No change in approach changed their script in any way. > Ich habe deine Anfrage an jemanden aus meinem Team weitergeleitet, der dich dabei besser unterstützen kann. Der entsprechende Mitarbeiter wird sich in Kürze bei dir melden. Falls du in der Zwischenzeit weitere Fragen oder Bedenken hast, kannst du gerne auf diese E-Mail antworten ... then I waited six weeks and back to square one, since I could always still login to get the deactivated message. The offer to answer on the same ticket again is apparently untrue. ..at least they never answered again on the same ticket. What helped was not contacting support but instead pasting a comically formal erasure request (Article 17 of the GDPR) from the internet to dpo@airbn.. As far as I am able to validate, this did it.

tedmiston 6y ago
The docs today claim one is able to self-delete - https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/240/how-do-i-deactivate-or-delete-my-account https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/240/how-do-i-deactivate-...
- fwn 6y ago
  That page isn't new. There's several problems with it: 1. As far as I was able to see, this: > If you want to permanently close and delete your account, you can do this yourself through Manage your data. is not true. There was only a button to deactivate the account. I think that they show different pages depending on the user country and just didn't add account deletion for German accounts. 2. Once an account is deactivated, you need to contact them through /help/contact-us/ to reactivate it, but since you are not logged in, it immediately forwards you to /help/contact-us/logged-out, which tells you to either login or just browse their fluffy web help labyrinth. Google told me to use terms@airbnb.com, which was how I ended up reaching support. Support was a dead-end though. They claim to do it, but they apparently do not actually delete the account. 3. Even if it would've been possible, they claim to want to "verify your identity for security purposes" prior to acting on your deletion request (which I could not do anyway, as the function was absent). Hence, the GDPR method seems superior, given that it's actually available and they don't force you through an "identity verification", which is probably just there as additional friction to deter users from account deletion.

by fwn 6y ago

tedmiston 6y ago

The docs today claim one is able to self-delete - https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/240/how-do-i-deactivate-or-delete-my-account https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/240/how-do-i-deactivate-...

fwn 6y ago
That page isn't new. There's several problems with it: 1. As far as I was able to see, this: > If you want to permanently close and delete your account, you can do this yourself through Manage your data. is not true. There was only a button to deactivate the account. I think that they show different pages depending on the user country and just didn't add account deletion for German accounts. 2. Once an account is deactivated, you need to contact them through /help/contact-us/ to reactivate it, but since you are not logged in, it immediately forwards you to /help/contact-us/logged-out, which tells you to either login or just browse their fluffy web help labyrinth. Google told me to use terms@airbnb.com, which was how I ended up reaching support. Support was a dead-end though. They claim to do it, but they apparently do not actually delete the account. 3. Even if it would've been possible, they claim to want to "verify your identity for security purposes" prior to acting on your deletion request (which I could not do anyway, as the function was absent). Hence, the GDPR method seems superior, given that it's actually available and they don't force you through an "identity verification", which is probably just there as additional friction to deter users from account deletion.