Airbnb will pay around $20 million after Australians started charging US dollars
An Australian court on Wednesday ordered Airbnb to pay a fine of A$15 million for misleading customers by failing to clearly demonstrate that property rental prices were quoted in US dollars, rather than Australian dollars , which are worth less.
Airbnb admitted in the Federal Court of Australia that it made “false or misleading representations” to approximately 63,000 customers who used the accommodation booking platform between January 2018 and August 2021.
In addition to the 15 million Australian dollar (or approximately $10 million) fine, Airbnb will provide an additional 15 million Australian dollar in compensation to affected customers, who had made more than 70,000 bookings paid for in US dollars.
Gina Cass-Gottlieb, chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, a government regulatory agency, said in a statement that customers had reasonably believed the prices were in Australian dollars because “they were on Airbnb’s Australian website, looking for accommodation in Australia and saw a dollar sign.
“Paying in US dollars forced these consumers to pay more than they expected and deprived them of the opportunity to make an informed decision on whether to make the booking due to this misleading behavior regarding price ,” the statement continued.
According to the commission, Airbnb will contact customers eligible for compensation by February 5, 2024. The agency initiated proceedings against Airbnb in June 2022.
Susan Wheeldon, Airbnb’s country manager for Australia and New Zealand, said in a statement that the company fixed how it showed currencies after the issue was raised in Australia.
“While only a very small percentage of Australian guests are believed to have been affected, we are disappointed that this has happened,” Ms Wheeldon said. “Airbnb would like to apologize to these guests.”
About 2,088 customers have complained to Airbnb customer support that they were being charged in US dollars. according to the court’s ruling. Some were told by Airbnb customer service that they had chosen to see prices in U.S. currency even though they had not, the ruling said.
Some customers were also charged fees by their banks for payments made in U.S. dollars, the ruling said.
Judge Brendan McElwaine of the Federal Court of Australia said in the ruling that the lack of clarity about the coin was “not the result of deliberate conduct intended to deliberately deceive.”
The Airbnb platform should have used Australian currency by default for people using it in Australia, the ruling said, but there were “bugs and/or edge cases” that caused the system to inaccurately identify some users as based in the United States .
According to the court ruling, Airbnb changed its platform in August 2021 to use the abbreviation “USD” when US dollars are the applicable currency.