The consumer watchdog has launched legal action against Airbnb for allegedly misleading thousands of customers into believing accommodation prices were in Australian dollars when they were actually in US currency.
In a statement filed with the federal court, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is seeking compensation for the customers, who it claims were misled from at least January 2018 until August 2021 because the prices displayed to some Airbnb users did not mention that they were in US dollars, with reference to the foreign currency in the fine print.
At the time, an Australian dollar was worth about 72 US cents, meaning that a US$500 booking would end up costing almost AU$700, plus bank foreign currency conversion fees.
The ACCC’s chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, said that because Airbnb failed to compensate many of the customers who complained, “we will be arguing that the court should order Airbnb to compensate people who were misled about the price of their accommodation”.
“Despite thousands of consumers complaining to Airbnb about the way prices were displayed, Airbnb didn’t amend its booking platform until after the ACCC raised the issue,” she said.
Because users logged on to the Australian Airbnb site, they would expect to pay in Australian dollars, the ACCC said in its federal court claim.
“The only reference to USD appeared in the footer of the website and mobile site (not the apps), in small font, well below those dollar amounts,” it said.
It told the court that Airbnb benefited from increased bookings because the “false and misleadingly low prices conveyed … wrongly made the accommodation available on the platform appear to be more attractive than accommodation offered by their competitors”.
The ACCC said many customers complained to Airbnb, only to be told that they had selected US dollars as their currency – even when they had not.
In one response to a complaint, included in the court claim, an Airbnb customer service representative said: “I have read your issue about the currency. But we can’t refund an amount that we didn’t cause.”
Others were told that “you initially selected USD currency upon booking” and that “I can really see here that you selected USD when you booked it”.
Airbnb’s country manager for Australia, Susan Wheeldon, said that when the ACCC brought the issue to the company’s attention it updated the website so that the correct currency is displayed from the beginning of the booking process.
“We’re also conducting a comprehensive review of how this issue occurred and the way in which guest complaints were initially handled,” she said.
“We have worked constructively with the ACCC with respect to this matter from the start, and we will continue to engage and cooperate in good faith.”
