My friends and I lost hope of getting a proper resolution of our case through the Airbnb resolution center. We did not get a refund and our review was not published on the website. The situation with feedback is totally awful as our review was supported by multiple photos. We have contacted Airbnb multiple times but got only formal responses. I would very much appreciate if you could advise what we should do in this situation. I would want a chance to at least make our review available to others on Airbnb; the apartment is still listed on the site so there will be other people who may suffer from it.
We had used Airbnb to book an apartment in Barcelona from January 5-11, 2017 for our family. We arrived at the apartment at 8:30 AM but at that time the previous guests were there. The host told us that we may check in only after 12:00 PM. At that time we did not have a chance to look through the apartment and discuss its conditions with the host. We left our luggage and used the rest of the day for sightseeing in Barcelona. We came back at 7:00 PM and realized that the apartment was not in a good conditions. The linen was dirty, the bed was not suitable for two people, and there was no linen at all for the third guest. We can provide the full review with photos if anyone is interested. The host was not available so we could not discuss these issues with her. We were not comfortable staying in the apartment, so we had to leave it and find another location.
The same day, we informed the Airbnb resolution center about these issues and asked for assistance. The next day I discussed these issues with the host and she told me that our requests about cleaning and the bed could not be satisfied. She did not feel comfortable providing the apartment after our feedback about these conditions so we agreed to sort it out with Airbnb. A few days later, an Airbnb specialist cancelled our booking without our consent, and informed us that the case was closed. When we came back home from the vacation we provided a detailed review but it was not published by Airbnb. We had contacted the Airbnb resolution center and got a response that the review could not be released as we did not stay in the apartment and the booking was cancelled. We had called the resolution center and explained that the review was based on our personal experience – that we had to leave the apartment because of its poor conditions and that our booking was cancelled by Airbnb – but the response from the resolution center did not change.
We won, after a month and multiple interactions with AirBnB our review was posted. Here it is, posted by my friend Яна.
https://www.airbnb.ru/rooms/11953637?guests=1&adults=1&children=0&infants=0&s=AMH1NS6l
I am surprised that there are 4 other reviews for this apartment for the same period of time which are completely opposite to our review. If I would not see the apartment by myself and took photos I would not believe to myself 🙂 Looks like somebody is trying to manipulate and AirBnB system allows it. Here is an another opinion on it
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-airbnb-reviews-are-a-problem-for-the-site-2015-6
You arrived at 8:30am??????….yeading between the lines you are the guest from hell. You most probably got pissed off you you couldn’t check in and you escalated everything from then on. How about post a loping to the host so we can make a judgement based on their previuos reviews not just your one sided story.
The check-in time was at 9 am. We called to the host before and agreed that we will get into the apartment only after lunch so there was no surprise or frustration for us.
You need to direct message all of the Series A investors of Airbnb. Airbnb is deeply incompetent when it comes to problem-solving, accounting protocol, and general SOPs. They are interested in taking the company public….anything that directly has to do with daily operations seems not to be or interest to the company. When we were robbed, it took me going public on Twitter to the investors before a human called me back.
Richard, thank you very much for the advice. I will try to contact AirBnB investors on Twitter.