I received numerous emails from Airbnb when waking up one morning. The first was a booking for a property in Indonesia. The second was a payment failed email. The third was a booking confirmation, and the fourth an email from Airbnb to say that my email address had been changed. It looked like whoever it was had booked a one-night stay for the coming weekend for £785 a night. Following the fourth email, I had emailed account.changes@airbnb.com immediately asking them to take urgent action. I tried to use the Airbnb website but without logging in it was useless; obviously my email had been changed because it said no email address was found when I used my own.
Five hours later, I was still waiting for a response from the account.changes@airbnb.com email address. I also called the UK helpline number, 0203 318 1111, which was unable to help or locate my account (despite having used Airbnb over a year ago now for two bookings) and asked me to email response@airbnb.com which I promptly did. However, I was just sent an automated Airbnb email saying the email had not reached Airbnb. This is completely outrageous! When you try to use their website to find contacts, it just loops you round in circles. Doesn’t it say something about such a big company when they are trying to avoid being contacted by their customers? I am in a catch-22 situation and boiling over at this moment in time, unsure of how I should proceed. If anyone has any advice out there, I would be grateful. It is an obvious statement but following this incident and once it has been resolved, I will never use Airbnb again.
Airbnb does not want you to contact them. This wastes their time (and money).
You should publicly tweet to them ASAP saying your account has been hacked and they’re not answering your emails. They generally answer pretty quickly, to look like they give a shit. If need be, tag your local government in the tweets so they can see the trouble Airbnb creates.
Good luck!
I would suggest you immediately alert your credit card company, explain your situation and put a block on your card. If any money has been taken for Airbnb, ask for the fraud department. Good luck.
I had the exact same experience with AirBnb. I blocked my credit card immediately. I called Airbnb and they could not find my account either, I demanded to speak to a manager and all of a sudden they found the account and said they would look into it. I told them I needed a call back with the hour with a confirmation that my account was credited and closed permanently. Not once did the agent I spoke with suggest I block my credit card. They could not understand why I was so upset, really? The total disregard for this situation outraged me, also made me realize this kind of thing happens a lot and the are desensitized to it apparently. They never called me back, sent me an email saying the credit it to my account would be processed in 5-7 days and my account had been closed. I did sent a strongly worded email to them and never got a response. Terrible company, I too will never do business with them. I did get the credit to my account for the full amount.
Based on my own experience and all the stories I’ve read, they NEVER call you back – not even if they tell you you “qualify for an emergency” or whatever it is they say. Until it happens to you, you don’t understand that they really do not care.