A month ago I reserved this house in the Jewish quarter of Seville, happy with the price and the location and reassured by more than 30 positive reviews. The host was quick to reply and easy to contact, at the beginning. Five days before the beginning of my journey, I wrote him a message on Airbnb to ask him about some facilities and the check-in procedure. After more than 24 hours of waiting for news from him, I tried to call him on the “verified” number, which turned out to be wrong. As a consequence, I called Airbnb customer service to inform them of what was going on.
The guy from Airbnb told me that he would try to get in contact with the host, who – according to the reviews and to his profile – used to be quite active on the platform. After 36 hours, the host eventually replied to my questions about the facilities, but he eluded the question about the check-in time. I asked again about checking in, and also demanded he provide a proper working mobile number. After some hours, he gave me a new number and told me that he would contact me via WhatsApp straight away (but of course, he didn’t).
Late in the evening, Airbnb customer service called me, saying that they had finally reached the host over the phone, and that he intended to cancel my reservation. Obviously I didn’t know a thing about his intentions, and that happened three days before I was supposed to arrive. When things started to sound weird after contacting customer service for the first time, I reserved another place (not the house of my dreams… but what can you expect with a very last-minute booking?) with flexible terms, in order not to find myself homeless in Sevilla.
Since the host just “announced” his intentions to Airbnb’s staff, but didn’t really cancel the reservation, customer service did it in his place. I got a full refund from Airbnb. I don’t know what this guy had in mind… if he wanted to scam me, or if he is just an awful person who for whatsoever reasons wanted to leave me without a place to stay, ruining my holiday in Seville.
I think it’s because you sound like a dick, dude. 24 hours isn’t the end of the world when you are 5 days away and I imagine he is in another time zone, which I bet you didn’t factor in either. To DEMAND he provide you with a number is just downright rude. Most normal people would just ask. I think you should stick to hotels as you really don’t have the AirBnB mentality.
Dude, maybe you should think before speaking ( or imaging ), and before judging as well.
We are in the very same time zone, even if we live in different countries ( guess what?! It can happen in Europe! ).
Having a host’s working number to contact is a Airbnb customer’s right. He is free to change his mobile number whenever he wants, but he should have provided it to airbnb and verified it.
And please, Mr./Mrs. Reply, when you will write an essay about Airbnb mentality, let me know.