Popular Manchester Airbnb Doesn’t Get Damages Covered

Posted on April 16, 2018

Over the last six months we have hosted parties at our venue on Airbnb. Yes… we allow parties and our place holds 200 people and sleeps 26. It’s had national press to say that our venue is the “coolest Airbnb rental in Manchester.” In fairness, when things go well, Airbnb has been fine; 99% of our guests give five-star reviews. However, when things go wrong, they just shut up shop and refuse to pay under their guarantee, even refusing cleaning charges.

One case amounted to about £5000 currently outstanding for damages. The other day a guest took all the keys, resulting in a locksmith being called out as we had other guests arriving, a £521 bill that Airbnb has refused to pay. After all the damage, we were told by an Airbnb Trust & Safety manager that we could take a cleaning deposit straight from the client. This approach worked well up until the other day when Airbnb said this was a deposit outside the rules and that we needed to claim any cleaning fees from the host guarantee.

When we pointed out we have in the past and Airbnb didn’t pay they suspended our account and cancelled all the week’s bookings. This backfired somewhat as the guests just booked with us directly and left Airbnb bad feedback on social media. Has anyone sued Airbnb for damaged property? Or cancelled bookings? We have £40,000 in bookings until 2019. I posted some pictures of the damage on Airbnb’s social media (Facebook) and they were quick to try and get it taken down.

Unsafe Rental Under Renovation, Still Expected to Pay

Posted on April 13, 2018

I requested to book a three-bedroom apartment in Paris. The pictures made the place look wonderful. It was described as having a rooftop terrace with 360-degree views of the Eiffel Tower. The host asked me to confirm the names and ages of the people traveling with me. I responded immediately with all the information; I am traveling with two young teenagers. The host then confirmed the reservation, charging my credit card.

Five minutes later he messaged me saying I will be using just two beds, the place is under renovation – unsafe for teenagers – and the rooftop is unsecured. I told him that was unacceptable and wouldn’t work for my family. He then tried to get me to stay in another of his listings and if I didn’t take it, it was my loss and there is a strict cancellation policy; I would still be charged. I canceled immediately as to not hold up any future reservations. Airbnb has not helped at all in getting me a refund and said if he rebooks it then I can have my money back. It was cancelled within five minutes of him confirming (charging my credit card). The place is under renovation and unsafe, per his own words, yet I am still expected to pay. This is a complete scam.

Uninhabitable Accommodation Means Airbnb Refuses Refund

Posted on April 12, 2018

We booked a room through Airbnb and when we arrived we found the room to be completely uninhabitable. The most pressing issue was the temperature; the room was freezing, with no heating provided. It was 7 degrees Celsius outside, and the external walls were paper thin. There was condensation on the windows and walls. Furthermore, the toilet was broken; the cistern was permanently discharging, with the constant noise of running water and making it impossible to flush. There were other issues too, including excessive noise from above.

We notified the hosts, who agreed with our assessment that the room was uninhabitable, and we had no option other than to leave and seek alternative accommodation (at 10:00 PM). Airbnb does not have a contact number, leaving us with no one to call and having to fend for ourselves. Given that the host completely agreed with us, we thought that we’d at least be able to get a full refund for the room – how wrong we were.

Airbnb will not refund their service fees, their cleaning fees, or their processing fees, so in total are only prepared to refund about 75% of the price we paid, despite the room being completely uninhabitable, the host agreeing with us, and us not having spent a single night there. Airbnb does not have a contact number, so I have been left communicating via their online message system (taking a day for them to reply between messages) with someone who doesn’t have a good grasp of the English language and is making unreasonable requests (they want photo evidence that it was cold – how exactly do they expect me to do that, unless of course they expect their guests to carry a thermometer with them).

Given this, we immediately looked into cancelling our other Airbnb bookings for this trip. Given the experience we’ve just had we didn’t want to risk it. All the bookings were listed as free cancellation, and we are within the cancellation window. However, Airbnb’s policy is to never refund their service fee, even when a room is cancelled or there is a problem. They don’t care what you do, because they get paid anyway.

I have no worries about getting my money back – it was paid using Amex and their customer service is exceptional. They’ll provide the refund immediately and claim it back from Airbnb. I’m sure that our experience here is a one off, and the vast majority of stays go without issue. However, if something does go wrong, Airbnb will leave you on your own to deal with it, will make any attempt to get a resolution exceedingly difficult and will refuse to provide a full refund. You have been warned.

Airbnb Took Our Page Down, Cancelled our Reservations

Posted on April 11, 2018

Unbelievable. We have been Superhosts for several years and when my father in law passed away, he had a man running his Airbnb. No problems. Until… we tried to switch him over as the official contact. That’s when things went from bad to worse. We have since been locked out of our account, our customers have been contacted and had their booking cancelled. Without our permission or consent our whole page has been removed from Airbnb.

We are at the end of a full week of trying to resolve this. We have spent hours and hours phoning Airbnb Customer Service. Every time we call, it’s 15 minutes on hold before we speak with someone. The person we get doesn’t know anything about our file, doesn’t have any idea how to help us, apologises profusely, and promises to get a supervisor to call us back, which never happens.

They “accidentally” disconnect from us, and even though they know it will be another 15-minute hold for us to phone them and that we won’t ever speak with the same person again and have no way to reconnect with them, do they call us back? No. Do they have our phone number? Yup. So, we call back again. A full seven hours was spent in this pointless loop Sunday.

My mother-in-law is losing much needed income and has had her reputation destroyed. Our customers have received unauthorized cancellations as close as the day of their planned vacation. How horrible for them. I have now contacted the CEO’s and sincerely hope to get somewhere today. I will repost this accordingly. I’m not happy at all. The competition will come and that old adage “be careful how you treat people on your way up because you don’t know who you will meet on your way down” will come to fruition. They obviously can’t handle the responsibility of no competition.

Canceled my booking while I was on my way

Posted on April 10, 2018

I would not book with this host or Airbnb ever again. She canceled on us five hours before our planned check in. I reserved her apartment eight months in advance. She had even confirmed with me three days prior to the cancellation. I got the text message canceling our reservations on my way to the airport. I was baffled; I thought this must be a mistake.

I called her and she said there was “damage” to the apartment. Airbnb did credit my account and gave me a larger credit than the original price but other than that their customer service was a total fail. I called them three times and spoke to three different representatives; I was disconnected twice. The representative who finally did help me told me to open the app or the website and use the credit to find a replacement myself.

This would have been okay even 24 hours in advance but I was basically at the airport now for a 45-minute flight. The customer service representative asked me for the URL of the other apartments I was looking at. I was using the app; there are no URLs in the app. I told her the name of the listing and she put me on hold for 13 minutes. In the meanwhile, another friend of mine coming on the trip called and booked two rooms in a hotel.

The woman I got on the phone was trying to help me but it was clear that the customer service representatives are not trained in troubleshooting a cancellation on the day of. I was very lucky that we were able to get a place to stay on such short notice. It was high travel season for the city. Most of the accommodations on Airbnb that were available were too small or huge and expensive which the $80 bonus credit was not going to cover.

I really wanted to like Airbnb, but the experience made me appreciate commercial hotel chains. I do not plan on using the app again unless I have a backup place to stay. It’s been four days and I am still waiting for my refund. Even though this cancellation was the fault of Airbnb and they couldn’t adequately address the issue, I still have to wait up to 15 days for my refund.

Airbnb Did Not Have What it Said in the Listing

Posted on April 10, 2018

This Airbnb did not do what it said on the website. First of all, the photo showed a lovely high property with a view; it turned out to be taken far above the property and in reality the view was a grubby looking high fence with a building behind it. The listing advertised: “There is one other professional living in including me. All are working full time and pretty chilled. There is Netflix and a big TV so you can entertain yourself. It’s a big three-bedroom house so you can enjoy your space there.”

Reality: while the host was at work, his non-English speaking parents turned up looking puzzled. They were home all day and night and had Indian TV on so I couldn’t use TV in English as they didn’t understand it. We were in the lounge the whole time.

The kitchen was minuscule (only one person could fit at a time) and his mum was frowning at me when I was trying to make space in her cupboard for my food. The stairs were so narrow I could hardly get my case up them (good thing I’m not extra large) and so I spent the whole first evening stuck in my room watching stuff on my iPad. I went to wash my coffee cup and was appalled by the state of the dishbrush with loads of ingrained dirt and muck on it. The bedroom had no towel and when I asked for one, the host’s father didn’t understand and had to ring the host. Everything was covered in dust and there was a beer bottle left in the bin.

I messaged the host to cancel the reservation he said he totally understood and I’d get a full refund. However, in the morning he was arguing that I should still pay for the night and also I’d have to pay a service fee to Airbnb. We went on the Airbnb website to cancel. He said he didn’t want to do it himself because it might affect his reputation. He tried to get me to use ‘guest extreme circumstances’ to cancel so he wouldn’t be shown in a poor light. I refused.

He said I had a kitchen and TV… so why was I complaining? I said I didn’t understand Indian TV so I couldn’t watch what they had on (all night) and I certainly wouldn’t barge in and grab the remote to do so when they didn’t understand English TV. He was not happy. I pointed out that he said on his listing there were two professionals out all day – nothing about a family inside all day. He didn’t see the problem.

I tried to contact Airbnb all morning. Of course their site has you going around in circles. They obviously make it as hard as possible to make a complaint. They tell you to click on their ‘contact centre’ for help which actually just puts you back in touch with the host. I’m not impressed and still trying to contact them.

Airbnb Keeps Putting Funds into Another Bank Account

Posted on April 9, 2018

When I listed a new property on Airbnb – seeing as I had listed once before, but had since changed my address, phone number and bank accounts – I sorted the new information about me, on my Airbnb page. Lovely, or so I thought. Then I got to the ‘preferred payout’ page. I attempted to change my bank details, and the gates to hell opened and welcomed me in.

First I tried to delete the defunct bank account, in order to put the new one in. No way. Impossible. Then I clicked on ‘add payout method’ (or whatever it says), and I felt so happy that I was able to do this. I added my PayPal details, and then my life took on a role that no horror movie comes close to; not even hell itself matches this. In fact, I think I need a month in a sanatorium to help me get well (if I ever recover). The message I got was ‘we will call you to verify it’s you.’

The problem is I cannot change my phone number (the new one) on their payout page. Interesting that on my profile page it was simple, just a new phone number. However, when it came to the payout page, it was impossible. Not possible in any way shape or form to give them my new number to verify me. Why? because very smartly, from my profile page’s new phone number, they have not simply changed my number on the payout page. I guess this would force them to pay me right?

I have recorded the amount of messages, and phone calls (to and from people who cannot speak English employed in their ‘support’ department). As it’s obvious, Airbnb is shipping their ‘call out’ problems to places like India. Phone companies do this too. It’s not unusual; it’s just hair tearing, mind-blowingly insane, and annoying. So far, and still going. I’ve contacted them over 52 times, messaging and calling… impossible. In the meantime, I had a guest and was owed money, hence my frantic efforts. Would I get the money? Heck no!

I decided to write another message to some poor person, who struggles to write in English, never mind understand it, and is obviously trying their best – needs the job and all that. I get it, but I need the money due to me. I translated my messages using Google into every language it allows. In the desperate hope that one, just one of the ‘helpers’ would get the message in their language, and so could not possibly misunderstand me. I also used English often. Nothing happened. I kept getting the same message, which caused me to take tranquilizers. ‘The money has been paid into xxx bank account, and you should have it.’

What do they not understand here? I’ve explained why I won’t get my money. I’ve explained clearly that it’s impossible to change my phone number on their payout page. They’ve blocked that one. I’ve explained that I do not own that account and haven’t for over ten years. I’ve explained that the bank has not got me on their books (they keep asking me to call the ‘bank’?) and I cannot add my new account either.

I then started writing to their ‘help centre’, using very simple language, like children speak. I put a full stop between every word to help the poor person, who cannot easily understand English, to take it easy and read slowly. I was hoping I’d get some luck. Doing it this way took a lot of time and effort. I even Googled easy words, so as to make it as simple as possible to understand only two things: I do not have that bank account. Closed. Gone. Unknown. Impossible. I cannot change my phone number, because Airbnb has blocked that part. Impossible. Cannot. No way on the planet to do this.

Still, this very morning, I got another message from another person (not their fault, I get it) to tell me, in the best English he or she could put together, which was only just understandable, (I’m educated, and I had to reread the drivel over three times to understand what on earth was being written) that the money due to me, is in my xxx bank account (the closed one, to which I don’t have access)… and would I please call my bank (not my bank, explained over 52 times and translated into every language, plus used very simple language a nursery school child would understand to help whoever has to deal with this).

So where does this leave me? I’ve now eaten an entire cold pizza, because I’m trying so hard to keep calm. I could bite my own arm off. It’s impossible. I’m not going to try again. I’m going to somehow get these people to pay me, in whatever way it takes, and I’m now searching for a new hosting company. The fact that every single day, a new message in broken English is sent to me makes me not want to open my computer, because the rage it incites is destroying my life. It’s not worth it. They know it. I know it.

They are hoping, if they irritate me enough, that I’ll just leave this, and move on, right? I don’t think so! Here comes every single social media platform open to me, including a letter to Trump for what it’s worth. I will not stop, and in fact, hit ‘send’, on my messages to social media about ten times a day. Just to cheer me up and help others avoid these thieves, and because they should not get away with their scamming people. If it were possible to speak to someone who had a brain cell, this could be sorted out easily. So easily I wouldn’t be in this horrific position or frame of mind.

Please if you wish to host, for whatever reason, stay clear of these people. Unless you want to host for free, get your place torn to pieces by the ‘visitors’, without compensation from Airbnb, and are hosting for charity. The likelihood of being paid, if there is even a slight problem on their side, is almost nil.

Airbnb Paid for Pest Control but not a Refund

Posted on April 8, 2018

We stayed in a Toronto loft recently where Airbnb took the side of the host. The host was contacting us outside of Airbnb which is against policy. That wasn’t a problem until we had issues with the place. There were mice and roaches. Pest control had to come out and kill the mice – which we weren’t happy with as were animal lovers – but we shouldn’t have paid over $2000 to stay in a mice-infested room anyway.

I couldn’t believe when I complained to Airbnb they had the audacity to say she was a good host, take her side, and even paid for the pest control. They promised me compensation for my bad stay but closed the case as soon as I checked out and didn’t send me any money. They even made it impossible for me to leave a review for this host, meaning loads of guests who are none the wiser will be checking into this hell as Airbnb stops anyone leaving them a bad review.

It is absolutely crazy how much they sided with them, as if they have some sort of secret deal with the company. They even suggested I move out the apartment before they gave me any money back. Bear in mind I was in a foreign country with no other money or home to go to. The guy who lived downstairs even had the code to our room and would let himself into our “private loft” when we were sleeping or out of the house. Airbnb later just ignored any message I sent regarding this case and closed it without anything else said.

Horrible Customer Service Leaves me Paying for Hotel

Posted on April 6, 2018

I bought concert tickets for my wife for Christmas to see Pink. I then booked an Airbnb for two nights with two bedrooms (because I snore) so we could each have a restful sleep. I arrived at 3:30 PM to check in and was unable to enter due to Airbnb not sending me the unlock code. I tried to call the host with no success. I then contacted Airbnb customer service and was told within the next hour I would get the code or they would set me up with a new place.

Two hours went by with no response. With the concert starting at 7:30, my wife had to change and get ready in a bar bathroom. Being on a budget, I brought enough food for the three days we were going to be there. After repeatedly trying to contact customer service, I finally got a hold of them at 8:30 (one hour after the concert started) and was told I would be staying in a hotel. I explained that we need one with a separate room and was told that they only work with certain hotels and I would be given $100 to find my own.

As you could imagine looking for a certain type of hotel at 8:30 PM with all the stress of the last five hours while the concert you came for is an hour old… was rough. I finally found one; I had to pay upfront and it was $400 a night. I could not leave my wife any longer at the concert by herself so I paid for it and went back in. I’m out the money for the hotel and three days of dining out.

The host contacted me around 11:30 but said he could not give me the house code because Airbnb cancelled my reservation. I tried to contact them the following morning, but nobody would take my complaint because it was assigned to someone else, and she would be calling me asap to correct the situation. I must have reached out 15 times the next week. I never received a phone call, but I did receive a message (seven days later) stating because I looked for my own hotel they would only cover one day at $100. I also had to keep changing the ice in the cooler so all the food I brought wouldn’t go bad. Their customer service is non existent. It’s not worth ruining your time like I did.

Airbnb Host Lies When Wifi Fails at Berlin Apartment

Posted on April 5, 2018

Today is twelve days before our trip to Berlin, and our Airbnb host informed us that they are having problems with their wifi; there will be no wifi in the apartment when we arrive. As we are going on a business trip, this is not okay with us – it’s a very big deal. The host told me that they can offer 20% discount because of this, or a full refund if we are not okay with it.

Firstly, how can a host offer discounts? It’s not through Airbnb – just on his word alone, and that’s not good. In any case, we are not okay with it. The apartment is very expensive at 150€ per night. We are on business trip and don’t need to stay there if there is no wifi at all. I asked the host to cancel the reservation. She said she would not cancel it, and that I needed to cancel. I told her by Airbnb’s rules, if I cancel I can’t get a refund. Again, she told me to cancel and I would get a full refund. However, this is a lie.

I just read the rules again; Airbnb says you should never cancel a booking yourself because you will not get a full refund, so the host is lying to me. Why she is doing this? Is this normal for Airbnb? I’m honestly shocked. I rented the apartment for 790€ for five days, so it’s a lot of money for me. I should be treated well. We agreed with the owner at first, but she informed us that the apartment is still not ready. The wifi has not yet been fixed. If I knew there would be no wifi I would never have booked it. We are coming for overseas for work; it’s not two kids traveling, but professionals. I’m ready to contact my lawyer.