Author Archives: Kim Howard

Host Demanded More Money Less Than a Week Before Arrival

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I booked a home in April 2017 near Ole Miss to visit my daughter at school that October. The price was really reasonable, so upon the host accepting the reservation, I messaged him to double check that all was well. There was no response. I messaged him again in May to double check – no response. I messaged him again in June. There was no immediate response so I reported him to Airbnb. He then responded with: “Yes, it is confirmed.”

Less than a week before arrival, the host messaged me to say Airbnb made a mistake and the price should have been a lot higher; apparently I owed him more money. We argued back in forth. I said I asked several times for him to confirm the reservation to no avail, and that he had plenty of time to get this sorted out. He argued it was all Airbnb’s fault and that he wouldn’t be making any money with the lower price I was set to pay.

This went back and forth the next couple of days. I couldn’t find alternate housing at the last minute and Airbnb customer service was no help, telling me it’s for the host and I to figure out. I ended up paying an extra $325 to the host (which he said was such a bargain) as I had family depending on housing to visit my daughter.

When we arrived there were dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and hairs in the freezer. It was dirty all around. He blamed it on the cleaning crew and still wanted his $325. I’m so disappointed in this listing, the host, and most of all, that Airbnb allowed this to happen to a customer, especially when I had given the host plenty of time to confirm prior to arrival.

Bounced Between Customer Service and Trust and Safety

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I’m in the U.S. and have a local co-host who manages the bookings for my house in Belize. Things have always gone smoothly with other booking sites. Then I signed up with Airbnb. They deactivated my co-host’s account. I’m not sure why. I think it may be because they sent her a verification code to my number in the U.S. and she didn’t receive it.

We have tried endlessly to get her re-activated. They told us she needs to call the U.S. office directly. She has racked up a hefty bill being put on hold. Calls from Belize are expensive. Then they told us they would send her an email with a link to a site to activate her account. That didn’t work. Since her account is deactivated there is a hold on my account too so I can’t respond to requests for bookings; they just expire.

Each time I call (after a lengthy stretch on hold) I get a different story, or I get cut off. I have spent hours on the phone. Customer service doesn’t have access to records of calls, and can’t do much. They bounce everything up to a department called Trust and Safety. They can’t be reached directly and only share limited information with customer service. The last person I talked to said I should just remove my co-host then I could do the bookings myself. This is not what I want.

In addition to lost bookings, there is a safety issue. There was just an emergency email from an arriving guest which my co-host couldn’t access. Fortunately I received it and was able to get the guest’s direct email from Airbnb so I could get her in contact with my co-host. The next suggestion from customer service was that I “snooze” my listing at times when I am not able to manage it. Why can’t they just work on re-activating my co-host? Why can’t I communicate with Trust and Safety?

False Advertising: Avoid Using Airbnb At All Costs

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I was part of an adult and professional family who rented an expensive house through Airbnb for four weeks so I speak from bitter firsthand experience. We rented both sides of the house through Airbnb but there was major construction being carried out. Let me be clear: these were not renovations, nor extensions, nor repairs, but brand new buildings. They did not come about after our booking but were known to the host at the time of booking. They were major building sites in what was described as a quiet residential area. At no time whatsoever did the host point this issue out to us.

The overriding comment I am making is this. Problems within a rented Airbnb can crop up after the 24 hour period. They do not always happen within the first 24 hours. We encountered some noise and disruption when we arrived. We were surprised but didn’t fully take in the far reaching consequences it would have. Having travelled 10,000 miles to be there we were exhausted and also extremely tied up with other family business which had drawn us to the host’s property in the first place.

The noise levels exacerbated to such a degree during our stay that it was categorically impossible to remain. There was massively loud machinery operating all day and we were meant to be enjoying the warm weather outside on the deck area. Loud radios, workmen shouting, hammering, drilling, angle grinders, and so on. It was absolutely impossible to live with. We were even asked by the next door neighbour if we would be going out at any point as he wanted to use some exceptionally loud equipment to bring down part of a wall. No one in their right mind would choose knowingly to spend almost £6,000 on a holiday rental plus all the other attendant travel costs with this imposition on either side of them.

In addition, there were parts of the property (equipment, lighting) which did not work. This only came to light as time went on and not within the first 24 hours. Requests to the host for information as to how to work various things were not answered. Such was the dirt within some of the kitchen drawers – again, coming to light after the first 24 hours – I had to strip them out, wash and disinfect them before I was prepared to use them and the utensils and equipment inside them. Live cockroaches I can deal with – the dead ones should have been cleared out before our arrival.

The outdoor deck area was simply filthy. The garden described as lush was a bare lawn, some surrounding green shrubs and a shed/garage which was filled with a load of rubble and junk in it. I can’t dress the deck up any other way; it was simply dirty, not maintained or prepared.

This was meant to be our ‘special’ place. Coming from a relatively cold country, we wanted to be outdoors in the heat. I should add that not all of the house was like this. Some parts were fine and as described, some parts were okay, but come on – where are people supposed to hang their clothes for four weeks when they are not allowed to use the wardrobes? We have dated photographic and video evidence supporting our findings which seemingly are of no consequence whatsoever to Airbnb. It would seem to be just tough luck.

Moving onto subsequent dialogue with the host following our complaint to Airbnb we found her responses to be beyond shocking. They were defamatory, uncouth and dishonest. I take strong exception to being described as a ‘lying whinging pom’ which if I remember correctly was the term the host used. The host leveled accusations at us which frankly rocked us to the floor and she absolutely and utterly lied. I don’t use the term lightly – she didn’t ‘embellish’ some facts – she downright lied. We are a professional, upstanding and decent family and would never abuse someone else’s home. Indeed we left it in a better state than we found it.

We asked Airbnb for a face-to-face meeting, which was refused. We offered to show a member of her family who visited the day we were leaving around the property to check it and he refused. We asked for a reasonable financial recompense from Airbnb for ruining our holiday, which was refused. We were given a refund for the eight days we cancelled due to the unforgiving circumstances we found ourselves in but not for any of the other issues we encountered, some after the 24-hour period. We have been continually fobbed off by Airbnb with the 24-hour response comment, which is simply ridiculous. I am surprised it is legal.

I would also add that getting through to Airbnb on the telephone is farcical and more than time consuming. I can honestly say we lost at least three days of our trip through phone calls, packing, and moving to another place as it was impossible to complete our stay in the rental we had chosen. We also lost money by having to take on a hotel booking due to the issues we encountered at our initial rental. Airbnb has no interest in this whatsoever and seemingly no policies which actually work to protect the consumer.

I would never use Airbnb again. Any assurances they offer are flimsy at best and non existent at worst. If this property we rented was a house swap or a house sitting situation, we might have put up with it and thought, “Well, it’s bad luck on our part, but so be it,” but this was an expensive rental with a description on Airbnb’s own website which bore scant resemblance to the reality of living there. From what we can see so far, there are no safeguarding procedures for the renter.

There are always extenuating circumstances why things don’t work in a property which we understand fully or why external issues might appear unexpectedly. However, there is no excuse for purposely misleading people and there is certainly no excuse for dirt. This was a property which was described as beautiful, and Airbnb has left us high, dry and out of pocket even though we have explained in detail what the problems were.

We shall continue to deal with this problem through further legitimate routes and with different support and social information mechanisms as Airbnb has simply washed their hands of us and our situation and have no care for our problem whatsoever. All they say is that their decision is final. Well, it may be final for them but we shall exhaust our options to achieve what we believe to be a more fair conclusion to this debacle. We note (as far as we can determine) that this property has been removed from Airbnb’s site although whilst we were there it was up for rental.

I Reported an Attack then Faced Retaliation from Airbnb

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Over the holidays, I rented an apartment. There were problems with the maid. She basically moved into the unit with me and spent half the day there, despite me desperately trying to get her out.

After the first week, I decided to stay a second week. The host agreed. She accepted a second booking at a discounted rate. On the last day, I was accosted for money for “payment for the last five days – in cash and now” and actually attacked by the maid. I only lost about $50, but reported the incident to Airbnb as a “Trust and Safety” issue. I also complained to the host. She proceeded to defend the staff member, and told me she would lodge her own complaint with Airbnb, stating that I had tons of “unregistered” guests, and damaged the apartment… and this was after she renewed my booking.

The next day, Airbnb contacted me and asked for a police report and photos of my injuries. They said the host complained that I damaged the unit and had four “unauthorized” visits. They wanted to know if I had stayed in the apartment without checking out after the first week and stayed for the second week, as they did not see the payment. A payment was in fact made with my Visa. I had 25 photos of the apartment as well as video. The only damage was a stain on the rug, which I believe had been there for months.

The results? The host’s listing was back online in two days, and I was banned as a user. Moral of the story: be very careful when making a safety complaint about a listing. The host can retaliate against you. There is no whistle-blower protection rule. Airbnb could accept all of the host’s complaints, ignore your safety concerns, and ban you.

Answering Simple Question Leads to Terrible Customer Service

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Over the past eleven days I have been trying to resolve – with absolutely appalling assistance from customer service representatives – a rather minor issue with my Airbnb account. To briefly summarize: I did in fact qualify for Superhost status across all metrics for the last quarterly review. However, there seemed to be an issue with the ‘Review Rate’ metric – which was showing me as having received six reviews across thirteen bookings (for a review rate beneath the 50% threshold).

I had completed a booking from December 24th-30th (which was included as part of the thirteen bookings), and the guest had left me a review on January 1st (which I was told is the ‘cutoff date’). When you factor in that review (which should be included), you can see that I actually had seven reviews across thirteen bookings, which would have bumped my review rate up to 54%, thus qualifying me for Superhost status.

Since I first brought up this issue with Airbnb, I have spent in excess of three hours on the phone speaking with various representatives, on top of the time I spent engaging in email exchanges with case managers/supervisors. Again, I understand these things might take time to resolve, and I have been extremely reasonable about that. What I find utterly unacceptable is being told to expect a callback by the end of the day or the next day and then never hearing anything. This has happened to me five times over the past eleven days.

I have to keep wasting more of my time calling Airbnb and retelling my story just to get an update, only to be be told that the representative I am speaking with has no power to do anything, and that the supervisors are always (conveniently) ‘in a meeting’. Yesterday I went through the exact same process two more times (being told to expect a call back the next day), and as of 3:00 PM EST, I still have not received a phone call or any email notifying me of anything. Absolutely nothing.

I like Airbnb, and I was fully intending to use the platform as a host and a traveler repeatedly over the years. Whenever friends and family brought up the topic of Airbnb, I always spoke highly of it. I am a relatively new host, but the guests we have hosted overwhelmingly praise our hospitality. I was looking forward to continue delivering that experience well into the future.

Unfortunately, dealing with Airbnb customer service over the past eleven days has made me wonder: “If this is how they handle relatively basic issues, how would they handle a serious issue like a guest who causes damage to our home?”

When I spoke with the customer service representative yesterday, I told him that if I did not receive a call back today I would pull both of my listings and stop hosting. I would also stop using Airbnb as a traveler, and would refrain from praising the brand to friends, family, and anyone else I encountered. That would be a real shame, but I need to draw the line at a certain point. If Airbnb doesn’t respect their hosts enough to even have the decency to communicate with them then why the hell would I willingly keep doing business with this company?

Double booked, left stranded in sub-freezing temperature

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We booked a house to stay in Hunter Mountain, New York for a skiing weekend and our other friend’s birthday weekend. There were 12-16 guests arranged to arrive on Saturday and Sunday to stay until Monday or Tuesday. The first group of us arrived early Saturday to go skiing in the morning and planned to check in to the Airbnb after around 3:00 or 4:00 PM.

When we arrived down from a long day of skiing in 10 degrees Fahrenheit, one guest arrived at the house confused and embarrassed to find a whole load of people he did not know. It turned out the host had double booked. We try to call the host and of course he did not answer.

We then tried to contact Airbnb who refused to talk over the phone and would only contact us by message. The person who was on the other end would only tell us to just rebook a place ourselves. This was the busiest weekend of the year in Hunter, as it was MLK weekend. There was nothing else to book. When asking her to call us she responded, “I am currently on a call. Is there any other listing you are interested in?”

We were standing outside in the freezing cold in front of the originally double booked house. Not only was this response incredibly rude but this was three hours after we first made contact with Airbnb. It is now 7:00 PM. We are trying to find a new place. The bar and resort at Hunter Mountain, where six other guests were patiently waiting, is now closing and the staff are asking them to leave.

We started calling hotels who were all saying they were booked up, until finally the fifth place we called had rooms free. It was 9:00 PM by the time we got a hotel after arriving at the original house before 3:00. It is shocking to know that Airbnb would happily leave their customers stranded in sub-freezing temperatures with nowhere to stay or even have the decency of a phone call. We are horrified by this carry on.

In summary, we experienced: a systematic error that caused a double booking by a scammer host (side note, the guests that were staying in this house said it was nothing like advertised – it was dirty and there were leaks, etc.); the original booking was $1650; dealing with incompetent staff at Airbnb who were arguing with us. We were in a difficult situation and were stressed out. A professional would have been polite and done everything they could to relax us and help sort out the situation.

It is also worth noting that I contacted Airbnb the Thursday before arriving because I was suspicious of the listing. I was called back twice to confirm and assure me that the booking was okay and I had nothing to worry about. The stress caused by over six hours of not knowing where to go or who to contact was multiplied by eight people who were tired and hungry and still in their ski gear or clothes they just traveled in. We were unable to confirm to the guests arriving on the Saturday if they were going to have somewhere to stay or to bother coming up the next morning at all. Multiply that by eight people whose weekend plans were now up in the air hours before they were to rent cars, rent ski gear, and pack.

The time and effort of having to check out and move from the hotel to the new booking before going skiing on Saturday was a factor. If you have ever been skiing you would know how much stuff there is for each person. I’d say we all lost out on about two hours each of valuable skiing time. This is not cheap: $75/day/person, the average skier skis four hours a day, that amounts to $37.5 X 6 skiers = $225

Airbnb’s continued their lack of communication the week after. When trying to resolve this issue, the only phone call that was returned was at 10:30 PM on Friday night while I was at work. We still have had no response from Airbnb since this incident and have posted this message to them by multiple sources, even directly to a colleague who works at Airbnb.

Double Listing Leads to Trouble Cancelling Airbnb

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I can’t make this story colorful because it simply is not. I hope it helps others. I went to see an Airbnb before moving in as it was for a long-term stay. I found the lift out of order (other inhabitants were complaining about it as it was an antique and probably not up to current standards). I was able to climb the four high floors (I have a respiratory ailment) and found the current guest, who let me in. I did not ask to see the room but the rest of the place convinced me I didn’t want to climb all those stairs on a twice daily basis for a long stay in that place.

When I tried to cancel, I learned that the host had put up two different ads for the same room – with two different cancellation policies. Airbnb in that country – Italy – does not seem to check the validity of the ads. Also, the exact geographical location was not revealed until the full payment was processed and the exact address was not provided until I asked for it, the day before departure for Italy.

I finally got reimbursement, but not before filing a complaint with the European Commission for Consumer Fraud online. Airbnb Italy kept phoning me during my work time to try and stall on payment of the reimbursement. Once you give them your phone number, ostensibly for contact with the host, they keep it, and use it. I was ready to go to the police for telephone harassment. Only Airbnb Ireland could finally solve the problem. Never again. Use professionals who are inspected and fiscally in line.

Too Far? How I Taught Airbnb and Scammers a Lesson

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My very negative experience with Airbnb has turned into an amusing evening. I rent out my two-bedroom apartment in the center of Barcelona for just 35 Euro per day (yeah, that’s correct, in January the off-season price is that low). I had guests from Turkey who were supposed to stay for three days. On the last day of their stay, they found out that the bathroom curtain was damp. That’s correct – it turned out that the bathroom curtain was humid after three days of their stay.

Airbnb sent me an email that the guests were “experiencing some serious issues with their stay and they need my urgent assistance”. They gave me a 30-minute deadline to reply to them. I noticed that email in 40 minutes and at that point the reservation was already cancelled on my behalf with a full refund. The Airbnb case manager wrote me that everything was okay, and the guests were willing to continue their stay (obviously for free). I asked them to explain the background of their decision, but as usual they just ignored my messages (they always do so when they rip off the host; no one answers your messages and calls and nobody cares anymore).

Then I got really mad and I sent a message to the guests asking if they had already checked out. What did they reply after staying for almost three days (it was a late evening already) in my flat? They told me that they were going to stay a little longer and they would let me know once they wanted to check out. I headed to the flat hoping to face these impudent motherf*&%ers.

When I entered the flat, there was no one inside. All their stuff was still inside, so they really decided to continue staying in my flat for free and enjoy their vacation. I grabbed all their stuff and gave it out to the homeless people on the street. By the way, they were very thankful to me. One of those homeless women was also kind enough to tell me that there was a passport in the jacket I gave to her. I checked the passport and noticed that he had no visa to stay in Europe and in fact the guest was here illegally. What a gift of fate. I passed his passport through a shredder as it was not valid.

Furthermore, I also changed the locks in my flat as they had the keys with them, so they were afterwards unable to enter the flat. When I returned home, I noticed tons of messages from Airbnb support. Finally, for some reason, they decided to reply to me. The support agent begged me to open the door for the guests and let them take their stuff.

Which guests did they mean? According to my payout statistics, I had no guests at that point. I had to reply to Airbnb that since I had no current reservations, I was unable to help them and of course I would not let some strangers into my apartment.

They first promised to pay me for one night, then they promised to pay me for the entire reservation. Of course, that was very kind of them, but I could not accept the money for the reservation I never had. Airbnb threatened that they would involve the police and of course I supported this idea. The guests went to the police station, and obviously the police officer called me to ask for my permission to open the door to these guests, which of course I didn’t give. The photo shows you what a passport of a bad tourist looks like.

From Bad to Worse, Forced to Leave Multiple Airbnbs

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To anyone looking to rent via Airbnb, please use caution. You cannot trust the reviews. A lot of people have their friends who write reviews for them. If a guest cancels before booking, Airbnb doesn’t allow them to leave reviews. I also believe they purposely delete bad reviews in the interest of keeping guests in the dark about the true conditions of some of the places listed on their site.

I have booked three places and all three had glowing reviews. Two of the three places were in deplorable condition. One of the places was in such bad condition that it had blatant health and safety violations: burned out electrical sockets, black mold, no working utilities, no heat in the dead of winter, etc.

The only way to be safe when using Airbnb is to only book with hosts who offer a full refund if you arrive and the place is not up to standards. If you are depending on Airbnb to back you up, forget about it. In fact, you could end up with nowhere to go. It happened to me. Thank god I was familiar with the area and had another option to stay for a few days. You might not be so lucky.

Airbnb has lately been hit or miss for me. Two out of three places that I have booked in the last month have had serious mold and other safety issues. The first place I booked and cancelled because I was afraid for my life and health looked like an abandoned house (dark, dirty, electrical wiring burned out, walls dirty with paint splattered on them, doors that didn’t lock, black mold and moldy smell throughout the place). I literally had to threaten to take legal action to get my money back and even so it took three days.

In the meantime, I was left with no money to even find another place to stay while I went back and forth with Airbnb trying to get a refund. Thank god I was able to find an alternative for a few days and then I ended up booking a hotel that cost me over three times as much for one day as I would have paid for a week at the Airbnb. The current place I booked a week ago I thought would be better because it was in a nice area and is owned by a doctor. I arrived to find that the place smelled like a public urinal and mold mixed together. Now I am having to find another place so I lost money. Thank god I had only booked for a few days.

As you can see, it’s hit or miss with Airbnb and you won’t know what you are getting until you arrive and open the door. Your best and only protection is to book with guests who offer a full refund if the place is not up to standards or avoid Airbnb all together, which is what I plan to do.

Harassment by Host After Ignoring Check In

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We booked accommodation in Madrid from January 19-22, and as previously agreed with the host we were supposed to arrive between 12:00-2:00 PM. We sent a text via Airbnb inquiring as to who would be available to meet us, with no response from the host. As agreed, we arrived at 2:00 PM, and found the main door of the building locked and with no response from the host to several phone calls and messages made to her registered number.

We waited outside for more than three hours with several calls and messages during the time, only to find her mobile was switched off the whole time. Finally around 5:00 PM she made it to the apartment and showed no remorse for leaving us stranded, instead asking us to look for another place if we were unhappy. Her attitude and mannerisms were extremely unprofessional and rude, and instead of containing the situation, she talked down to us and was very aggresive. She did not help us settle in, did not show us the amenities or even how to get the wifi started, which was already a problem.

Half an hour after moving in while we were using the shower, we had a neighbour bang at our door, non-stop buzzing and yelling and complaining about water leakage from our bathroom to theirs. They mentioned complaining about this water leakage to the host in the past, with no action from her. We were asked to immediately stop using the shower. We paid for all amenities – not only did we lose half a day for the host to show up, but now we were also asked not to use the shower. The wifi also stopped working soon after that.

The host was extremely rude and aggressive, and as confirmed by Airbnb support staff, she also repeatedly used profanity, and threatened us with cutting off the water supply if we were not available when she would send someone to fix it. As of 3:00 PM today, we have been forcefully vacated from the accommodation with no proper/prior notification. Airbnb denies the confirmed mistreatment and unprofessional attitude of the host, which has all been documented in Airbnb messages to us. Furthermore, we were asked to immediately vacate the premises by Airbnb with the assurance that they would take care of re-booking us immediately.

This booking we made with the host was fully prepaid, and as per Airbnb rules, the payment to the host is only released after 24 hours of check-in. Our first complaint was registered 20 hours ago. Kindly refer to the complete communication in the email trails between Airbnb support team and me. We have been repeatedly threatened and harassed by this host in person, via text and phone calls, all of which have been documented and shared with the Airbnb team. We are still waiting to hear from Airbnb regarding an alternative accommodation, and are literally on the street for the next two days, with no communication from their team regarding the above or even our money. We are looking for a full refund, and a solution to our current dilemma.