Author Archives: DontTrustEm

Host Ignores Electric Bill, Makes us Pay for Lock

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We recently had a two-week stay on Airbnb. There was a subsequent corporate hell odyssey that was one awful rip off after another, first by the host and then by Airbnb itself. I don’t even know where to begin. First of all – and this is nowhere near the worst thing – the place was filthy upon arrival. There was pubic hair all over the bathroom and a semen stain on the sheets, and a layer of dirt so thick on the floors that simply touching a paper towel to the floor turned it into black finger spots. We contacted the host and he agreed to send over a cleaning crew the next day and replace the sheets. That was the last time the host did anything remotely right.

Then the power went off. We thought there was a blackout in the neighborhood or some breaker problem, but after seven hours, some spent talking to the electric company, they told us that the power had been shut off because the host didn’t pay his electric bill. We called the host and he grumbled something and said he would pay the bill. An hour later the power was still off and we sent the host a message via Airbnb. At some point the lights came on so I guess he paid his bill. Who knows?

From the very start we noticed the key was jamming in the deadbolt lock. On the fourth night it just stopped working and we were locked out of the apartment. We called the host, who claimed to be out of town, and sent over an after hours locksmith. The locksmith broke us in to the apartment and then replaced the lock, noting that it had broken due to fatigue over time. The bill was over $800. The locksmith then claimed that he couldn’t accept payment from the host over the phone. We called the host and he told us that we should pay the locksmith and he would pay us back the full amount. He promised, so we trusted him.

You can probably guess what happened after that. If you guessed that the host dropped off the face of the Earth, you are correct. We tried Airbnb messages, texts, and phone calls, over days, all of which went unanswered. Finally we initiated an Airbnb “Resolution Request.” The host is given 48 hours to respond, which he did not, after which it gets escalated to Airbnb management. Airbnb also did nothing for a long time. Our trip ended and we flew home, again with no word whatsoever from the host or Airbnb.

One day I got a message out of the blue that the host had written his review of me. He was alive after all. What did this host who tricked us into replacing his lock for $800, promised to pay us back, and then disappeared, have to say? Well, in the private message that the host can send to a guest with the review but which doesn’t get posted or seen by Airbnb, the host gloated that I “got played” (presumably by him) during the whole thing. What a lovely individual, am I right? I was hopping mad but I thought that Airbnb would deliver justice with the Resolution Request. Again, my mistake. After many more days of nothing happening someone from Airbnb called me and said that the host was claiming that he only wanted the locksmith to break us in to the apartment and not replace the lock. Therefore, I should pay for the lock.

I pointed out that that is a ridiculous claim. If the host intended to leave us with just a broken lock and no functioning deadbolt that would have been a violation of Airbnb’s safety guidelines, and also if the host is claiming that I bought a lock that he didn’t want he can send me the lock rather than keep using it. The Airbnb representative said those were good points. I also pointed out that the host promised to repay us the whole amount then disappeared for weeks and that was extremely shady. If he had wanted to talk about the situation he could have responded to one of my many messages or calls.

In spite of those good points, Airbnb followed the money, which of course comes from hosts with multiple properties and not guests. Airbnb first ruled that the host only had to pay me for the cost to break in to the apartment, not the cost to replace the lock. Then, on top of that ridiculous ruling, they added the bill incorrectly (probably intentionally) and decided that the locksmith’s $120 “service call” charge was the cost to break us in to the apartment, when that was actually $365 on top of the service call charge. Airbnb decided that we should get basically nothing and aided the host in scamming us out of almost $700.

As for the electricity being off for most of a day due to the host not paying his bill, Airbnb decided to credit us merely a third of a day’s stay for that. If we follow that logic, the electricity could be off for eight hours of each day during your stay, rendering the accommodations unusable, and you would only be entitled to be refunded a third of the amount. I called them to point out that even with the pittance they were crediting us, they added the numbers incorrectly on the bill. The representative agreed that they did so, and said that she would “bring it up with her team.” Again, as you can probably guess, I never heard from them again.

I was surprised at how thoroughly and brazenly they cheated us, and how long it took them to do so. They don’t even have the courage to let you know they are going to screw you up front – they take weeks and weeks to do it. I guess I would say to avoid this host – the name he uses on Airbnb is Tony della Morte (don’t know if that’s his real name or a particularly appropriate alias) and he has several listings around Menlo Park, CA. The rot and corruption here extended way beyond the host to Airbnb itself, so really the lesson from this is do not trust hosts or Airbnb. I would say to avoid Airbnb, period. This has been the worst rip off and worst experience I have ever had with a merchant in my life.

Airbnb Host Cancelled Ten Minutes before Arrival

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We were on our way to the Soho apartment we rented after a nightmarish morning of driving two hours (opposite side of the road of course, very stressful), and a broken down commuter train. We were in constant contact with the host to let him know our progress, and always received a “no problem” or “no rush” reply. Finally, in a taxi ten minutes away, I got a host cancellation notice from Airbnb. I arrived at the apartment to find a sheepish host saying he’d just arrived at the apartment to find his flatmate hadn’t cleaned out some moving boxes and apartment was not suitable for guest. He wouldn’t even let us see the place. This was in the afternoon; there was plenty of time to have it cleaned. Airbnb’s response was to email seven or eight alternatives and let us look through them and decide… on a noisy London street on my mobile phone with no idea where these other places were while we were exhausted and furious. We were lucky to find a hotel. Then I found out I couldn’t leave a review for this jerk. They simply put an automatic “host canceled ” notice with no information about how horrible the experience was. They say they deducted payment from his next transaction, which only means he makes a little less money next time, but more importantly it means Airbnb makes money off bad hosts. Who comes up with these stupid rules?

Airbnb Subcontractors Promise More Than They Can Deliver

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Have you noticed there are some companies that will book your Airbnb property and guests for you? Steer clear: they help Airbnb by keeping you from getting paid and getting guests to rent a lousy place to stay. This comes from both ends of the spectrum – host hell and guest hell – where a third party is in the middle preventing either from reaching a resolution.

How it works: Airbnb is using start-up companies that only book with Airbnb, promising they will communicate with both hosts and guests, provide property maintenance, cleaning before and after each rental, let guests in (and secure the rental when they leave), help with any issues both hosts and guests have at any time of the day or night, collect any rental and damage fees, pay the hosts directly, and have a customer support line 24/7. I answered a local ad through Craigslist out of curiosity to apply as a “licensed cleaner” for Airbnb properties. After spending an hour or so clicking through a basic “do you know how to clean” on my computer, you are not given a background checked at all. You are signed up immediately and can take ‘tasks’ from your smart phone, including cleaning and stocking rentals. So first off, neither the host nor guest has any guarantee the rental will be damage free, clean and maintained. For someone like myself who is certified in the cleaning industry with over 20 years’ experience, state licensed and bonded, in one day I could tell this was a huge scam and mistake, but wanted to see what was up on how all this worked.

The first “claim job” day was a Sunday. There were three rentals that needed cleaning, clean bedding, and linens and a mini-stay pack (like hotels). Everything was sent to a storage unit. All jobs needed to be finished by 3:00 PM, so I got to the storage unit at 10:00 AM. I needed time to find what I needed since I’d never been to this storage place before which was in downtown Seattle, right off the most notorious intersection the city has. At least it was Sunday, so I had that going for me. Right off the bat, I couldn’t get into the unit from the code they gave me. I waited an hour and a half for someone to send me the proper information. This was after calling their “worker support line” which no one answered, and their customer support line, finding not one person knew I worked for them. So much for being listed as a cleaner – and I had full access codes to three properties. Eventually I got a single text and entered the storage unit, which was a mess: Cintas was supposed to be supplying linens but they were out of just about everything. It was disorganized, so I had to hunt to find enough supplies for three rentals.

I tried to find the first unit; the address was wrong and again, I spent almost an hour trying to get a response from anyone at this company. Then I found the unit and just about fell over: my son had rented an apartment right next to the building years before. He left because of two problems: there was a small fire station you couldn’t really see but hear go off at least every two hours round the clock, and crime was high in that area. I entered the unit which was a three story, two master bath, two bedroom plus skinny, and very trashed rental. They had a kid who loved peanut butter, which was stuck solid to the windows, walls, furniture, floors and all over the kitchen. The upstairs master bath didn’t drain at all, which is why the downstairs one was used so heavily.

This unit had been booked for a two-hour cleaning. It was already 1:00 PM when I arrived. Panic set in and I notified the company there was no way I could get all three properties finished in time. They assured me this wasn’t a problem so I set to work running up and down stairs, and unclogging drains. Thankfully I had brought my steam machine to get the peanut butter off everything. It took 3.5 hours to make everything clean and presentable. The company charged the guests an additional $300 for cleaning. This was exorbitant for an additional 1.5 hours more than they quoted, though the guests had been there a full month. I’m not sure what they expected but I am sure the guest and host both got screwed on that one.

Off to another property that had an address that did not exist on any map, and more calling the company to receive a text to find the property. I should mention in between these visits my phone kept going off from SMS messages received. They turned out to be from one of the company’s employees – the one giving me the proper information –  on who his pick was for the NFL super dream team. It couldn’t have been less professional.

Next was a 2700 square foot home in the older part of Seattle, which meant uneven climbing up zigzag steps where the cement was old and broken. The guests had arrived and the wife was furious. The place was trashed from a frat party on Friday night (the guests had to do a two-night minimum booking). I hauled all my cleaning stuff up, asked them where would be best to start (the bathroom, they wanted to shower), and got on it. I then moved to the kitchen where I found broken plates, glasses, a broken microwave plate, and no less than 27 empty bottles of liquor. The guests had a concert to attend so I was able to clean like mad without running into anyone but again, had to reach customer service to figure out where to put the duvet cover that had an entire bottle of cologne spilled on it. The entire upstairs smelled of this horrific men’s cologne and it was the host’s duvet cover. “Bag it and drop it off when you are done” is what I was told but no one would know to whom or where it belonged. I pinned a note to it, bagged it, and wrote the host’s address and last name on the bag.

Once that was finished at 8:00 PM, it was dark with no lighting to see the steps. I eventually tripped on the last one hitting the cement sidewalk. Still, I got up and headed off to the third rental. The week-long guests were compensated for three days and the host had to go over to the property to see the damage. It wasn’t fun for anyone and later I learned the guests were charged $1,200, with the host getting $200 after a month of fighting with Airbnb and the middleman company with which I signed up. I arrived at the third property greeted by some kids on skateboards who glared at me, circling my truck. I decided to take in all my cleaning stuff (Miele vacuum and steam cleaners are expensive).

This place was creepy and not well marked on how to access the basement rental as the top is the house with no lighting on either side indicating the “entrance in the back”. I walked through some bushes, a spider web, and some rocks and found the door. However, I couldn’t find the lock box for the key which had been buried under a planter, not beside the bench. It was pitch black and I was using a military grade flashlight. Still, it took half an hour to find the key. Luckily there was no one there as they were out for dinner and it was small, and not heavily used. I sighed in relief and went to work getting all the linens changed. I cleaned the entire unit and was almost done when the guests arrived. It was an awkward moment to say the least but I was very apologetic and polite. We struck up a conversation, I gave them additional towels (marked in my phone for reporting later to the company), bid them good night, and headed to the storage unit to drop off the dirty linens – which of course, was closed. I hauled them back home.

The next day they had one rental that needed an early clean and since I still had some clean linens, I headed to that home, arriving at 11:00 AM. The guests were from England and their flight didn’t leave for awhile so they were told not to worry, and they could check out before 1:00 PM. I was not notified of this and got a coffee, sent pictures from the day before to the main office of this middleman company, and also told them to get me off the SMS football list. That home was supposed to be two hours of cleaning and while the guests had done a great job of keeping it clean, it was just under 2500 square feet of brand new high-end home space: two stories with the entire downstairs hardwood, upstairs two master baths, four bedrooms. I took my time, disregarding the set pay for the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Given how the company paid me, it worked out to under $8 an hour on each house.

Here is the kicker for hosts and guests: guests leave a 1-5 star rating on their stay, cleanliness, and amenities which is reported to Airbnb. Since all but one of four rentals was trashed in one way or another, and I was way behind due to the company not having all information handy, those ratings went against the host and some didn’t make it against the guests. Airbnb found a way to really screw over everyone by using a middleman booking company that does very little for the additional cost both hosts and guests pay for, up to 17% more per booking with a monthly cleaning cost of $500-$700 for each property no matter the size or bookings.

The really scary part for everyone else is I told this booking company I could not work for them in such a manner. I’m a professional and it costs money to pay my insurance, license, bond, gas, and cleaning supplies. So even after I told them “no, thank you”, they started emailing me bookings for other clients. I had all the information of the host, guest, payment type, link to both host and guest, plus access information. Because I was still curious, I didn’t tell Airbnb nor the booking company about this; I wanted to see how long it would take before they figured it out. After a week of getting booking notices to my email account for six days, I called Airbnb.

Airbnb had no one single person that I could talk to about the booking company or emails. I was put on hold until the line was dropped twice, transferred to nonexistent extensions, and muddled through why I was calling with agents who did not speak English as their first and possibly second language. Eventually I sent an email to every Airbnb address I could find along with a text and email to the booking company who by the way, were operating in Seattle from San Francisco with no one here at all from their office. In fact, I couldn’t find anyone who’d even been here before which explains the terrible access to things they want you to use for each rental.

About two hours after sending a text message to the booking company, someone called me back and apologized for “the mix up” though I had to let that person know that I wasn’t going to continue working for them. If you are wondering how I knew about the “Frat Party House” and how that shook out, it’s because the guests lived closer to me, hired me on a regular basis to clean their home, and told me what hell they’d been put through to prove the previous guests left such a mess… as if my pictures didn’t already show that? They were almost on the hook for the extra clean up and damage and only Airbnb would deal with them, not the booking company. Luckily I did two things: take a ton of pictures and use a stopwatch for the exact time which can be uploaded to show the date and time. Hopefully this will help some hosts and guests at the same time. I won’t be a part of it for the rest of my career.

Mad in Madrid after Incompetent Customer Service

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I am stuck and out of luck and money. I arrived from Italy after a glorious three-city stay and went to my Airbnb, where my host was nowhere to be found. I contacted Airbnb who suggested I stay in a hotel. They assured me someone would call me within an hour or two. Mind you: I didn’t check into my hotel until midnight. I woke up the next morning and called because no one from Airbnb had called. They said they would reimburse me for the hotel stay and help me find another one. I was on the phone for approximately 1.5 hours and then told them they were getting me out of the hotel. I was told to go get something to eat and they would cover it up to $50. Then I was told to extend my hotel room for another night, which they would pay for as well. I was also advised they would pay for my rental car, taxi, and phone calls to them. As of today, seven days later, I am in an Airbnb but only one night of the refund has been processed (not received). I have spoken to several customer service representatives and even been hung up on because they said they could not reach my representative and I would have to wait. There was no supervisor, they don’t have an organizational chart, and apparently the person I needed to speak to was in another part of the country. I am now up to almost $1000 in expenses out of pocket and stuck in my Airbnb because my spending money is tied up.

Bitten by Fleas Repeatedly at London Airbnb

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I have stayed at an Airbnb three times and I would not stay again based on the last experience. All three times I rented the entire home. The first two times the places were amazing; the hosts were great and everything went super smoothly. The last time, I booked a two-bedroom house near London and it was quite expensive ($400/night) but it was summer, the location was amazing (right in the centre, near a train station) and it was better than any of the hotels nearby. We had to be at this location for me to attend some work meetings.

The property was very clean and welcoming on arrival and everything went great… until I woke up the next morning with about 12-15 bites all over my legs and arms. I went to the pharmacy and they said probably mosquitos. I have been bitten by mosquitoes and these bites were so much worse. I bought several creams but nothing seemed to help. I noticed some of them were in a line so started to think it was bed bugs. I called the host but she was several hours’ drive away and we both freaked out thinking it was bed bugs. I looked in the sheets and mattress and never saw a single bug (alive or dead). I did not sleep with the windows open, but the bites were awful. The host did not want to pay for a hotel (I had one more night at her place) so I bought some bug spray, doused myself, and slept on the couch downstairs.

The next morning I woke up with even more bites. I had about 40-50 bites all over my feet, legs, back, chest, hands, and arms. They were on fire; I have never felt such intense itching and no cream worked. In the end I begged the pharmacist for an antihistamine and cortisone cream, which sort of helped. It took about a week for the bites to die down and I could wear normal shoes again; even the shoes rubbing on the bites unleashed incredible itchiness. The host had a pest inspector in after I left and reported there were no bed bugs or anything else, so I have to assume it was fleas. The south of England had a bad outbreak so that makes sense, and apparently even only one or two fleas can do this.

I get that things happen, but the host (while she was upset and I felt terrible about it as I’m sure the pest inspector was expensive) did not offer to move me anywhere else and probably thinks it’s my fault somehow. I never got a refund or any compensation even though I could not sleep in the bed the last night and being bitten so many times ruined my trip. It was so awful to have these bites. I no longer want to use Airbnb because at least at a hotel I can change rooms or there is some fallback if things go wrong.

Hosts Cancel, But Airbnb Sends Reservation Reminder

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In November 2016, my wife made two different Airbnb reservations for a trip to Atlanta, where I would be attending a conference. The first reservation was cancelled within days by the host. The opportunities to get a room where the conference was being held were limited. She went ahead and made the second reservation with another host. About a month later, the that one was cancelled too. There was still time to book with the conference hotel, but we decided we could do better and found a UU’re Home host very close. We’ve stayed with UU’re Home hosts before, and they were wonderful.

Fast forward three months, and the trip was coming up. Guess what? Airbnb sent me a “Reservation Reminder” (my wife put my email address on the trip), and it said the second reservation she had booked was coming up in a few days. I logged in, and voila, the trip shows: “Cancelled – this reservation was cancelled by the host.” Are we going to be billed? Does Airbnb’s system really know what is going on? I found the 855 number to call Airbnb to complain. However, they won’t talk to me because the reservation was made by my wife. All I want to know is if we will be billed. I can forward the email from Airbnb, but they won’t talk to me. My wife has to call and wait in their queue. Do they know why I received an email reminder for my cancelled reservation? They want more information, but won’t talk to me. I’m going to tell my wife to call them and make sure we won’t be billed. I’ve saved a screen shot of the Airbnb page showing the cancellation. Why can’t Airbnb get their act together? And why do they let hosts cancel stays frequently?

Airbnb $900 Coupon Magically Changes to $84

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A few weeks ago, I booked a trip to Tahoe to go skiing with a group of six friends and coworkers. A few days before the trip, the host cancelled, so I received the cancellation refund and booked another place. On the day of the trip, around noon when half of the group was on their way up to Tahoe, that host cancelled the trip as well. So I spent about four hours that afternoon on the phone with several Airbnb customer service representatives trying to find another house that was available for the weekend, that could accommodate our group size, and within our budget. Finally after two more cancellations during that four-hour ordeal going back and forth with Airbnb representatives, we found a new place, booked it, and were confirmed that it was would be good. We left for the trip two hours behind schedule.

On our way up, we asked for check-in instructions from the host, but never got a response. After another several hours on the phone with Airbnb, we were told we could have a $250 hotel credit for one night. It was approaching 10:00 PM, and we were in Tahoe with nowhere to stay. We finally got into a hotel at midnight. Unfortunately, the hotel didn’t have any more availability beyond the one night or we would’ve stayed there the entire weekend. So throughout the next morning and afternoon, all seven of us would come off the mountain and start searching for Airbnb houses and asking Airbnb Customer Support to help us contact the host to ensure we’d be able to stay there. However, over the course of the day we booked and confirmed two or three separate houses, and then had them cancelled.

After the last house we saw a $900 coupon that effectively comped the price of the booking, and we thought: “Awesome, Airbnb is finally taking care of us.” Unfortunately, that host also cancelled, and we no longer saw the $900 coupon in our account. Again we called the Airbnb Customer Support line to ask where it went and how we could apply it to our next booking. After speaking with Customer Support, they assured me that if I went to the most recent cancellation email and clicked the link to “book another place,” the coupon would still be there. I did that, and it was there like she promised – in the Airbnb app, under the Payment Breakdown, a coupon of $900.

Since there were now no more places that could accommodate a group our size within our price range within the surrounding Tahoe area, we were forced to look at places beyond our budget. We found one of the cheapest and closest places for a total of $1,000/night for the two remaining nights, and we figured with the $900 coupon, it would even out to be about within our budget (excluding the difference of the hotel that we had to pay the night before that the $250 credit didn’t cover). Because Airbnb assured me that the credit was there, and I saw the $900 coupon in the Payment Breakdown of the house I was about to book, I thanked her and hung up so that I could book it. As I hit the “Book Now” button, the coupon changed from $900 to $84 and I was then charged the full $2,000 on my credit card.

I’ve been on the phone with several of the Airbnb Customer Support representatives since the booking to try and figure out why this has happened. After weeks of back-and-forth calls and emails, I spoke with someone who told me they would not do anything more for me other than providing a 10% refund on the Airbnb we booked. However, the problem is that we never would have booked that house in the first place had we not had a $900 coupon. They have refused to help me, but I will be calling their customer support this week and will edit this post if they decide to change their decision.

Guests Book Airbnb for their Dirty Laundry, Full Refund

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A woman and her spouse booked my room for a night. They came over and everything was cordial. I greeted them, gave them the tour and left them to it. The woman had asked if she could use the washer and dryer. I said yes, so they brought in loads of clothes. That was still okay with me. I left to go have dinner at a neighbor’s house. I received a text from the woman saying there was an emergency. I got up and walked back to my house, where they proceeded to spout lies. Then is when I knew they were only there to wash their dirty clothes. I asked them if they wanted to leave because the issue was they thought I didn’t wash their sheets; they said they sound a strand of hair on the sheets. Before they even arrived I washed the sheets and made the bed. They proceeded to say everything was fine, they would stay and leave at 6:00 AM. I agreed. 6:00 AM arrived, and they got their things together and leave. Now once they left they somehow cancelled the reservation and I didn’t get paid. They stayed the night and left my room a mess. I don’t know if I will continue to be a host after this experience.

Memorable Anniversary Hell on an Airbnb Boat

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We had an issue with a host. She flatly refused to offer assistance. The result was a prematurely short weekend – a memorable experience for sure – and the loss of almost $400 in Airbnb payments. We simply wanted what was fair, and we got a “we’ll gladly reduce your next stay by 25%.” What a joke. We started our trip with grand hopes of a romantic getaway; it was our one-year anniversary. An Airbnb on a sailboat sounded wonderful. We arrived on Friday afternoon, March 10th, a bit early for our check-in. We had been told earlier than we could check in anytime, and we were excited about that. Upon notification of our arrival, we were given authorization to board “the Lydie” and await Clint Austin’s (the captain) arrival.

When he arrived, he briefly walked us through the cabin, and tested faucets. They didn’t work, so he flipped a few switches, the water came on, and viola. He showed us the bathroom and said there was plenty of water for the weekend. We tried the stove and oven; they didn’t work. He tried to get the pilot lit, but it eluded him. We never did get the stove or oven to work. A few more switches flipped, and Captain Austin was away. We were on our own. The trouble began on Friday evening; while getting ready for dinner, we noticed the smell. There was air freshener beneath the bathroom sink, which we used not sparingly. Showering, we noticed the water not draining. We made contact with the host to explain our concern about standing water in the shower, and she absently suggested we wait for it to drain or “use the showers above.” We had just spent $400 dollars to stay the weekend, a romantic getaway, on a sailboat, and we were told not to worry about the water because the showers above worked fine. Incredibly, the host’s reaction to a stopped-up shower gave her no pause, nor any real concern for our comfort or wellbeing. She simply didn’t care. Taking her advice, we waited for the shower to drain, but it did not.

By the next morning, the smell was beginning to become an issue, and our next contact was with Clint Austin, the captain. We tried calling, then sent a text at approximately 8:00 AM. As our day had been planned – a leisurely trip to Catalina Island via ferry – and we were going to be gone all day, we figured any issues would have been taken care of and the boat would be back to an acceptable condition. We arrived back to the boat well after 6:00 PM with the same water standing in the same shower and the smell was now unbearable. We again notified the host and was told not to use the showers, which were directly tied to the toilet, and that this had not happened before. At the end of the day we’re dealing with a marine toilet and marine shower. They were not as fool proof as your own home toilet, but the good news is no one got stranded, as we had showers and toilets at the marina within walking distance to the boat. Walking distance. Outside the boat, 50 yards away, through a gate, across a parking lot, through a locked door, and into 1970’s ripped shower curtain hell.

Though there was evidence someone had been on the boat at some point in the day, the issue was not resolved: the boat smelled horrific, and our host seemingly had no intention of making right what had gone so wrong. We were heartbroken. This was supposed to be a memorable weekend. The next morning at daybreak (6:00 AM), after a horrible evening of no sleep, horrific smells, standing water in the shower, an unusable toilet, an oven that didn’t work, a stove that didn’t work, and a host with better things to do, we left the boat. We notified the host of our departure, requested a partial refund (we were willing to split the difference, as the first night wasn’t perfect, but not worthy of challenge, even though nothing worked), and were told “no”.

We realize things go wrong. We understand that. We simply requested a partial (one night) refund as things certainly weren’t worthy of the money spent, and simple requirements, not creature comforts, were unavailable at the time of our stay. Toilets are necessary in a $200 a night room, regardless whether it’s marine, or otherwise. When we requested a refund, the host gave every indication she was unwilling to pay. I suggested that our review hadn’t yet been left and it would be great for me to be able to say “our host, though we experienced some technical difficulties, did the right thing, and we would highly recommend the Lydie, etc.” However, if she continued to be unwilling, our review would reflect as such. She took that as a threat, though none was intended. We were simply trying to get her to understand our experience wasn’t what was purported, advertised, nor expected, and that she, as a host, was under an obligation to right a wrong. The wrong was simple: that which she sold, and we purchased, was not provided. Our contract was breached, and though we were willing to compromise, she flatly refused. She even had the gaul to comment “at least it turned out to be a memorable weekend.”

We are therefore requesting a complete refund of our weekend. To date, though it clearly states within 72 hours we will have a resolution, we have had none. We have had no replies from Airbnb, nor the host (other than to offer a 25% reduction in cost on our next stay – as if that were a possibility), and are currently frustrated at the process. We simply want a favorable resolution to our issue, as the circumstances certainly warrant it.

Cheating Host Supported by Airbnb Customer Service

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The Airbnb accommodation I booked was garbage. It was based in a slum of Ipanema and incorrectly displayed on the map on the listing, miles away from seaside. The taxi driver from the airport was more useless in finding the address than our telephone. He called Mari (the Airbnb owner). She guided the taxi driver after he was reluctant to go into that area, known for criminal activity. The driver said it was not safe even for me and no one should go there. At our request, under the compelling circumstances, and in fear of our threat to report him to the police he did finally take us. Finally, we reached the end of the street where someone was waiting for us, who guided us through narrow streets two to three feet wide for 200 meters. This zigzag street was a 45-degree ascent up the hill – very difficult to climb or walk. We reached a small house after about 40 meters and then there were stairs without a railing. Then we had to climb to the four floor, which was very risky for my child and for me having a heart condition. When we reached the top, there was one room with rotten furniture and two single beds. Adjacent to it was a small room with a broken sofa. Both room had dirty sheets. This was not like any other apartment in the world nor it was in the Ipanema area as anyone would understand it.

This listing is a stigma on Airbnb and if it is not removed then it should be considered fraud. I should be refunded the total amount for my stay. I’ve contacted the international number for Airbnb customer service from time to time but after holding for five to six minutes each time there was no response.