I’ve had SEVEN, count that SEVEN experiences with AirBNB customer service. They have the worst customer service you could possibly imagine. They are getting worse and worse and worse. Last night I was locked out of the reservation I arrived at and was supposed to be staying at for 11 nights when I arrived late. I stood outside in the cold for 2 hours and then was told that I had to get a motel with my own credit card and ask for a refund after the fact. When I told them I wanted a refund because under no circumstances would I pay to be locked out in the cold in the middle of the night and then have to rent a room, they WITHHELD $100 FROM ME IN THE REFUND. In otherwords, they MADE ME PAY $100 TO BE LOCKED OUT IN THE COLD WITH NOWHERE TO STAY FOR 2 HOURS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. They refused to do anything else.
Author Archives: Brandon S
If you have a serious problem, Airbnb is nowhere to be found
New host. Had several reservations booked. Became concerned when I didn’t hear back from my correspondence with guests. Had one guest who became pushy and passive aggressive before her rental dates. Informed Airbnb. Customer service was good at mediating and said they’d protect me. To call them if I had a problem with guest. Guest was not a good communicator and had no graciousness at all. Wanted me to let someone into the unit before her, that had not made the reservation. I wasn’t comfortable with it. Airbnb had every excuse for the guest and said I should let other members of the group in that didn’t make the reservation. Ended up cancelling reservation. Reached out via text message to next guests cell phone, only to find out she never received my emails through their site. Tried to talk to Airbnb and some dope named Lyle senior case manager decided it was all my fault and I’d pay a penalty for it. Tried to call with new information that guests don’t receive email, got tossed around. Got contacted via email from Lyle even though I asked to go above him. Was told their community relations dept would call me back. They never did. Called them a day later. They disconnected me. Called again. They had no record of the day before a conversation and reiterated that the decision by Kyle was final. They never let me talk to anyone higher. I dumped their service, app, my reservations… Everything. They couldn’t care less.
Disappointing and inconvenient
Rented a place through Airbnb, the first night didn’t get a key. The second night was locked outside, and so-called “host” said that I should have texted/called before [showing up at the place I had paid money for]. After asking why can’t I get a key, the host became hostile and suggested to cancel reservation. I contacted Airbnb, cancelled, got full refund (thanks to Judy W. with Airbnb), and got offered a hotel room for free due to the inconvenience that was brought upon me from this psychopath, ungrateful, imbecile “host”. I hope nobody ever stays at Martha’s place in east Austin, and I hope Airbnb gets her place off the list.
Horrible in Hong Kong
I booked this room, but I decided not to stay here (https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/6407995) very quickly after my arrival. I just looked at the place and said “not for me”. Whilst I probably should’ve investigated a bit more before agreeing to rent, but you tend to take things on face value, and other reviews, so I thought I’d got a decent deal. After having to navigate my way up a rather steep, narrow and extremely dirty and smelly staircase with brown liquid stuff (which I hope was ices cream or similar) carrying a heavy suitcase, I found a very, very tiny room with an extremely uncomfortable bed, very small outdoor style table and chairs, no place to hang or store clothing, the curtains are see through, and on top of all that, the air conditioner did nothing except make a loud noise. The place is quite central, but that’s probably the only thing it has going for it. Oh and the WiFi works fine, once you get the correct user id and password. It was printed incorrectly on the fact sheet, so I had to contact Romain to get it sorted. To Romain’s credit, he answered all my emails and inquiries very quickly, but unfortunately the place just wasn’t up to a standard I find acceptable. I think there needs to be more honesty in the description of the apartments on AirBnB. Must admit, this experience has left a bitter taste in my mouth and I probably won’t be using this service again. I did contact AirBnB, to complain, but 4 weeks later, I am still waiting for a reply.
AIRBNB IS DUMPING SUPERHOSTS IN NYC IF THEY HAVE MORE THAN ONE LISTING.
I am so disgusted with airbnb that I have been seriously branching out to other sites. Anyway, the owner or manager from New York Stay called me and we talked for over one hour yesterday. She told me that the reason airbnb is dumping super hosts in NYC is because of the law here. She said this has been planned since airbnb came out with the warm and fuzzy campaign and the new logo. I asked airbnb about it and they said yes it is true. They are dumping you if you have more than one listing in NYC. The thing is that if airbnb did not have a financial stake in the process, they would not have to do that. If they would just collect a commission for hooking you up with the guests, and stop with holding the money to collect interest, stop with the 1099s, stop meddling with unqualified arbitrators, and just take their 15% and then have the guest pay the host directly and use the host’s contract, they could spend there time making sure the listings on their site are all real instead of causing grief for people due to their unethical incompetence. This company is a nightmare!!!! Plus, they could have warned people about this when they came out with the new warm and fuzzy campaign and that stupid logo.
Home Owners should never use Airbnb!
Airbnb is banned in some cities for GOOD REASON. For homeowners it is a nightmare and puts your investment or home in serious jeopardy. A pet was brought on our property and left damage, Airbnb did NOTHING after pictures, credible witness accounts and replacement cost of furniture was sent in. The agent at AirBNB named Pepper was no help at all. The alleged deposit Air bnb keeps is NOT a legal deposit, it is a hold on a credit card . The deposit is never transferred to the homeowner which leaves a total stranger to take possession of your home without a deposit. The homeowner is not paid till min 24 hours, this can cause a legal nightmare in some places with have very liberal eviction procedures. Do NOT use AIRBNB! It should be illegal in every state and country. Air Bnb does not take in information such as passports and identification and has no full legal state lease if you are in the States. This is a serious problem. They have no criteria regarding the forfeit of the alleged debit card deposit which never gets to the home owner. No forfeit of deposit for violation of home owner rules. It is nearly impossible to speak to a supervisor . This company is operating outside of the law, do not risk your home or investment with this company.
Psychopathic airbnb host in Hawaii
We booked a room that was formerly called “the surfer room” in hawaii. It is now listed as “hawaiian spirit and lots of aloha”. The host was a crazy woman that posted reminder notes all over the place. These reminders were an insult. Turn off the lights, turn off the fan, don’t put quilt on floor, leave door open, leave sand at the beach, and more. All she did was complain about past guests. Read some of her very very long replies to comments guests have left on the Airbnb.com site! This lady yells and screams when she talks. Her site has listed many amenities that aren’t available unless you pay her some cash. She refuses to do laundry unless you pay $10 per load. She claimed that it’s a contribution because the resources in hawaii are so limited and so expensive. We can understand that but then don’t offer them as “guest amenities”.The glass shutters in the room were broken. The toilet was awfully dirty with hair, mold and sand. The kitchen was even worse. The toaster oven was gross and the microwave was worse. There is a coffee machine that was also gross. And this host brags about how much of a clean freak she is. All this crap for close to $100 per night. The $40 cleaning fee was a joke. We had to do most of the cleaning ourselves before checkout. Then finally she begged us to post a great 5 star review. We refuse to post anything positive because there was nothing good about the surfer room. We expect that our negative review will be removed by Airbnb since it looks like this is what they do. I highly suggest you avoid this terrible hawaiian airbnb listing 100% at all costs!
Dirty Apartment, horrible host
I booked an airbnb place in tokyo, Japan. It was an Apartment located at takadanobaba. From the pictures, the place looked big and pristine. However, when we visited, the sheets were covered with hair and was extremely dusty to the point where you can see a layer of greyish dust on it. The whole house was covered in hair, and dust too. Everywhere. The host did not even clean the room at all. The host did not bother to clean the room everyday and only cleaned it when we checked out, and we even paid him a cleaning fee of $56!! It was horrible. The hosts’ name is Kazuto Imai.
DO NOT BECOME AN AIRBNB HOST!!! $1500 in damage and NO help!
Hosts beware!!! I had over $1500 in damage done by guests, all documented via photos and witnesses, and I even submitted professional estimates to repair walls, replace damaged dressers, sheets, mattresses, pillows, rugs, and carpet cleaning (guest took red lipstick and used it on my off white carpet all over the entire house!). I advised airbnb at the VERY beginning of this guest abuse (verbal) that my house was being destroyed while they were here, it started slow and they went crazy with it when they departed (I was at work at that time). I was never given the option to evict them without penalties. I did EVERYTHING airbnb asked of me from submitting the request to “guests” which was refused immediately by them along with NO denial that they did it, continued on with the representative who then told me I had to speak to a different team at airbnb (this was now my FOURTH “pass off”). The new airbnb individual said they needed documentation. I provided it and asked if he could access or if I needed to start from the beginning (I had A LOT of evidence so this was weeks worth of work), I also requested a number to call. The representative, Jake, said they have no number to contact them, that they would only offer “fair market value ” (items are new and only 4 months old), and asked for additional/actual proof of original costs of the destroyed items. I searched emails and the web to find this after I told Jake I didn’t have this information readily accessible/available. No response. I email again 6 days later with everything ready and ask him if what I have is what airbnb needs, no response. Airbnb appears to have closed the claim…… Wow, just wow.
This is a huge hit for my family. I continue to receive no response or resolution from Airbnb on this. I am sad this happened, hurt because I adored hosting people (before this guest), and financial burdened during holiday with a young child who will not get the gift she deserves because I’m left on my own to clean up the mess and have been abandoned by airbnb. I could have put an ad on Craigslist and had a better result and fewer fees.
AirBnB Listings Not Searchable Anymore
I joined last year as a host. I had a booming business for one year. Then in October I started noticing my listings were not searchable. I’ve now spent 3 weeks trying to get my listings to appear. They will appear sporadically, then disappear. Booking inquiries mostly zero. Is this due to AirBnB doing their “Personalized Search” for guests thing (i.e. also language that means they can show…or hide..your listing from whomever they want)? Would like to know if anyone else has this problem. And I know its not about filters searching or dates searching…I mean that when my listings should show as available – they just aren’t showing.