Author Archives: Dawn Deutsch

Airbnb Supports Fraudulent Listings in Scottsdale

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My family and I planned a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona for my son’s graduation from college. I decided to try Airbnb for the first time. I searched their website for the exact location I wanted to stay in: “Old Town Scottsdale”. I found several locations with “Old Town Scottsdale” in the title.

We found one called “Upscale Townhome, Old Town Scottsdale”. It had enough beds to accommodate my family so we made our decision and booked the accommodations for four nights. I paid our deposit of $451 and paid the balance 14 days prior to our arrival (an additional $451). So in total, $902 for four nights.

We arrived at the property on the specified date, only to find that this property was not located in “Old Town Scottsdale” as stated in the listing. The location of this townhouse was in a group of apartment buildings, which did not fit the description of “upscale”. Using Google Maps we mapped how far we were from my requested area: fifteen minutes by car.

Immediately I contacted the host, told him of our disappointment, and informed him that we would not be staying in his townhome. I contacted Airbnb with our complaint, I also contacted our credit card company to reverse the charges. After a week of going back and forth with Airbnb, they decided that they were siding with the host of the townhome and we would not be refunded our deposit or final payment.

Not only am I out $902 from Airbnb but also the additional cost of having to find accommodations elsewhere for the four nights. After reading Airbnb’s cancellation policy, where it states that if the location is wrong a full refund will be awarded, I contacted them again. They are standing by their original decision of no refund. Now my only course of action is to contact an attorney.

Before you book this company for your vacation, check their background. There are multiple websites (Airbnb Hell, BBB, Airbnb complaints…) with similar or worse experiences, all with the same outcome of the guests being refused a refund. I wish I had checked before I booked. I will never use this company again and highly suggest that others do not either.

Left Broke and Homeless after Airbnb Experience

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I’m glad I found this site. My story is horrifying. I don’t even know where to turn to seek legal counsel, but I am Googling it now.

I had booked a week’s stay in Tijuana in July. I stayed in a very affluent home, with several guests. The couple that owned it (different from the people I was corresponding with on Airbnb) seemed friendly and nice at first. When I first arrived, and told them my plans to stay longer, they showed me this sweeping private room with a bathroom on another floor that was still under construction. They said it would be ready in a week, at $700/month with a $700 deposit down. They said that the deposit was refundable at any time, and that there was no minimum or maximum amount of time to stay.

Within a couple days, I began paying them the $1400 to reserve that room. The process was a bit strange, but they received all their money within four days of my seven-day stay. On the fifth day, I had a horrible fall on a broken sidewalk in the shopping area, and twisted my foot badly. I came back to the home, trying to see if they could assist or direct me in any way. They sat, reading the paper, and sort of ignored me. I found the whole experience very offputting, but kept it to myself.

On the sixth day, I was outside chatting with another guest and smoking a cigarette (in a designated area), when the couple came outside and yelled at me about leaving a door unlocked. I hadn’t been the culprit, but they were aggressive and kept pushing the matter. I had – to be honest – forgotten to lock the door a night before, but only had stepped outside to smoke. This time I was not to blame, as the home has over four guest rooms (to my estimate) and a lot of foot traffic.

This accusation was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I told them I was no longer comfortable being in their home, and wanted my money back. They immediately pushed back, saying no. I told them that wasn’t acceptable, and went to my rented room to try to contact someone who could help (not easy to do when in another country).

Before I knew it, two fedarali were at my door. They told me to get my things, and get out (my lease officially didn’t end for a couple more hours). When I demanded my money, the woman who owns the house told them I had bought a big screen TV (they had, it was in the front room of their home. I’d seen it that morning.). Being a temporary visitor with no car, I explained to the officers I absolutely didn’t buy a TV, it made no sense I would do that at this stage. They seemed to half believe me, but were very intimidating.

The police made me sign a document in Spanish before they would let me exit the bedroom (they were acting in a way that I for sure felt they were going to arrest me, and don’t speak any Spanish). I also suffer from severe anxiety and PTSD, and this sent me into a fear spiral. I signed the document so they’d let me go, and was put in an Uber.

I had him stop to get what little money I had exchanged (I also realized what was left in my backpack was now missing). It wasn’t much, but while I was in the grocery store, the car left with my bags.

Now down to nothing, I was forced to walk for a couple miles to beg someone for help. I had to sleep on the street that night, and my foot was swollen to three times its size. I suffer from a degenerative bone disorder, and am basically handicapped. I took a picture of what my foot looked like the next morning.

The next day, I was determined to get my money, so I spent a couple hours in town finding a couple of bilingual high school students. I offered them money to get in the taxi with me to translate at the house. When we got there, it was worse than I expected. I was given $400, and before receiving it, was forced to sign another document in Spanish (I was so desperate, I did it).

At that point I was almost at zero dollars, in a town i didn’t know. They accused me of losing their keys (I absolutely did not. I know this because I have a chain wallet and left my keys attached to it for the course of the stay. When the federali escorted me out, I handed the key over then). According to them, they were going to have to get the locks changed and that would cost a few hundred more. In the end, they stole over $1000 from me, plus some of my luggage, and sent me into an anxiety spiral that took weeks to work through in therapy.

I am currently seeking legal representation, and would like any advice the community has. Thank you.

Airbnb Guest Attacked my Dog, Deleted from Airbnb

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I’ve rented a few locations in Prague on Airbnb in the past two years. I had 107 four-star reviews, until a frat group from Israel arrived to get me kicked off the platform. Due to manners I greeted the guests in person at the place. They booked for seven days. I showed them everything.

Within the first five minutes, I got called “ata homo” multiple times  which I think is Hebrew for “you f%g”. I’m not the kind of guy who receives much disrespect unless people are of the utterly stupid kind, so I told them in English that I do understand them and they should show some manners. We got along great from that point on. It was fine when they were noisy or caused minor damage. They are young; they lack the respect that comes with responsibility. Not everyone has basic manners that are the basics of my life.

I live in the same district as the Airbnb. One Saturday night I walked my dog, seeing the group in front of the place. I walked by, asked if all was well with them, and if there were any issues. Suddenly one of the guys started to call me a racist (they were all just as white as me), saying that “people like you kill Jews” to which I replied with “my great grandfather actually served at Waffen-SS as a officer but those days are over, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”

This resulted in them leaving to a Vietnamese shop nearby. I was just thinking “holy crap, these f-ing tourists”. Right next to the place is one great Pizza place (and Russian food). I stopped by there, and talked with them for a bit. My dog got free food and some water… all good.

Then I heard a bottle smash into the wall next to me; the frat boys from hell threw it, shouting English and Hebrew gibberish from across the street. I just told them to be quiet – normal people live here too. They crossed the street, and some highly aggressive talking starts from them. I had no idea what was up with them.

One of them kicked my dog who was just standing beside me not giving much a s&%t about whats going on. Like he actually kicked a dog in the chest. I replied “attack” and the dog defended himself by attacking the attacker. What an absolute mess: the pizza place owner came out of his joint and threatened us with the police. The guys tried to hit him and instead earned some fists.

The police arrived, took the guy who attacked my dog to the hospital – he lost two fingers. One other guy had a mildly broken nose, nothing too bad in my opinion. All were arrested but let go the next day. I immediately contacted Airbnb over this incident and wanted them to cancel the stay of these idiots. No. I was supposed to host them a few more days until they left.

Instead, the next morning before they left the police station, I went into the apartment to pack their stuff together. A legal person (a student lawyer of my lawyers) was around to provide “neutral opinion of the situation” so nothing got stolen or anything. I bagged everything and placed it in front of the door.

The place was not really damaged but a lot of the furniture was ruined. The total costs for repairs was 427,000 CZK, almost 20,000 Euro.

The guys arrived, picked up their stuff without any issue, and left to go somewhere else. I wrote them a long one-star rating, which after five days disappeared. Airbnb deleted my account within three days, after some s&%tchat with support over three months. They sent me a letter that I am not allowed to discuss this matter anywhere else.

Now I think I will sue them, because after all, Airbnb is involved in heavy tax avoidance schemes here in Czechia. Hosts never have to pay taxes unless they do so on their own accord. Airbnb never pays taxes to the city around here because hosts are supposed to pay taxes, but Airbnb won’t even forward them to the cities in which they are renting.

Sure, it is an easy way of making money, but the people are deteriorating fast. Other hosts I know of also complain more and more that people are an utter disgrace to society. It makes one wonder: how are we supposed to get a sense of society when scum and scams never get punished?

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Host Tries to Claim an Extra $1500 with Fake Photos

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A group of friends and I were delighted to find a listing that had private rooms and bathrooms for each of us in Hong Kong. We booked way in advance before the protests started, and the entire listing was over $1300. Later, as the protests got more intense, that particular area became quite the hotspot. I saw videos online of bricks being torn up to create roadblocks, of police tear gassing protesters – all within a block of the Airbnb.

I contacted the host to see if we could cancel and got our first lie in response – that the Airbnb was ‘far from the protests.’ She said we could cancel but we’d lose half of what we’d paid. $600+ is nothing to sneeze at, so we reluctantly decided to risk it. Luckily, the situation calmed down.

Upon arrival, it was clear she was lying. The sidewalk in front of the Airbnb was cemented over because, though it wasn’t featured in the videos, it had been torn up during protests. That was no big deal compared to the actual Airbnb itself and her later behavior.

We checked in, and all the rooms except one (the one heavily featured on the listing) were much smaller. The photos, on closer inspection, had been taken with a fisheye lens to make them look bigger. The size we could live with. The smell and grime we could not. The place smelled of musty mildew and that smell never went away.

The bathrooms were also tiny, having the shower placed pretty much above the toilet. Again – this wouldn’t be that bad if it weren’t dirty. One toilet was so close to the wall you couldn’t sit without your knees touching the wall. The person in that room gave up after a night and got a hotel room for the rest of his stay. The rest of us endured but also got hotel rooms for two nights.

We were not aware that we could have complained to Airbnb and gotten alternative lodgings. I had never encountered such a situation before, having had positive experiences, so we assumed that if we were to back out we would be out of $1300. Now I know better.

After the stay, I submitted my review, and after discussing it with my fellow travelers, got over my dislike of confrontation to ask the host for a refund. She offered to refund just the cleaning fee of $60. I then submitted a formal request for a refund via the resolution center, and this is where it gets crazy.

She claimed the place had been professionally cleaned (please look at the photos and tell me if you think that counts as professional cleaning) and threatened to report me to the police and said she would be charging me for damage. What damage? She sent me a request for an additional $1500 for stained white sheets, complete with photos. The photos were fake. We had taken a video before we left that clearly showed the sheets provided to us in completely different colors and patterns.

I refused to pay this, of course, and this was the final straw that made me escalate to Airbnb support, who – to their credit – gave me a 50% refund. The host sent me one last message before I blocked her, saying she’d reported me to police for refusing to pay. Needless to say I will never use Airbnb again if I can help it.

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Most Terrifying Airbnb Experience, Haven’t Received Anything

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I had a super intense depressing day. All I wanted to do was just take a shower, lie down, and relax. I recently had a fire and lost everything so I got an Airbnb yesterday. Everything in the post was a lie: it said it had its own entrance; it said it had a hot tub; it said it had two beds in my room; it said it had heat; it said it had a gym.

I came to find out the house that I got dropped off at after I spent $30 for a Uber ride wasn’t even the address listed on the post. I found this out when a girl from across the street came out and said she was the Airbnb host. I walked across the street and asked her why the listing said it was that house. She said that it was a glitch in the GPS.

I walked inside the house and there was no heat. Mind you, it was below zero outside. The whole house was nasty and trashed. My room was not the room in the post. That it had no heat was bad enough, but she also had a bunch of people there. She was doing drugs inside the house with all her friends.

There was no hot tub. I didn’t have my own entrance. I mean basically everything was a complete lie. I got on the phone with Airbnb and they ended up telling me to leave. I ended up walking a mile to get to the next closest place. Mind you, it was below zero and I just had the worst week of my life. I ended up at a Wawa convenience store. My phone’s going to die here.

The Airbnb people told me they were going to comp me some money to go somewhere and get some food until they figured out what to do. They told me they were going to call me back. It’s the next day and I still haven’t got a refund or anything. I had to spend another $30 on a ride, spending extra money out of pocket to stay somewhere. I missed a day of work and got written up for it. It’s been one thing after the next and they still haven’t even called me or done anything to fix my issue.

Sexually Assaulted at Owner-Occupied Airbnb

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Has anyone else been sexually accosted and verbally harassed in an Airbnb by their hosts? I am a single, professional executive female who travels domestically (US) and internationally extensively. I recently stayed in an owner-occupied Airbnb in Denver. This was my first time sharing a residence, though have been renting “entire place” Airbnbs for 5-6 years now.

In Denver, it’s now apparently illegal to short-term rent your space (it’s a felony) unless you – the owner – live inside the home as your primary residence. This made me a bit nervous, to share a residence with a stranger, as a single woman traveling alone, so I specifically looked for either woman-owned or couple-owned places. I found one owned by a male and female together. I was able to Google them based on their info on Airbnb and discovered the woman was an elected official in Denver, so felt even more comfortable renting a room there.

The first night I showed up, only the male owner and his male nephew were there. I arrived about 7:30 PM on a weeknight, only to find the owner seemingly very drunk (8-10 beer bottles on the kitchen counter). He showed me to my private room (note: in the listing, they do not say that they rent out up to three bedrooms at a time in their home, and all guests – so up to six – share one small bathroom) and when I came back downstairs to make some food in the shared kitchen, found the owner smoking pot (which is legal here in CO, and they do note in their listing that they are “420-friendly.”)

He began asking me about my kids, asked to see photos of my gay sons and said he’d like to “eat something as delicious as your boys sound.” Sadly, things got much worse from there. The female owner was out of town for the first half of my stay, and when I mentioned on my second day there that I needed to do a load of laundry (access to W/D is in their listing), I was told I “better hurry and get it done before [female owner] gets back home – she doesn’t like people in the basement and doesn’t like people using her things. Just do the laundry now and don’t tell her you did it.”

The female owner did return from her travels. I barely met her for a few minutes as I was not comfortable in the home, so was staying in my rented bedroom with the door locked most of the time (there were huge festivals and conventions in Denver that week, so nowhere else to move/rent).

One night when I knew the owners were out, I came downstairs to make some food and work on my laptop. The female owner came home while I was cooking, and had clearly been drinking. She continued to drink, began insulting me for being a single mother, asked why I had so many kids, how I got so many gay kids (implying I’d done something “wrong” to have this outcome), etc.

I was doing my best to exit the conversation and go back to my bedroom when the female owner got into my personal space, said “I’m going to kiss you now,” and before anything even registered, she grabbed my face with both her hands and kissed me full-on on the lips, then began crying. I made an escape to my room, very shaken.

I left their property less than 36 hours later for good (as soon as I could), but not before the male owner (fiance of the female owner) apologized for her behavior, asked if I’d sit and talk with her and said she had just begun trauma counseling – that was why she was blackout drunk, put her hands (and lips) on me and had said so many inappropriate, discriminatory things.

I did report them to Airbnb as soon as I left. They assigned a case manager to me, and I explained how traumatizing the whole experience is, as I am a sexual assault survivor from an incident with a work colleague in 2015. All Airbnb did was to refund my stay, say they’d look into it, and then cut off all communications with me. Both my attorney and I have repeatedly tried to reach Airbnb via email and phone and cannot get anyone to address my continued issues. It’s been two months now since the incident. If anyone has any advice based on similar experiences with Airbnb, please do share.

Complete Dump Misrepresented on Airbnb

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The Airbnb house was infested with rodents. This was not a mild problem. There were multiple rodent droppings in the cupboards inside the pots and pans, strainers, tupperware, etc. I discovered new droppings in the pantry on our second morning (where we were keeping our food). The host had to provide us with large plastic bins to safely store our food and protect it from rodents. Droppings were littered under the refrigerator.

The house needs major repairs. The deck is completely rotten and unsafe to walk on with the second floor railing about to fall off. The septic system leaked sewer gas into the house when it rained or if we took a shower. We saw a pipe draining out of the side of the house with brown/soapy liquid that smelled like sewage, but can’t verify that it was. Smelled bad though.

The host does not present truthful information in the listing regarding handicapped accessibility. There are no bedrooms or bathrooms that are accessible without climbing stairs. There are also no railings on the stairs at all. I specifically asked the host about this because my elderly father was traveling with us and he needed an accessible bedroom and bathroom. The host assured me that there were accommodations for my father “on the main floor” but failed to mention that it involved climbing four stairs without a railing. I guess he just wanted to rent the house.

The dishwasher does not work. It is worn out and even after we got it to run through a cycle, it did not clean the dishes. The host sent a technician during our stay who was supposed to “order parts”. We were left with a moldy dish rack (yuck) so we could hand wash dishes. I complained and the host sent a new dish rack.

The pots and pans were so worn out and scraped up that the non-stick coating came off in our food. They were unusable. I complained and when a lady (his wife?) delivered us a new set of pans and told me “well, it’s just a rental”. People renting a $486/night “rental” have the right to expect a clean kitchen with usable appliances and cookware.

There was a waste can half full of moldy water underneath one of the downstairs sinks. The trap on the sink was a worn out rubber type that completely leaked. Obviously the host knew and just put a trashcan under it. It smelled bad and we poured out the moldy water. Again, $486/night.

Years ago this was probably a nice family home. Currently it needs major repairs and has health and safety issues. The host is misrepresenting it as “a truly magnificent meditation retreat” and even though Airbnb is now aware of this scam, they refuse to hold the owner accountable. They obviously make a lot of money from high end listings like this, even if guests are scammed and it’s a dump.

The Worst Airbnb Customer Service Experience

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Hey everyone, here is my story. We’ve been using Airbnb for two years and rented about 15 places around the world. The big issue came on our last reservation in Hawaii that we booked seven months in advance. We made a booking on July 30, 2019 for our stay for January 17-24, 2020.

On August 1st, the state of Hawaii had a bill passed that prevents short-term rentals to rent with no license for less than 30 days. It’s becoming a common practice around the US and the world. However, our host waited until the last minute to cancel on us and advised that their listing on Airbnb was flagged by local authorities, who advised them if they kept renting illegally they would get fined a lot of money.

While I appreciate the host’s honesty, I don’t appreciate that host was well informed about the upcoming laws and technically was running their own business illegally while Airbnb was paid – also illegally. The host cancelled four weeks before our check in. I reached out to Airbnb and they advised us that they don’t have any responsibility at all regarding local regulations; it’s up to the host to decide if they want to do business legally or illegally.

We decided to re-book a similar place but it was more costly since we only have four weeks left before check in. According to the bill, any short-term rental agent must provide their license or advise the customer if the property is listed legally. When I asked this question to my new host, the host ignored me and kept silent. I followed up on the next day asking the same question. The host then reached out, saying that they wouldn’t rent this place to us and wished me good luck. With a strict cancellation policy allowing no refund and refusing to cancel the reservation, this host told us we had to cancel. Well, this sounded like a scam to us.

We reached out to Airbnb with this situation and they also refused to do anything on their part. After multiple hours of calling them and asking for a manger they rudely advised us that they were denying my request to talk to a manager and we on our own. My first thought was, “Wow, we just got scammed by Airbnb in real life.”

Within twenty minutes of this disaster, the manager called me. I explained the situation to him, then he told me that he would reach out the host for clarification. Ten minutes later, the reservation was cancelled with a full refund that we still have not received. We were quite shocked about what actually happened and we probably would never use Airbnb anymore. We actually did some research and ended up booking a better option with a hotel.

It also looks like that price-wise, Airbnb and hotels are not that far apart, but if something goes wrong with Airbnb, you will regret any business with them. It’s actually a disaster dealing with Airbnb customer service.

A Laundry Room is not a “Private Room”

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Due to being desperate to find affordable housing in LA during the summer, I settled for the next best thing: Airbnb. At the time it seemed like a huge step up from where I had previously stayed (a six-person dorm in what seemed like a large renovated tool shed with no windows and sketchy guests). Now it’s just getting ridiculous.

Again, I had decided to stay in this Airbnb because I was literally desperate for some peace of mind, and I thought, “Hey, considering how many people potentially live in this Airbnb, they’re not going to do laundry every day“… except they basically are.

It seems that the hosts/property managers clean for other houses (what I am assuming other Airbnbs that they own), so they basically use this laundry room pretty consistently. There are usually two days at most in the week where they aren’t? If they aren’t using the room, then other guests usually need to wash their laundry. I rarely have privacy.

There seem to be a slew of other questionable things the “hosts” do. I have noticed the roommate of the host has spammed positive reviews on every listing they’ve put on Airbnb. I put “hosts” in quotation marks because the whole thing is confusing in of itself. I’ve never met the actual hosts in person; I’ve only met the property manager, who has access to the hosts’ account.

Another guest and I often wondered if said property manager and host are the same person but under a different name. Not to mention how the property manager thought I voted for Trump for some reason when I first got there. It became like a hyperfixation for them. They would always mention it as like a “gotcha” moment, but I never did. It always just came off as confusing at first but then got annoying when I was just trying to get on with my day.

They once used my contact information to even text me a picture of Trump. They also did the text thing to a former guest I roomed with at around the same time we stayed, and when said guest replied with ‘lol’, the property manager asked him who he voted for. I feel like there are a lot of other things that I have forgotten to mention, but it would take a while to remember what other stuff I tolerated.

I am not entirely sure what I can do at this point to be honest. If there is anything you can take from this just please don’t support these hosts’ listings. They’re weird, and kinda sketchy. I am also genuinely tired of Airbnb as a platform. I have never had a good experience with Airbnb, and considering how it has proven to be one of the major factors for how messed up the housing situation has become in the US, I wish it would get trashed as a whole.

Three Hours at Airbnb Cost us $14000

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It is December 10th and Airbnb has yet to resolve this. It started on April 2nd. My company has used Airbnb to the tune of well over $60000, most of that within the last two years. This was going to be a four-month rental. We were there for three hours, tried to work things out with the host as Airbnb suggested, reported everything the next day, and we were still charged over $14,000. We’ve contacted Airbnb on numerous occasions in regard to this, always told this should have been taken care of some time ago.

The entire place reeked of cat urine. This in and of itself was intolerable. The host left all of his belongings in dressers, etc. The host asked three women (my two employees and client) if he could stay on the property. The host left Playboy magazines and condoms in view

We contacted Airbnb numerous times, and was told each time “Oh, this should have been taken care of some time ago”, promised a call back, then nothing happened. The host agreed to settle for $1000 and a good review, then his daughter looked at the terms and said “we can get more than $10000”. The host has had similar complaints and violated several other Airbnb policies.

Airbnb continued to charge our Amex when they knew we were no longer a guest (the second day), when they could have helped us resettle and let the host relist. Instead, Airbnb has now paid the host and infuriated a very good client. There are several other things I could mention, but you get the gist here.

I just saw Airbnb’s CEO on the news promising to clean things up. Here would be a good start. We’ve been in business 15 years and are an extremely moral and ethical company. We do not deserve to be treated in this manner. I hope to hear something soon from Airbnb’s department that is supposedly working on this again.