Author Archives: Jackie Murphy

Refund Madness Leaves me with Nothing

Posted on

I have been struggling to get my refund from Airbnb for a month now. I contacted the host after I booked and explained how I had to cancel my reservation. He told me that I would be entitled to my full refund and that it would take up to 15 days to receive it. I patiently waited and it never came.

I then contracted Airbnb and was told I had to contact the host to get my refund. I contacted the host and he told me he had done his part; it was now up to Airbnb. This has become a joke. All Airbnb keeps telling me is the cancellation policy.

I have canceled within the policy rules and I am entitled to my refund. The host has agreed to give me my refund but I don’t understand what the heck Airbnb is doing. Do they enjoy stealing from people? This is a nightmare. I would never recommend this site to anyone.

Airbnb Host Insists a Guest Cancel without Notice

Posted on

Our host cancelled our reservation the morning we arrived because we were early. I contacted him over the phone (which was on the reservation). We have had issues to get on the wifi so communication was limited at some point before. He was very angry that I got in touch to see if we could check in earlier. I offered compensation and my apologies. He was okay and told me he was letting me in the house with a key code.

As soon as we got in, he called me on WhatsApp to say he was not going to host us and was going to cancel our booking. He told me to tell Airbnb so they could get me a new place. Now he is not cancelling officially on the Airbnb site and I have emailed him, so I can get my full refund. I believe he is waiting for me to cancel, to get some money. This is not fair as he decided not to host us today, when we were due to check in. He is leaving us with no place to stay and taking part of our money. I am starting to think this guy does this all the time.

I reported this to Airbnb a few hours later. I messaged him straight away after he cancelled. I have politely requested him to cancel my stay but now he is not answering my messages. As for Airbnb, they haven’t done anything either; they should step in and refund me. I have made sure I requested this in writing within the time frame, and it was the host who decided to cancel. I’m still waiting, short on cash and with nowhere to stay.

Airbnb Allows Fake Account to Let Felon Host

Posted on

I was preparing for an extended work assignment in a northern state. After viewing several places, I came across an Airbnb that was in my price and location. I messaged the host and introduced myself to “Debbie”. She said that her retired brother and daughter lived in the home and she was traveling for work. Good enough.

I made the 12 hour drive and finally arrived at the house. I was greeted by a woman – not “Debbie” – and was shown around. There were more people than I thought staying there. The following week I met the homeowner. I inquire as to who “Debbie” was and he changed the subject rather quickly. I began to become suspicious as to what was really going on after he said that all communication could go through him via text.

I compared the number that I was given to me by Debbie and it was the owner’s. I decided to Google him and get more information. I found that Debbie had passed away the previous year and that he was a convicted felon (burglary). Apparently either she made the account for him or he used her information to open an account. I would have confronted him but quickly found out that he was currently doing a short stay in the local lockup for another DUI.

I packed my things and hit the door running. Nothing felt right about the stay there and situations like this are how people end up in an ice bath, missing a kidney. I’m currently in the process of trying to get some sort of refund from Airbnb and he should be out of jail at the end of this week. It should be an interesting conversation if he tries to contact me.

When your Condo gets Trashed by Spring Breakers

Posted on
blank

My condo located in Destin, Florida sleeps six. I booked it to a seemingly sweet couple, but in reality, it turned out to be twenty spring breakers who trashed my place. My housekeeping company charged three times the departure cleaning fee and rightfully so. All of my bed and bath linens were destroyed along with many other things.

I filed my claim with Airbnb and sent my housekeepers’ images. The response I got back from Airbnb was that the guest had already paid a cleaning fee. My reply was the cleaning required to perform a necessary departure clean of one hour is far less than the real cost of four additional hours to clean up after 20 spring breakers partying like rockstars for a week. Airbnb indicated that the images didn’t look that bad.

It appears that Airbnb is now setting the cleaning rates nationwide. My housekeeper has taken great care of my unit over the years. Airbnb charges whatever they want for their services and now seems to be deciding the fees on other businesses also. If 60 images of a trashed home are not enough for Airbnb, what is?

It’s crucial for owners who become hosts to know that Airbnb is not going to cover the cost of your vacation rental getting trashed by the guest. They surely did not mention that to me when I was signing up. Now the fault and loss of cleaning up after a lousy guest are dumped on me and the local cleaners and housekeepers. Without my housekeeper, I do not have a vacation rental.

If you are a guest through Airbnb go ahead and trash that unit. The cost to clean it up is on the backs of the cleaning companies now who are being forced by Airbnb to clean it up for free. If I don’t pay my housekeeper, I will receive a lien on my property.

Unverified Property Leads to Nearly Ruined Trip

Posted on

I have been an Airbnb Host and also a guest so my recent experience took me by surprise. I booked a rental in a resort town in Canada, found a perfect location, had four beds (for four adults) and saw it was reasonably priced. I paid my 50% with my Amex Platinum card rather than using Paypal, which I have used in the past. I also sent a note to the owner.

After the Easter holiday weekend, my husband asked if he should cancel the hotel he had booked and I said that I had booked the Airbnb a few days ago. I went to check and there was no reservation, nothing in our upcoming trips or the like. I couldn’t find any messages either on the site or in my email so I was very puzzled.

I finally decided to call Airbnb and while I was looking for contact info on the “contact us” page, I saw a picture of the property with a message that said “did not pass verification”. What the heck? Why wouldn’t I have seen something online or received a message about this? And what verification?

I called customer support and the agent said she couldn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be verified and sometimes “mistakes happen” in their system. She sent my issue to another group and a case manager reached out to me this morning. After several exchanges of messages (after he said it was a system error on their end) he asked how many times I had submitted payment.

Well, only once and it seemed to have gone through; there were no error messages. I explained that my Amex Platinum card would not have rejected anything and have since checked; they did not reject anything.

The case manager said “I am leaving in 15 minutes” and asked me to call back with the number I started with yesterday. After being on hold, the agent said she would transfer me back to have a live conversation in the same department that I had been messaging with and then she disconnected me. I have not received any call back.

Now, the property is booked, we cannot find another one that fits our needs and I am seething. I would have been able to respond and fix the situation if I had been notified, but even the agent was at a loss why we couldn’t see this message except the one buried in in the contact us section. Fortunately, we have found two guest rooms in another place through booking.com but I would like Airbnb to admit to its mistakes (they sometimes make per the agent) and provide some restitution.

Absolute Nightmare of a Host and Stay

Posted on

How can I even begin to describe the absolutely horrible experience my two friends and I had dealing with our Airbnb host? Nothing short of a nightmare.

None of us had ever been to Miami Beach and were so excited to spend our spring break there (April 10th-16th). In the beginning, prior to arriving to Miami, the host was super responsive, seemingly charming and very accommodating. Everything was awesome.

I was told closer to the date that we would be checking in with a man, which was strange because most people I know who booked through Airbnb had lock boxes or codes on the door. However, I assumed he was simply the landlord of the building or something.

They were nice enough to let us check in earlier than expected, since we took a red-eye to Miami and came in at about 3:00 AM. Check-in, which was initially 3:00 PM, was moved up to around 11:00 AM. Great.

The man and his wife, who joined him to let us into the building, were nice enough. I had to sign a lease agreement which I also found odd, since I never had to do anything like that when renting a hotel room. The apartment looked so cute on a preliminary scan, and my friends and I were absolutely enamored.

He and his wife left us with the keys and we were ready to get settled. I ventured into the bathroom to shower so I went through the drawers that were under the sink to find a washcloth and towel. I realized that there were only a couple of washcloths, but there were three of us signed up to rent the place. I assumed maybe there were more in the closet so I took one.

Afterwards, I went to hang up my towel and the towel bar just collapsed. There was no extra pulling on it, not anything. I simply laid my towel on it and boom. The anchor holding it to the wall slid right on out. That being said, it was obviously broken before (this information was later confirmed by him). We also discovered that there were, in fact, only two washcloths.

Before heading to the beach, the left corner of the bed was lightly sat on. It completely gave away and caved in. Luckily there were no injuries, but we were left wondering: where is everyone going to sleep now? I immediately messaged the host to let her know what happened, as well as texted him. No response. We wound up having to put something under the mattress to prop it up for our very first night in this place.

The next day: still no response. I was wondering what happened to my oh-so-hospitable host, seeing as she had always been so responsive prior to my stay. Finally I sent another message and she told me to just call him, but he didn’t answer the phone. I messaged her yet again after he didn’t respond and she contacted him. He showed up unannounced at almost 10:00 PM to give the bed a temporary fix. Then he also promised to bring more towels and washcloths. I never saw him again for the rest of the trip, so we had to continue to use dirty towels and washcloths for the duration of our stay.

One of my friends noticed water pooling behind the toilet, which I thought was maybe from the shower. It turned out, according to him, the toilet had a leak.

On the second night of our stay, since we rotated who would use the couch and the bed, one friend slept on the couch. The next day she woke up with a ton of red bites on her body, which appeared to be bedbug bites. At this point I was completely through with the place. She still currently has the bites and they still itch.

That evening, we all went out. Upon our return we attempted to unlock the door. We had done it quite a few times already so everyone knew which keys went where. The lock wouldn’t budge. We stood outside for a solid ten minutes trying to jimmy the key around until finally one of us was able to get the lock to give. It was then that we realized the top lock was actually broken, which is definitely a safety hazard. There was even a note on it that said not to touch it.

The fourth day we went to turn on the TV In the bedroom. It didn’t work. I am not sure if it ever did, but I know it was advertised and was one of the selling points for me, so I was very disappointed.

My friend went to use the hair dryer, plugged it in, and it made this loud grating noise as if something was stuck in it. Mind you, this was the first time we even realized there was a hair dryer. After the initial plug in, it was never touched again. I submitted a complaint, and the host was contacted about it.

The host was basically yelling at me via my inbox for doing that and was accusing my friends and I of the damage that was clearly pre-existing. I very calmly let her know about each and every problem that had occurred since the bed broke and she basically accused me of being a liar, especially about the bedbug bites. After getting completely snippy with me, she wrote me an awful review and attempted to accuse my friends and I of causing the damages that were clearly pre-existing and tried to charge us for the damages.

I submitted this same review and Airbnb took it down because it “violated community policy”. Although they dismissed the charges, none of my complaints were really addressed. Not that I expected any sort of money in return, but I did not expect to not be assisted at all.

To conclude, this host is a scammer, peddling a mediocre experience disguised as a dream vacation, and Airbnb is the medium that allows for scammers like her to operate unregulated. I am absolutely disgusted.

When an Airbnb Host is not an Airbnb Host

Posted on

About two weeks ago we were paid a visit by a gentleman knocking on our door asking for “Richard”. My wife answered and told him there was no “Richard at this address”. The man seemed confused. He was sure he had the correct address and rechecked his Airbnb app. His intentions were to stay at our home for three nights.

“Sorry, we don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He then showed us photos of our house. Surprise, surprise… we had all been scammed. Whoever had set up the fictitious Airbnb account had swiped photos of our home off of VRBO and populated them into the made-up account. Fortunately, the potential lodger had a daughter in town and was going to flop on her couch.

He did call “Richard” on the supplied phone number but the person on the other line hung up abruptly. We obviously encouraged him to call Airbnb to straighten things out. We also notified Airbnb. Unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears.

We thankfully got some of the information from the poor guy who was left stranded: his confirmation number, etc. We decided to research the information we saw online. The host’s photo had been swiped off a site for cochlear implants, and the cell number belonged to a guy in upstate Wisconsin.

We blocked our caller ID and spoke with him. He said he had been getting calls for the last couple of days and stopped answering the phone. I was sort of surprised that he picked up our call. My wife still thinks he may have been the perpetrator but he sounded somewhat surprised.

Meanwhile, the associates at Airbnb kept telling us someone would call us back… crickets, nada, zip. We called again the next day and the next day after that. No returned calls. All we ever heard was that they would mark our ticket as “URGENT” and call us back… yeah, right.

We also tried contacting Airbnb via their website. There was some back and forth which ended up as a short thread that was eventually moved to email. Once it got moved, the Airbnb contact names would change with every explanation.

A couple of days went by and lo and behold what do you think happened? That’s right, we got another visitor, a couple actually. They too had been bamboozled by this scam but did they get a call from Airbnb with a heads-up? Apparently not.

We continued our calls for the next several days. I also CC’d two Airbnb executives in my emails along with the various associates they assigned to us. Still, no courtesy call or explanation. They’re up for an IPO I hear. I wish them luck. With this type of non-customer service, I will not be indulging in any of their stock. I also canceled my Airbnb account. Has this happened to any other poor souls out there?

blank

Guest Who Didn’t Even Stay Posts Review

Posted on
blank

A woman reserved my house in Austin for the MotoGP weekend and and never actually stayed at my house. Her fiancé and guy friends trashed my house and stole bottles of liquor (had a sign up requesting payment of cost for any liquor taken). I asked for the $125 (which is actually less than the cost).

Airbnb refused to answer anything for six days and refused to actually call me after four calls being told it would be handled. The woman who booked never complained once while the guys were partying and staying at my house. I called her out for her fiancé’s group leaving bags of trash everywhere and food out and she denied everything.

I sent pictures to Airbnb and they refused to do anything to help. Just patronizing messages from someone who hides their name and refuses to actually talk. I don’t think anyone who didn’t actually step into one of my rentals should be able to post a review. I based my acceptance of her reservation request on her five stars but she never stayed at my house. Her review is probably full of more lies and I have six days to get it taken down. I realize I can respond to get bogus review but it will ruin this beautiful blew listing.

I have eight Airbnb properties and have never been treated so unprofessionally. This policy must be changed. If an instant booking is based on a person’s reviews and likability then they should be staying at the listed house. This woman from California is just lying her way through the Airbnb system. I need corporate’s involvement. I can’t get through to anyone higher up to help after so many calls.

Airbnb Gift Certificates are a Scam, Plain and Simple

Posted on

What a great idea, I thought: give my son and his wife an Airbnb gift certificate for a weekend getaway for Christmas (they have two preschool boys… need I say more?) and some cash to spend wildly. I chose Amazon as my gift card producer, paid my money, got the certificate to print off, and gave it to them for Christmas.

It was only recently that they tried to use it and the nightmare began. First, my son lost the paper and asked me to find out what the code was to access the money. I spent almost all day trying to get this information. Airbnb blamed Amazon and Amazon initially blamed Airbnb. Amazon then sent me proof that I had paid for the thing, plus we had the credit card receipt to prove we had paid.

I scanned and emailed all of this to Airbnb. They basically told me that it was not sufficient and I had to tell my credit card company to refund my money because “it did not go through”… except I did get a code to access the money. Basically, they said they could not issue a new code. Then my son found the code and tried to access it. He was told that it was invalid by Airbnb.

He made numerous calls with no success. I finally contacted Amazon again, very angry about the difficulties and that they should sever their ties with Airbnb. They decided to refund the money to me with no strings attached. You rock, Amazon! You suck, Airbnb!

I will never use Airbnb again. They were uncooperative, rude, unwilling to do anything in the face of evidence that I had purchased the card, and generally absolving themselves of all responsibility. This felt like a scam. You give me your money and I will keep your money because you have no recourse. Do not book with Airbnb.

How Airbnb Punishes Hosts for Cancellations and Otherwise

Posted on

Hello hosts, has anyone else noticed how your ranking (listing rank on searches) dumps when you or Airbnb make any kind of cancellation Declining inquiries seem to be second on the list of items affecting ranking.

I was told by Airbnb reps (4-5) that there would be no “punishment for cancellations” if I called Airbnb customer service and they made the cancellation due to a guest that was not a fit for my cabin. These included smokers, pets, oversized groups, guests wanting events, guests wanting to film movies on the property, etc.

Has anyone also noticed a severe decrease in customer support (now called customer experience) on Airbnb since 2019? Do you get the “I am sick or leaving the office for two days and will call you back then” line over and over? Then they send a message a week or two later asking to close the case… with no efforts to help on the issue… or any kind of acknowledgement of the questions or exact issue you asked? Please let me know. I need to know it is not just me feeling more negative about Airbnb.