We were in the process of arranging to rent a portion only – no pets allowed – of our holiday house on Airbnb with the owner-operator, who had access to the house. We had not completed the necessary renovations, most importantly a locking door to separate our private area from the rental area. We left New Zealand with the plan on pause until our return. To our horror, when we returned, we learned that our entire home had been rented out repeatedly starting just after we left. Numerous adults, children and pets were in our home, free to go through all of our personal belongings. The house was infested with fleas, and hundreds of dollars of new linens and the TV decoder were missing. The manager denied everything, but did compensate us for the missing items and flea treatments. So… all this person had to do was tick a box on Airbnb saying they had permission to rent. This is outrageous. Airbnb’s reply? “Really sorry, but not our problem.” How can this be legal?
Author Archives: Nancy Reardon
No promised garden, no heat, no hot water at this Airbnb
We booked a cute garden flat in Haymarket, Edinburgh. There was no garden. Instead there was a dog potty area during ongoing construction. The host never apologized in person or tried to admit his blatant “misrepresentation of the amenities” of the flat which is contrary to the five core obligations as an Airbnb host.
My sister and I reviewed many other apartment options and carefully planned this overseas trip for over seven months. Finally the main reason we booked was the expectation of having our morning coffee and evenings chats in the “garden”. As guests we were completely disappointed. To add all of the other seemingly minor issues one thing after another just piled up to make this a “horrible” experience.
I did as per Airbnb suggests make the effort to negotiate a reasonable solution with the host prior to escalating to the resolution team. With no results, I was left with no other recourse. We are well educated ladies in our early retirement years that expected that the host would understand that offering an amenity that was not accurate or accessible for guests who pay, in good faith.
To add to the situation the heating was not working properly for three nights and television operation had not been explained. When it did work, it was sporadic, as was the internet. Eventually the entire seven-day holiday deteriorated as each issue that could have originally seemed minor piled one on top of the other. This listing was sub-standard, and absolutely misrepresented, our trust in the reliability of Airbnb hosting was ultimately shattered.
Airbnb Doesn’t Live up to Expectations
I recently booked an Airbnb in Toronto to visit my granddaughter. The apartment is in what looks like a city housing building in a very rough area of Toronto; the building and grounds are in a state of disrepair, and the elevators were scary to ride. I would never bring my granddaughter there for a sleepover. The apartment was a mess; food was left over from other renters, and all the dishes were sitting in a dirty dish rack on the counter. The beds were just a bunch of mattresses thrown on the floor with no couch and no living room. The furniture was all beat up with blankets thrown over them, and broken old pictures taped for repair. The stove was not fit to cook on.
I have been trying to reach the host, and much like Airbnb he took my 500+ dollars and became unreachable. The Airbnb folks are turning their backs on me. When I asked them how this location was approved, they stated they cannot check each location, and became very rude and short on the phone. If you are booked into an unacceptable location, Airbnb could care less. I have resigned to the fact that I have been ripped off by both Airbnb and the host and am hoping this post will avoid anyone else booking this Airbnb hellhole. I stayed there one night, paid for five, slept in an office chair and picked up take out. So much for Airbnb.
You Aren’t Going to Believe This One About Airbnb
So, someone else committed fraud against Airbnb, and they have apparently decided to make me pay for it, although they admitted to me that they know it wasn’t me. I had to stay a couple of days in Boston last month, so I thought I would try Airbnb since Boston is expensive. I had never used Airbnb before.
The day after my visa was charged for the stay, an additional charge for $471.01 to Airbnb appeared on my bank statement. Horrified, I contacted Airbnb and my bank and both opened investigations. Thankfully, both entities agreed that the charges were in fact unauthorized, and I got a nice email from Airbnb on September 17th, notifying me that the entire amount had been refunded to my account.
I went to Boston and had a very nice stay in a lovely brownstone near Harvard Medical School. The host and I both gave each other positive reviews. I figured I would give Airbnb another chance.
This month, I decided to rent an Airbnb in Austin. However, when I went to log in to my account, I was blocked. Even more shocking, I got a pop-up window from Airbnb saying that there were “security issues” associated with my account and that I needed to “upload a government-issued photo ID” in order to access it. What?
I called Airbnb and the rep said that there were actually “technical issues” associated with my account rather than “security Issues” and that Airbnb would get back to me to resolve them, but she wasn’t sure when. I told her I needed a room next week and availability was low, but she still would not give me a timeframe for a response from Airbnb. I demanded to speak to a supervisor, who told me the exact same thing. They both sounded like they were lying, to be honest. Also, why would the website demand I upload a photo ID over a technical issue, anyway?
It looks like somehow I am being punished for what whoever hacked my card did, since Airbnb’s own records indicate that they cleared me, at least according to the email they sent me. I am a 56-year-old woman who has never had a parking ticket, and they are talking to me like I am some criminal. They can’t seem to tell me exactly why. I’m also locked out of my Airbnb account. This is near unbelievable.
I would love to attach documentation to support all this, but of course it has my personal information on it. I also think it is interesting that my card got hacked after I gave the number to Airbnb, and only after that. Ah, the irony of the fact that whoever hacked my card may have gotten the number from them, on top of everything else.
Airbnb Host Cancelled the Booking on the Day we Arrived
An Airbnb host whose house is located in Notting Hill, London canceled our booking (four nights) on the day we arrived, and it was after the check-in time. There was no message or phone call from him, so I called and tried to figured out why he did this to us. On the phone I was told his place was “mess” at that time, “not safe” to stay, and most importantly, “the policemen were at his place”.
He didn’t say sorry or apologize to us; we think he didn’t feel sorry at all, as I could sense that he was in a good mood by the way he talked on the phone. We didn’t want to rebook any Airbnb, as we didn’t see any good Airbnb on that day, the “good” ones were all pre-booked a couple weeks ago; we didn’t want to get cancelled again on the same day.
We decided to stay in a hotel. A US Airbnb staff member said she would reimburse us the price differences between this Airbnb in Notting Hill, London and the hotel. She needed us to send her the receipts. After I sent the receipts, this staff member disappeared until five days later I called Airbnb China and they had her reply to me promptly. Then she disappeared again. This reimbursement process seems to take forever.
Let me talk about the sneaky host. Since he mentioned there were policemen at his place and it was damaged, he should have had a Crime Reference Number from the policemen. If he had no Crime Reference Number, then he was lying about the policemen. We demanded to know the Crime Reference Number several times, but the Airbnb staff member just ignored our request.
Our Airbnb host should have had a planning permit. He has used his place on Airbnb between 60 and 90 days, which can be seen from his calendar and reviews. We didn’t know how seriously this would be until several days later we called the police about a stolen wallet and were asked for our address. We were staying in another Airbnb we booked months ago but luckily I think that Airbnb got a planning permit. The police were really checking that Airbnb. I couldn’t imagine that one was illegal. We asked the US Airbnb staff member for the host’s Airbnb planning permit; she ignored this too.
You know if a host cancels a booking before the check-in time, there will be a negative review about the cancellation, which can’t be removed. He canceled the booking after that, so there was no irremovable review about his behavior. On his page, he is still a Superhost with 5-star reviews, while he can cancel bookings hundreds of thousands of times as long as he does them with just the right timing.
Just for your reference, hotel prices, like Holiday Inn Express in the centre of Zone 1 in London, are around 600 USD per night, five times that of this Airbnb; even if you are willing to pay, most of the nice hotels are sold out. Thanks to this host, we had to stay one night at a hostel in a disgusting basement as rooms in Holiday Inn Express and IBIS were all sold out. That hostel ranked 7.5 on Booking.com, around 150 USD per night. It was still better that this Airbnb, as the host didn’t even care if we slept on the street.
Two Scams in One Summer: Airbnb’s Non-Existent Security
This summer I booked a vacation house in France on Booking.com and an apartment in Ibiza on Airbnb. For the first time in my extensive travel life, it turned out that I booked two scams for non-existent properties. I had paid a substantial deposit for the house in France. For the apartment in Ibiza I had not only paid a deposit but also the full rent, together a few thousand euros.
I had booked a beautiful vacation house in France on Booking.com. As indicated on the website, I had to pay a deposit of euro 2,200. I transferred the amount to the ‘owner’ of the house. Due to certain circumstances, I had to cancel the house, and requested the ‘owner’ refund my deposit. There was no response and certainly no money. I contacted Booking.com, who asked for different evidence. After a long process, and emails with apologies stating that they were investigating the case, Booking.com refunded the total amount of the deposit.
With Airbnb, the first email from the Trust and Safety team started with the sentence that Airbnb was working hard on a reliable and secure website, but that in rare cases attempts at fraud happen. If you look at Twitter accounts and websites detailing circumstances like these, there are daily reports of new scams. There are certainly not only attempts and it also is not rare. This does not seem to interest Airbnb.
The email continued with a number of standard tips which might have been useful if they pop up when you open their site, but certainly not after all the misery has happened. It’s closed with the announcement that this transaction took place outside the Airbnb platform, and therefore they can’t provide support or compensation for offsite payments. I think that Airbnb forgets that the scam started on their website. What does Airbnb do for fraud prevention?
Therefore, the question that remains for me: how could this apartment end up on the Airbnb website? That is where the scam started. Wiser through my own research, I took one of the photos of the scam apartment and scanned it through Google images; this apartment also appeared on another site with a different owner and another location. A very simple and quick check.
In addition, Airbnb also does not advise you to contact the owner directly. Why is it possible that this option is offered on the Airbnb site? This is a safety check that does not seem so difficult to build in. Last but not least, how does the identity check go when placing a house on Airbnb? In my second email with Airbnb I asked for the full name and identity check of the person I ‘rented’ from. I did not get an answer to this question and the mail ended with ‘this is our last email regarding this case’. Indeed, I did not get any answers anymore.
Aside from the fact that this is very customer unfriendly, I have no evidence to go after my money. I have a strong suspicion that Airbnb cannot provide me with this proof, simply because it is not there. On the aforementioned Twitter page, it also appears that it is very easy to open an Airbnb account with a fake identity. Scammers even use Airbnb photos of bona fide placements on Airbnb.
It is no surprise that the Airbnb has to adjust their conditions of the European Commission for better consumer protection. Exactly the same case is reported in an article of The Guardian on July 15, 2017. A businessman lost £4,139 through an Airbnb scam. Following intervention, and in the face of a threatened social media campaign by the businessman, Airbnb performed an about turn: it agreed to send him the money he lost. Apparently you have to put a lot of pressure before Airbnb takes responsibility. Not everybody is in a position to do so, which makes it unequal treatment.
To conclude, I believe that Airbnb cannot hide behind warnings and the fine print. I and many others would not have been scammed if Airbnb’s screening process was good. After all, the misery starts on the Airbnb website. With a few simple checks – and especially good identity checks – a lot of suffering can be prevented. The European Commission, which has already taken steps to protect Airbnb consumers, should certainly also pay attention to this. At this moment, I would advise anyone to book on Booking.com or another reliable website. Booking.com does not offer only hotels, but also very nice apartments and houses.
Airbnb Caretaker Decides to Rent out Owner’s Property
I found what appeared to be a very chic two bedroom place in LA to stay in for my son’s graduation. The renter was responsive and pleasant until I paid. Then he disappeared. I kept emailing him with questions, but he didn’t respond until just before our trip. He wouldn’t set a time to meet; he told me to text him, which I did. He didn’t appear to be the type of person to own a place in this high-rent district. He claimed he was a busy lawyer and didn’t have too much time (he isn’t a lawyer – I checked later).
I kind of got the feeling he was supposed to be tending to the place for the owner, but was renting it out on the sly. The place turned out to have only one bedroom, even though I paid for two. There were no staples in the kitchen and the floors were filthy. I didn’t let this ruin the happy occasion, but I did spend an inordinate amount of time trying to contact him before, during and after to rectify the issues. Airbnb was unconcerned and dismissive about my complaints. I felt cheated and unheard and won’t use Airbnb again.
No Review is Safe from Removal on Airbnb
I have to share two host stories. One relates to systemic fake reviews. I recently had the most horrible guests at my house. They were incredibly messy, rude and blackmailed me to have free pool heating during their entire stay free of charge with the threat of a bad review (pool heating is about $200 per day).
Once I reviewed them, I simply stated that they were very messy and overall very difficult to deal with as I had heard that Airbnb tends to delete bad reviews based on “policy violation” and therefore didn’t want to get too factual to avoid any frivolous claim retracting my honest review (note that this was my first ever “bad” review and frankly it wasn’t even that bad).
Airbnb said that, based on a summary investigation (note: I even sent pictures of various damaged objects as well as messages from my neighbors stating how impolite and ‘obnoxious’ those guests were – I wasn’t even asking for any dollar compensation), they determined it was “fair” to delete those reviews. They stated as follows:
“We adhere to the community’s goal of friendship and trust which in total built Airbnb.”
Note that these guests were exactly the opposite. As a result, anyone can dispute any review and get it removed saying it’s not ‘friendly’ and it’s really hard to trust anyone’s reviews.
The second story happened in my New York apartment. A crazy guest claimed (after using my apartment two weeks) that my neighbors threatened to get her arrested as Airbnb is “illegal” in New York. While she had no factual evidence whatsoever and she spent her time in my apartment, she was given a full refund after the stay (at my expense since Airbnb took out the full $4,000 from my next guest’s stay without letting me know).
What this means is that, contrary to popular belief, Airbnb takes the strong stand that they are illegal in NYC and will refund anyone who makes up any similar story without evidence. So, if you are dishonest, go for it.
Ongoing Nightmare Housing Situation: Airbnb Unlivable
This is truly a nightmare that started over two weeks ago. I’m in a hotel now still dealing with it as the home’s walls (with wiring) started filling with water due to a broken pipe after the host’s property manager had failed to do anything for weeks and the host refused to do anything. I’ve had little support from Airbnb and still have 11 days left on the prepaid reservation.
It began two weeks ago (so much worse now). I rented a long-term Airbnb property, from mid-August through November 1st while we were waiting to have a house built. There were a few minor issues early on, but recently things have gotten really bad. The owner is not in the country (the place is in Baja, Mexico and he’s in the US). He has a local property manager that is supposed to handle things but has rarely shown up and is now not responding at all. 99% of the time when I contact the owner, he says he’ll contact the property manager and then I don’t hear back, email again and the whole thing starts over.
The more major issues include: there is an Airstream trailer on the property we assumed was being stored here, but suddenly without any warning a woman with three dogs moved in. We didn’t see her, only the dogs initially, and thought they were wild dogs that had snuck in, which is common here. When we went to shoo them off – as we have two little dogs – a woman came out of the trailer screaming at my partner that it was her property.
I immediately messaged the owner who told me he had no idea what was going on, but that he co-owns the place with his brother and maybe he knew; it was probably a crazy ex-girlfriend. She’s still here. He’s never responded when I’ve asked again about it and the dogs bark continuously; most of the time they’re just left outside. Sometimes they come right to our door and bark incessantly, making it difficult not only to take our dogs out but to actually enjoy the property.
There was a big rain storm last week and with the high heat and humidity, the front door has swollen so much that it’s cracked. It’s very difficult to shut at all, likely insecure, and easy to break in. Part of the ceiling has also being chipping off as there are cracks in the concrete with bad water leaks. They’re developing in many other places in the house, so another rainstorm is likely going to make that worse.
The property manager is also supposed to be taking care of the landscaping which has gotten out of control (not a big deal to us but it really looks bad), and pick up the trash once a week. We haven’t seem him in two weeks now so it’s really piling up and there doesn’t seem to be a place we can take it here; we’re in a small village in Baja, Mexico.
I think he’s supposed to be doing something to the water to prevent algae too, but that’s not happening since he isn’t here. Algae-filled water has been pouring down the side of the house near the front door.
An Airbnb case manager contacted the host right away who promised him he’d reach the property manager – suddenly he was able to. He promised the guy would arrive within two hours. He never did: no message, nothing.
Finally about 8:30 he messaged that the guy’s car had broken down and that his dad would give him a ride over. He was leaving right then and said that he would also come back at 7:30 in the morning to work on the landscaping problem. He’s just a few minutes away. Twenty minutes later, no one had come and I had to be up at 5:00. It was dark and he wouldn’t be able to see many of the problems anyway so I told him to just come in the morning. He could start the yard stuff and then afterward we’d show him the problems, that we would be here all day until about 5:00.
Of course, he never showed. I messaged him to see when he was coming. There was no response. I messaged the owner. Finally after he received a picture of the algae-covered wall that had gotten much worse he said it was “emergency time”. He was going to contact his brother who knows people there. He promised he’d contact him several times before but apparently he never really did because once that happened, his brother (the co-owner) sent over a couple that lives nearby and knows the house very well.
They were shocked and said it was extremely unacceptable. It was well known that this property manager takes people’s money and rarely does anything. He is totally unreliable. They also found more major problems that we hadn’t noticed and things have gotten worse; there are pools of water on the floor now. They took a lot of pictures and said they would be sure both brothers would receive them.
In the meantime, our Airbnb case manager was on his weekend holiday and wouldn’t be back until the next day. The owner said he was firing the property manager and trying to find someone else, but we finally left to go out to eat at 5:00 as we’d told the property manger. Then we got a text from him just as we got there that he was here waiting outside, knowing full well we wouldn’t be here.
After what the couple said and the experiences we’ve had, we totally don’t trust this guy. He still has all the keys. I messaged the owner and told him to call him to let him know because I really didn’t want to go back there and deal with that at this point. He told me he couldn’t reach him, but we got back and he was gone, with the trash taken and a few weeds taken out in the front. We haven’t heard anything from anyone after that.
We still have no cleaning supplies and have gone through almost all the towels soaking up the water. We messaged the owner again that the priority is now to get us cleaning supplies, towels and to get the backyard cleaned up because it’s gotten so much worse since even two days ago and we can’t take the dogs out front. The couple that saw it said how dangerous it was too. They were blown away about how bad everything was as the wife was a caretaker here a year ago and said it’s just gone completely downhill fast.
The owner keeps saying he’s trying to find a new “co-host/property manager”. In the meantime I was able to get a quicker move-in date on the house being built, October 15th. I told the case manager at Airbnb who previously told me he would process the reservation so that I wouldn’t be charged anymore. I was hoping I’d be able to move out of this situation early.
Based on his information I moved forward and was really happy I managed to get that negotiated that morning. I messaged the case manager (the one who’d left me hanging for 2.5 days while things got even worse) and he said he made a mistake, since it’s long term I had to pay for all the reservation. He knew it was long term as he even mentioned it in the message thread before telling me I could do that and then said several times he hoped I’d be able to move early. That, fortunately was resolved, with a new end date: October 16th.
It continues… a new repair person came and seemed very reliable. There was finally a new person that came to do some things but there have been so many other problems in the meantime, I don’t even have time to write about them all. The owner told me that he “just found out” the lots on the property – all in a relatively small area that’s gated so it looks like it’s all one place – were sold and he can’t do anything about the woman in the trailer and her dogs.
Airbnb won’t do anything because the trailer is now not on the host’s property. I want to scream. I told the case manager it was unacceptable; he did admit his mistake and said he’d talk to his team, so I’m waiting on that. I am seriously baffled at how this is being handled. I was pretty much just trying to deal with it until the check-out time, but then this happened…
A bad situation got worse after we noticed water seeping through the bedroom wall of the house we’ve been staying in through Airbnb. It turned out there was a broken pipe that was leaking in the walls, with wiring… going through the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. The repair person said it was dangerous (obviously, and we couldn’t use electricity there).
We couldn’t leave immediately; it was dark and you can’t drive in the dark here in Baja due to the bad roads and other problems. However, we did leave the following morning. Our case manager was, this time, on an extended weekend (he went on his weekend at the time the other issues were occurring and left no backup).
The owner finally realized how bad it was. A repair person is there now. He has to take out the whole wall and this is going to take a lot of time. The owner sent a couple of different payments to help with the hotel, and also for other expenses as we had to buy cleaning supplies. We received the payment he sent yesterday through Airbnb back in our bank account today. However, earlier payments were still not received, they’re missing somewhere with Airbnb. We’re covering most of the expenses on our own.
Airbnb has been totally unhelpful. They don’t care at all that we had to leave the place and get a hotel. In fact, with the case manager gone when I finally got someone else, he didn’t even read the message I sent asking about the missing payment, but instead called the owner and then messaged me that the owner was getting it repaired and had sent the payment. That had all been documented in several places, but the Airbnb case manager didn’t bother to read it and just made things worse for me with the owner.
I am extremely disappointed with Airbnb. What would have happened if I didn’t have the extra cash or credit cards to cover the hotel, when our house through Airbnb was already paid for? This is still not resolved. I am way behind on work because of all of this. I work online and extremely stressed out. We don’t know how long the repairs will take at this point so this may cost us a lot more than we can afford right now.
We tried contacting Airbnb on Twitter and got the response: “The team will look at it when they can.” The last case manager said he is looking into seeing where the money has gone but had initially said it can take 15 business days because of our bank – this is not the case since the other went through in a day. In addition, they should not be leaving us in this situation to deal with ourselves; ot’s insanity.
The case manager lied. He said it was a problem with my “payment method” but Airbnb never sent the payment. He had me set up a payout account, but then suddenly it was actually sent to my payment method. In the meantime, I’m at the hotel trying to figure out when we can get back. I told the owner we’re booked through Friday, October 5th several times.
On Thursday morning I reminded him I needed to know what was going on so I could extend if it was necessary, if we could get back Friday. I got a message from the new maintenance person that it would be ready at noon on Friday. I told him we’d be there at 3:00 to provide extra cushion time. He said that was okay, and I updated the owner.
Today after checking out of the hotel and starting to drive to the Airbnb (an hour away because it’s in a remote area), I got a message from the owner that the house wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow, asking if the maintenance person had told me that. I told him no, he had just confirmed we could go back today… we were on our way.
I was on the side of the road for 30 minutes trying to get a response from the owner or repair person. The repair person called and said friends of the host’s brother and the co-owner are painting the inside of the house tonight. They told him to redo the roof. No one bothered to inform us.
While Airbnb has asked for receipts for the previous part of the stay, they won’t respond to what to do now or when I’ll be reimbursed. I can’t keep paying for a hotel for the next 11 days, especially when I’ve paid for a house through Airbnb. We have to dine out as we don’t have a kitchen now so that’s more expensive too. It’s now 8:30 PM here on Friday, October 5th. Six hours and still no word. I’ve been sent in circles numerous times. The host hasn’t even apologized. I’m exhausted, super stressed… this is insanity.
I hate Airbnb… even though I liked the money I made
First of all, Airbnb annoyed me from the very beginning. Even though I understand that their business model requires compliance with certain processes, I just despise how they make try to get you to run your business in the way they want (having your posting be an automatic booking; too many cancellations – like three – come with penalties, potentially even a $100 penalty). They also frame everything as if it is in the best interest of the guest when really it is the way they want to make more money.
It’s not that I can pin this on Airbnb but I did have issues with a guest. I had the mother of an 18-year-old guy book a room at my place. There were multiple people staying at the place. The 18-year-old stole some car keys and took the car of one of my tenants. It was an enormous headache. After a couple days the tenant got his car back (it was a mess inside) and the 18-year-old kid was arrested and got lucky with a “joy riding” higher degree misdemeanor. His mother was kind and paid money to help with some of the costs (detailing the car, additional cleaning, etc.) but I wish I didn’t have to deal with it at all.
All that being said, the company in general just drives me nuts. I have feelings of hatred that I am trying to slowly alleviate (I’m not typically a hater). I’m going to stick with traditional landlording (if that’s a word) and avoid Airbnb as much as possible.