We booked a three-bedroom unit in London for a week, with our host, “Caroline”. After a few days, Caroline informed us via the Airbnb email system that she was cancelling the reservation because the unit was booked on another website. Really disappointing, but I guess that happens. So we started over and found another three-bedroom unit we liked with a new host, “Lola”. Lola had some great reviews. Again, I prepaid the entire reservation on my Visa and it seemed like we were all set. Then we received another message from Airbnb stating that our payment method was not valid, our new reservation had been cancelled, and our Airbnb account was to be closed immediately. Our payment method was certainly valid and in fact Airbnb had now charged us for two reservations. I called our credit card company (Citibank) and they said that no refunds had been processed. Now, I’ve booked a hotel and I’m fighting with Airbnb to get my money back. They say they have processed the refunds, but Citibank says they have not. What an amazing scam… I mean service.
Category Archives: Airbnb Guest Stories
These are real, uncensored stories from Airbnb Guests. We encourage our site visitors to read and share their Airbnb Guest Stories to help warn others of the dangers of using Airbnb, and consider using alternative options in the sharing economy.
Airbnb Nightmare: Dead Bugs and Crazy Host
All seemed fine until we arrived at our destination in Ocean City, NJ . The pictures showed this wonderful view of the ocean. They showed a pristine sitting area and kitchenette. Well, our first clues that this image might be different were the filthy walkways to the unit. The second clue: a dirty door. Then we opened the door and were stunned to find a carpet with so much filth it could not have been vacuumed. I went to the bedroom to turn on the light and the light fixture fell apart; the cord had been cut. Next, the cups in the cupboard had a brown goo on them. The stove had food crusted over and nothing short of filth. I contacted the host who responded “Well, I will get back to you.”
The next day I left for my morning walk, and grabbed the keys provided by the host from a lockbox. The key did not work, and she accused me of switching keys. When the host showed up at the door, I showed her the dead insects in the fridge and the filth on the carpets and table. She told me this is normal. Then told us to vacate the premises. We did, since she looked very unstable. We called Airbnb and they recommended for our safety we leave. This was at 1:00 in the afternoon. By 8:00 PM that night she posted a review that claims I damaged the wall and screamed at her. Then she said Airbnb recommended she ask us to leave. I did get a two-night refund but still had to pay a cleaning fee. Then Airbnb told me to contact the host about getting an additional refund for the cleaning.
Beware of using Airbnb; they obviously do not screen the hosts. I am attaching a few photos of what was in the fridge and on the stove. Yes, there were dead insects in the fridge.
Airbnb: You Can’t get Help if you Can’t Log in
I’ve used Airbnb around 40 times as a guest since 2013, and have never had too many bad experiences. Sometimes rooms aren’t as nice as described, and amenities are limited to the letter of what was promised (watch out for rooms that don’t come with “essentials” – I’m pretty sure you can get away with not having a shower curtain). Sometimes you make arrangements with hosts and then they don’t answer their phones when you want to pick up the keys. Some hosts think they can charge seriously premium prices based on their location, and then not do the slightest bit of upkeep. When you stay at Airbnbs as much as I do, you’re bound to have a few disappointments. Basically, it’s let the buyer beware, and for the most part hosts have been fantastic.
So overall, you could say I’ve been a very satisfied Airbnb user for almost four years. After my last Airbnb stay, I logged into my account to discover that I was locked out. Airbnb offered only a message:
“To help protect your information, we’ve temporarily disabled your account. Please email us at account.access@airbnb.com to continue.”
There was no explanation of why the account was disabled, what “temporarily” means, or how to get it unlocked. I emailed that email address a few times, but never got a response. A week later the account remained disabled. One note about Airbnb customer service: if you’re familiar with this site, you can probably see it coming. Airbnb does everything it can to push the resolution of customer service issues to its online help system. But if your account is locked out, you can’t use the online help. Even the “contact us” page says “please log in to your account to access help.”
Fortunately, Googling for Airbnb’s phone number turned up a help desk number: 1-855-424-7262. You can call that number, but the help desk staff can’t actually do anything to help you. I’ve called multiple times already, and obviously my account is still disabled. If you do call, they’ll ask you for your name, email address, phone number, and associated payment information. But all they can do is put your issue in a queue sent to a technical support group (which “doesn’t take phone calls in or out”). And as you’d by now expect, that group is completely unresponsive and ineffectual.
Some lessons from this experience:
- Your Airbnb account is the property of Airbnb, and they may take it from you at any time with essentially no recourse.
- Do you need access to message your guests/hosts, upcoming reservations, billing receipts, or even Airbnb’s online help? Without access to the Airbnb website or mobile app, you’re essentially out of luck.
- If you do get locked out of your Airbnb account, take action immediately. The “temporary” lockout will not go away on its own. Call Airbnb (1-855-424-7262) as soon as you discover your account is locked out. Tell them you are trying to make a new booking for an upcoming stay in the near future. This will flag your issue as high priority. Which may or may not help, but it can’t hurt. I’ll keep this post updated if I make any progress.
Some Airbnb Hosts are as Dishonest as they Come
Hi everyone, please see the attachments and the photograph of the host in it. This guy is Alejandro. He owns three rooms at the Ft. Lauderdale Hilton Beach Resort. He likes to play games with people and raise the rate on them while they are trying to book a reservation. He had his property listed at $349/night for a stay from December 25th, 2016 to Jan 1st, 2017. My wife and I were using the Instant Book feature to put all of our information in to reserve the room. While doing so, we used the phone app to message Alejandro to make sure the place had a pull out bed. He replied that it did… and then sent a follow up message that he had adjusted his rate. In the middle of us trying to book the reservation, he raised his rate from $349/night with a 3% discount for booking more than four days to a $439/night rate with no discount. I messaged him about it, but he ignored the message. I called Airbnb Customer Service, and they said they really couldn’t do anything about it. However, they agreed that Alejandro was running very shady business by treating customers that way. If you’re looking for a place to stay in Ft. Lauderdale, I would avoid any of Alejandro’s properties at the Hilton. He’s greedy and dishonest. Find another host to save yourself the headache.
Shell Cottage? More like Smell Cottage!
Last month my partner, young daughter and I checked in to our new reservation at the delightfully named Shell Cottage, planning on staying for a month. I’d paid over £2,000 up front to Airbnb – a bargain price, or so I thought, as it was listed at £160 per night and we’d got a great discount for a month’s stay. When we opened the door a stale, musty smell hit our senses, mingled with a strong aroma of artificial air fresheners which was obviously an unsuccessful attempt to mask the bad smell. We discovered the living room furniture was ancient and stained and there were a lot of marks on the paintwork. Clearly the place hadn’t been decorated for a long time, but we figured maybe we could put up with it if we could open the windows and let the smell out. We are between homes at the moment, having had to move out of our long term rental in August and still completing work on the new home we purchased last year. We had been staying in Poole for a month and it took us a couple of days to move all our belongings from that apartment to this new one. So we didn’t stay in the cottage until the third night.
It was at this point we discovered the state of the beds, carpets and bathroom. The mattresses were of varying degrees of age and uncomfortableness, on one the springs were actually visible through the thin fabric covering. The bed linen was so old and musty it made us feel sick. The carpets were dark brown, covering a multitude of sins, but they were clearly very old and smelly. At one point I decided to get closer for a sniff – the smell of old feet and dirt was quite overpowering. How the host could expect us to be happy about letting our 14-month old crawl over them is beyond me! And the smell from under the bath was just as bad – years of accumulated dirt in a damp room led to a strong smell of stinky socks emanating from the area. Plus there was mould around the bath and the shower didn’t stay on the shower rail – to use it, you had to hold it or prop it up with one hand.
It was 9:30 pm on this third night that I wrote to the host to tell her how deeply unhappy I was about staying with my family in accommodations with such a catalogue of problems. I listed every issue, from the smell to the stains, uncomfortable beds to mould. I told her I was not prepared to keep my family in such unsanitary conditions and for the sake of our health and well-being we would be checking out the next day. The host’s reply could not have been sweeter. She seemed so kind and understanding, sympathising with us being between homes. She ended her email by saying she would contact Airbnb the next day about our request to leave early and that “as stated on our website, a refund is made after satisfactory inspection of the property when you have vacated the premises.”
I felt so relieved to know we would have no trouble getting a refund. We spent the whole Sunday packing up all our belongings and moving out. Two days later (as I thought it was purely a formality) I cancelled our booking through Airbnb and requested from the host a refund of the £2139 I had paid. I was shocked when she declined to give any refund and stated we were not entitled to any refund in accordance with the long-term cancellation policy as we’d “cancelled our holiday on a whim” and that our “criticisms of the holiday home were just… our personal opinion” and claimed no one else had complained. The tone of her email was so brusque – the absolute opposite of the sweet charm of her email on the day we checked out. I felt so angry and sick.
I immediately contacted Airbnb to tell them what had happened and sent them photos and video evidence of the visual issues. However, the main issue was the disgusting smell of the carpets, the beds, living room furniture and from under the bath and the second main issue was the uncomfortable beds, both of which you’d have to visit the property to experience. Airbnb did their best to be helpful, but they confirmed that the host had a strict cancellation policy under which a guest leaving early from a long term reservation was not entitled to any refund. But I had not simply “cancelled on a whim” – I felt I had no choice but to leave for the health of my family. Airbnb agreed that the bathroom looked like it needed attention and liaised with the host on my behalf.
What I didn’t realise was that Airbnb had already paid out all my money to the host, so they would have to try to re-coup it from her. Judging by the tone of her last email I felt my chances of getting it back were slim. They managed to get me a 20% refund for cleanliness issues and an Airbnb credit for their fees. But that still leaves me more than £1,500 out of pocket without any clear next step to attempt to get my money back. Airbnb tell me they have done all they can, and it’s the host who has my money. I feel disgusted and powerless, and would like to share my story here in the hope that others will benefit from our experience and possibly be able to suggest what, if anything, I could do now to get my money back.
Terrible Airbnb Apartment in San Diego Hillcrest
I’m mainly writing this because I hate to see a lousy host continue to rent out his lousy apartment without making any changes to it. If the host was open to feedback and improvements, then cool. Not the case with this guy it seems. I booked this apartment for myself and two friends for San Diego Comic-Con. I could tell that the owner had raised the price for that week, something I expected anyway. Most of the reviews were fairly positive, but after staying there, I have no idea why they are. I can understand an old place just being old, but this place just felt dirty and lacked basic amenities that it claimed to have in its description. There was no extra toilet paper, not enough towels for the number of guests for which I informed him of, no hand soap, trash beneath the sink, gum in the bathroom sink drain, rug stains, and peeling floor paint.
The worst part of the stay was the handful of large, flying cockroaches that appeared on two of the nights. One of which actually flew into my friend, and another scurried over her foot. The host had left me a short but positive review; however, he countered my negative review for his unit, fabricating or embellishing most of the story. I don’t know if he doesn’t understand that there’s a thing called a paper trail. I’ve uploaded an image of my correspondence with the host regarding the issues that would negate his rebuttal to my negative review of his unit, as well as photographic evidence. To elaborate further on other certain issues he claimed in his counter-review:
- He claimed that we had a late check in. Our check-in was actually early as my one friend showed up an hour before check-in, and I had cleared this with the host. He did not provide clear directions on how to get the keys (I guess I should’ve repeated my question in my emails), and my friend had tried texting and writing to him with no response. She then had to decipher how to get the keys from previous guest reviews. My own check-in was two days later at night, but that did not require the host’s attention, obviously, since my friends were already there.
- He mentioned that we did not make any requests for toilet paper or towels. Regarding the toilet paper, this is because my friends had quickly gone out and bought their own (we did not know that the staff in the deli below was affiliated with the apartment in that way). Regarding towels, because the place already felt pretty filthy, we did not trust even using the towels.
- He mentions that we did not allow them onto the premises to inspect for the cockroaches. In my correspondence with him, I explained that we did not want anyone to enter the premises while we were not present, and at the time we were about to head out for the day. What the host failed to mention is that one of his associates did actually show up to take a look just before we headed out. We let him in of course, and he asked us where the cockroaches were coming from, but how could we know specifically where they came from? They just started flying and scurrying around the place at night. The guy claimed they’d never seen them upstairs before as though it couldn’t be true that they had cockroaches. However, this makes me question the sanitation level of the deli below.
After the inspection, no solution was offered and the guy left. With two nights left of our stay, we were considering finding accommodation elsewhere. However, being Comic-Con week, everything was booked up or overly expensive. I communicated this with the host and suggested a 2-day refund as the unit was not as advertised and we would’ve vacated the unit if we could’ve. He seemed to be open to this discussion. However, his responses were more and more delayed going forward. After our stay ended, he eventually just stopped responding to me. I was also in communication with Airbnb regarding this unit. They offered me a refund on the cleaning fees (I have no idea what the host is spending this money on at all), and after further requests, a credit towards a future stay to offset our costs. Unfortunately I cannot counter the host’s stories on his profile at all. I hope that by posting this story I can deter future guests from staying at this unit, and that Airbnb will better monitor the quality and honesty of host listings. I’ve been using Airbnb for a number of years now with no major issues, and with this listing being the first problematic stay, it already shows me the lack of responsibility that both hosts and Airbnb can potentially have for their clients.
Airbnb Amsterdam Scam: Fake Payment Email
I recently went onto Airbnb looking for an apartment in Amsterdam to rent for a weekend. I found a perfect one, sent it to my friend, and we all agreed to book. I clicked on the “contact your host” button on the Airbnb website, checked with the host if my dates were available, and got an email back from an Airbnb email address with a price and reference to confirm and pay. So I paid. I then got an email from the host introducing himself. I thought it was weird that he had my email but then thought we at least we can communicate about things to do and see and the time of our arrival. He then emailed to say that Airbnb did not validate my payment and that there was a refund coming back to me; Airbnb would send another payment reference. I contacted Airbnb about my refund and was told they had no information or record about a booking. I hoped for the best and that this was some sort of mistake.
I was constantly sending emails to Airbnb but getting little to no response back then finally I was told I hadn’t requested a booking or sent payment through them. I forwarded the email I received back to them. Then the worst email came:
“We are sorry to inform you this email did not come from us at Airbnb. Although it has an Airbnb email address and has been made to look like the company’s email, it is not one of ours.”
How had I received this email, from someone who had my email address and knew I was looking? The host of the apartment had emailed me back from the contact sent through Airbnb. I contacted Airbnb again to see what safeguards they put in place for their customers. Again I waited constantly for a response to be told they can’t do anything as the payment wasn’t through them. I am still trying to get to the bottom of this and see what they put in place for their customers if anything, and if they don’t why they don’t. Why don’t they validate their hosts like their websites states? Whatever happened to companies safe guarding their customers at the end of the day? Airbnb put me in direct contact with this scammer. I am still currently trying to sort this out but the more and more I search the more and more I see I am not the only person. In fact, there are hundreds out there just like me. Do not book through Airbnb. I’m a little over £1000 down the drain and nothing can help me.
Families Love This Airbnb! Sorry, No Kids Allowed!
After months of looking for a special location for a quiet family vacation in Wisconsin my husband and my kids decide to take the Airbnb plunge. A few people at my office suggested I was crazy. The phrase “Aren’t you afraid of being killed?” came up more than a few times. A very good friend suggested that we might be video taped. Sadly, it turns out it might have been better if I had been. But I digress. We were tired of paying for tiny overpriced hotel rooms with stiff sheets and cream walls.
I started my search in early August for a quiet fall October weekend. I had specific needs: seclusion, a fire pit, a stream, and trees. Right away I noticed the limitations of the Airbnb search engine. I could not search for these criteria at all. I could only search for the number of guests allowed, the type of living arrangement, location dates, and other qualifiers that did not apply to my needs. I couldn’t search for any key words in my listings… all 350+. So, I searched and searched and searched. I found that many listings did not even match their own descriptions. Places that were listed as “the entire place” when they were half a house or even just a room. Many places said two guests only, but listed additional pricing for more guests.
I started to read the reviews of the actual guests. They made everything sound so good. Always five stars. Rarely did I see a grumpy review. Some reviews were so glowing, they seemed unreal. Certain hosts have little metals by their names. How did they get metals?Tonight, after a long hard week, I gave my kidney, drivers license, social security number, blood type, references, and money to go to an adorable purple cabin in Birchwood, Wisconsin. It was an uncomfortable bit of data collection that was scary… like, NSA, Snowden, scary. Two nights for $465, seclusion, peace, and cookies (all the reviews said we’d get cookies). I sent a message to the host about our four-year-old son. I asked if he was okay to come as he is four and pushed our numbers above the “limit of four people with $15 dollars extra per additional person.” I figured this would result in a price increase… Nope, I got a confirmation.
It was so fast. All the stress of planning and searching started to melt away. Victory! About six minutes after I was charged and my money was whisked away I got a message: the cabin is not safe for kids. Immediately, my mind went to the “guest experience” reviews that lead me to this magical looking place… they would say “great place for kids,” “great place for my family,” and “everything your family needs.” I did not text the host anything except for a question about how to get my money back. I started to cry. The app began to malfunction. I spent an hour or so steaming. Then I got the most “it’s your fault” email I have ever received from a company. Basically, the email said that Angel (yes, her name was Angel) from Airbnb was available to help me and that it was my fault that the host accepted and gobbled up my money before reading my questions.
After several nights of research I did not see the no-children clause for this place so many families have enjoyed. They said, and I quote, “It’s in small red letters underneath the About This Listing section.” Tiny, small, little red letters which probably should have been part of the filters for Airbnb or at least a series of questions about guests and ages. In addition, the host thought my four-year-old would not have been safe around a spiral staircase. The advertisement stated that we should use our best judgement regarding the use of the apparently deadly staircase. My son is very physically capable. I used my judgement. Airbnb called me twice while I started to look for another place to go and their voicemail directed me to an email. They have offered to help me find a place to go via email. How about an apology? How about reviewing your host locations’ reviews to make sure they are consistent? I called their number back just to see what I would get. If I wasn’t having an emergency I should email them. I emailed them.
Tomorrow, my family will wake up to realize our vacation is not happening and our money is gone. The money should be returned in ten days… I guess I’ll take a second vacation then. My boss doesn’t care. It’s not like I work for a living or anything! I might have to call so they can explain this to my kids.
Italian Vacation Includes Mountainous Hike and Mouse
My situation began when I was planning a 25th Anniversary trip to Italy and booked a place on Airbnb many months in advance. I saw the strict cancellation policy but the place looked so cute and private that I didn’t want to take a chance of losing it; the ad stated that this place was usually booked far in advance. I emailed the host to ask how close to the beach it was. He replied it was a 25-minute hike downhill. This was acceptable to me, but when I went back to the page to book, the price had gone up by $25. I questioned this but he said many people had inquired for the dates I wanted so the price went up accordingly. That was my first red flag and I should have stopped right then… but I didn’t. I booked it.
The list of house rules was excruciatingly long with a long explanation of it being some sort of backpacking club in the past but to ignore the reviews about that because now he was only licensed to rent privately. So I did ignore the part about backpackers needing an additional “club membership” that had to be paid in cash when we arrived. I assumed this was in the past, like the rules read. It also said it was a 15-minute hike uphill to reach the property and so it was not for mobile disability renters. I am not disabled and I do run quite a bit so I felt we could handle a 15-minute hike up the mountain after the bus took us the rest of the way.
When we arrived that day, we took the bus up and when we got to the point where the hike started, it was extremely steep. After 15 minutes, I began to wonder where this place was. We kept at this rugged terrain for a bit. Finally, after about 25 minutes, I called the host because the trail split and I did not know which way to go. He kept saying to follow the trail and when I asked which way he insisted there was only one trail. He finally said he could see me and to look up. I saw him way up there. So we figured out which way to go but it was obvious this was more than a 15-minute hike. My knee was starting to hurt because I had been running a few days before and somewhat overused it. Nothing major.
We finally made it to the top and I was so disappointed. This place was tiny and dirty. The tile was cracked everywhere and he had handwritten us a map that showed long hiking distances back down to the beach. He also asked for payment for the club membership. I explained that I thought that was for the backpacking club in the past and that we were private renters. He said, “I sent you the rules.” I thought that was my misunderstanding but I didn’t have the cash on me. He left and I started to take a shower. This is in Italy in the Cinque Terre. There was no shower curtain so water sprayed all over the tiny bathroom. After two minutes, it turned ice cold.
I was really upset by now but there was no way I could leave because I couldn’t make it back down that mountain in the dark. I headed up to the loft to go to bed. Once settled, a mouse ran across the conduit. I freaked out. I tried to catch it on video but only got a bad quality blur because I was so shaken and the mouse was so fast. It ran around the room four times. That was the final straw.
When we got up in the morning we took the trek back down the mountain, which was much longer than he said. We did not find a beach. We found a marina. I messaged him that we would not be staying the next night and why. He denied the problems with the house. He said it was a problem with me because my husband had mentioned my knee was bothering me after the climb. He denied there was a mouse. He said the hot water was normal and that all they have in the area is a marina, which is a beach to them. He said if I wanted a refund, the steps on Airbnb were to start with cancelling my reservation.
Now, my phone did not work well in Italy at all so I could not log onto my account at that point. I should have contacted Airbnb right then and there but my number one priority was finding new lodgings before my phone quit working again. So I did. I then did what he said, which was to request a refund. I immediately got a notice that it was denied. My phone was out at that point and I did not try to contact him again until I returned home and could look at the listing in full to see where the communication went wrong. I realized that Airbnb said I should have contacted them immediately, which I had not done. I tried to leave feedback, and realized that I could not do so even though I had stayed one night.
I contacted the host again. He still denied a mouse was there but said he would reimburse me $20 out of the $232 that I paid out of the goodness of his heart. I saw in my account that he had sent me money but it didn’t show up on my credit card. I did not see any way to reach Airbnb or to claim this tiny refund. I wanted to give this story to them but can not seem to find any way to contact them at all. It was very frustrating. I went back to his listing and he has five-star reviews. I find that hard to believe. He must be pulling this “cancel your reservation” scam a lot. I had great stays at all the other places we stayed with Airbnb but this one bad experience is enough to keep me from ever using them again. I made some mistakes but this host definitely has some experience doing this to others; he knows he owes me. I told him to set some traps and he would definitely catch a mouse but he refused and said I was lying. I will chalk this up as a lesson learned and hopefully enough people will read this site and stay away from Airbnb.
I Lost $1500 After a Weird Airbnb Stay
I booked a few weeks at an Airbnb in Frenchs Forest, Sydney. From the start the host was plain weird: she wanted me to text if I was going to be home later than 9:00 pm, she complained if I had more than one light on in a room, she said I couldn’t use my laptop in the lounge, and she played a gong and bells in the middle of the night, waking me up. Once she did this at midnight. She even smoked right next to the bedrooms even though she advertised the place as non-smoking. To top it off, she had a three-hour raging argument with her adult children one night. I left the next morning but, as I paid in advance, only received a refund for two nights from the 25 I booked. Airbnb even had the gall to say they were kindly not charging me two extra nights. I am short $1500. There’s no way for me to post a review so that others know about it. The host is a bit weird: a few days after my stay my credit card was tapped and the only person to have the details that were used on the fraud was her. I believe she got my card details from my room.