I’ve spent the last day and a half watching a friend deal with Airbnb’s inept customer support team after her AirBnb host backed out of her month long rental 45 minutes after she was supposed to meet him. I’ve listened to misinformation and baldface lies from the Airbnb CS team. Their solution was to charge her twice for two alternative rentals. The hosts were non responsive and $3,000 later ($1400 overdrawn) they pretty much washed their hands of the situation and left my friend homeless and broke for the next month. I’m curious as to who designed their Customer Service policy? Satan? Ebenezer Scrooge? Leaving people broke with no place to stay is bullshit. Lying to your customers and telling them that “you don’t have a manager” is absurd. What do they put in the water at their office? Every CS rep has the same apathetic monotone and a propensity for telling insane lies. I’ve personally never had any issues with my past stays, but watching my friend go through this has disgusted me. Airbnb is an international company with deep pockets. Websites like this wouldn’t exist if they showed some empathy and provided reasonable solutions and prompt resolutions to their guests. Dicks.
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.
Suicidal Host
I had a recent unsettling experience. My elderly host was very nice, but was having some sort of emotional crisis. At first I thought she was just lonely and was desperate for some company. After a couple of days, it seemed more serious. She was coming by and contacting me continuously, talking in great detail about how alone she was, how bad her financial situation was, how her relationships had all failed with family and friends, and how she wasn’t being treated right by the medical community. She kept talking at length about the suicide of her aunt and that she thinks her sister is suicidal. I heard her sobbing and shrieking several times during the night. I contemplated calling 911, but she had been to the hospital twice in the past few days and I assumed they were a better judge of her health and safety since she had lived in the small town more than 20 years and had told me in great detail that she had been under the care of a physician and a psychiatrist. Instead, I left a day early and didn’t ask for any money back, I just needed to get out or there.
Airbnb hosts cancel reservations and screw guests
I booked 3 times with Airbnb. Twice they were cancelled by the hosts after I booked and paid 3-4 months in advance. All Airbnb took responsibility for was covering 10% more of the difference. It shows that Airbnb is too clever in doing business. It is a win-win situation for Airbnb. First we looked for places for days, booked and paid in advance by credit card. The bank charges us the selling rate currency exchange. Then we wait and pray that the host would not cancel our booking. And then the cancellation arrived, and we had to start all over again, but this time with far fewer choices of accommodation plus even higher price. If we couldn’t find one from Airbnb, we got the money back, sounds good, but we got the amount back from the bank with leas money due to currency exchange rate. My experience with Airbnb in 10 months with 3 bookings is terrible and nightmare after nightmare. It ruined our holidays. Wasted time and energy to deal with unprofessional Airbnb. I learned that I should rely on professional ones which are abundant in the market. Airbnb business is too tricky.
Rude host and slow response from AirBnB customer “service”
Tried to rent a pricey villa in Mallorca, then the host tells me to bugger off after I ask him for a better pice. So I ask AirBnB to intervene to no avail. I then try to show my good faith to book the place and am still not getting a response. Since my trip is coming up soon I notify the “host” that I’ve booked elsewhere. Then within minutes he tries to charge my credit card (luckily no room on my card). I’ve called and emailed AirBnB to intervene but am getting absolutely nowhere with them. A week has gone by now and there is still the threat of them trying to charge me for the place.
Account disabled for no reason
Registered on Airbnb last summer and put up a listing. Not many hits on the listing, but I ended up renting out through other means. Then I had an upcoming trip, and I used airbnb to find a place to stay. Had a decent trip, after the trip left a review. Today, I wanted to find another place to stay in another city, go on to airbnb.com and what do I get? “To help protect your information, we’ve temporarily disabled your account. Please email us at account.inquiry@airbnb.com to continue.” “Ok,” I thought, probably some sort of glitch. Wrote them a quick email and 30 minutes later I got this: “Thanks for reaching out. We regret to inform you that we’ll be unable to support your account moving forward and have exercised our discretion under our Terms of Service to disable your account(s). This decision is irreversible and will affect any duplicated or future accounts. Please understand that we are not obligated to provide an explanation for the action taken against your account. Furthermore, we are not liable to you in any way with respect to disabling or canceling your account. Airbnb reserves the right to make the final determination with respect to such matters, and this decision will not be reversed. We’ll contact you if anything changes in the future, but until then, we won’t be able to assist you any further with your account issues. Please see our Help Center for further information: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/432. Thanks, Eleanor W. www.airbnb.com/help” I don’t know if its me or not, but that seems very heartless and conceited to me. Sounds like a big “f off” to me. Oh well. Sounds like I am never using their services again. Or recommending them. And trying to make sure other people don’t use them. Your loss Airbnb. Your loss.
Airbnb refused to refund money after false listing
Airbnb has consistently refused to refund any of the full paymen made (several hundred dollars) despite the host being aggressive and unwelcoming; the room not being private as per the misleading advertisement; and the apartment being dilapidated and unsafe. Airbnb has not allowed even a partial refund despite guests feeling they are put in danger or risk of abuse. Airbnb may be found in breach of its duty of care.
I been robbed on AIRBNB !!! 5760 EUR!!!!
I been robbed on AIRBNB!!! 5760 EUR!!!! How possible that AIRBNB Does not checks owners? Does not allowing any access for verifications within the process? The worst does, not check deeply to prevent recurrence!!! They prefer that the customers will lose their money than to spend money on human resources !!! Don’t do business with how that don’t respect your safety!!! See description of my Case on http://www.orenyyy.022.co.il/BRPortal/br/P102.jsp… And look what I show today on Airbnb https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/7202241… Look at the pictures and see how easy Airbnb let it happen!!!! and that’s only one sample from a lot ….
Location so horrible we couldn’t even stay and might not get our 889$ back!!!
Here is my mom’s and my family recent Airbnb bad experience in London and we didn’t even end up staying at the property!!! This is our letter to Airbnb Corporate. “Dear Airbnb, I am writing this letter to file a formal safety complaint against the Airbnb listed property: 1 Court Street, London, E1 United Kingdom. My family of 4 and I had a reservation for the property for 4 nights (June 17-June 21st 2015). I booked the property because the pictures looked nice and clean and it stated it was fairly close to the Tower of London. This was also an expensive property, totaling at $889 for 4 nights. Never being to London before, I did not know what areas of London were nice and safe and was trusting Airbnb and the Host that the area the property was in was going to be safe. When my family got out of the tube station (Whitechapel), we quickly realized that this was not a family friendly and safe area at all. We walked down to where the property and realized that there was no way we could stay there and feel safe. The apartment was down an alley way that was having construction done. The area was extremely noisy and crowded. The property in London was in the middle of a street marketplace. It would be very noisy and difficult to move in and out of the property. The whole purpose of getting a property via Airbnb was to get a “family friendly” property, not sleep in a high crime street marketplace. I did text the owner saying that an emergency had popped up. I cannot believe that he never called or responded back to us. Due to this, it completely disturbed our whole London trip. Since it was last minute, we could not find any reasonable accommodations in London and ended up having to travel to south England to my daughter’s apartment in Bournemouth, England. My husband and son had been very sick for days and needed to be in a safe and comfortable environment. They also needed to see a doctor the day we arrived. They had to travel to Bournemouth to see a doctor and ended up having to go to the hospital. We can provide documentation from the hospital if necessary. Later, I researched the Whitechapel area in London and found out that it is one of the top violent and sexual crime hotspots according to the LessCrime Report ( http://lesscrime.info/londons-violent-crime-hotspots/). I also looked at the official London Police website and found out that each month this specific area has one of the highest number of incidents and crimes in all of London (http://www.police.uk/metropolitan/00BGGN/crime/). I am very upset and disappointed with fact that Airbnb allowed this property to be listed. Airbnb should have a description of the local area. Airbnb needs to send someone to check the property out personally and they will see for themselves the security concern. My daughter used Airbnb several times across Europe to travel and recommended this to me. She had no safety concerns or major issues at the properties that she stayed at. We also had a bad experience with an Airbnb property in Paris. After this horrible experience that messed up our entire London trip and we paid the whole 889$!, I do not believe that I will ever use Airbnb again. Know that I will be sending this letter to every corporate Airbnb email I can find, will share it on many social media sites, and will make sure that none of my family and friends use Airbnb. I do believe that we should receive a refund because we booked the property under false pretenses and we did not stay at the property at all. I do not want what happened to my family to happen to another. Please send someone to this property or have it removed from your site so that this never happens to another family.
worst accommodation in 4 week holiday
We feel fortunate in that we did not lose any money. However, the apartment we booked in Kensington UK was disappointing. It was dirty and the appliances were all in poor condition (especially the washer and dryer). The bathrooms needed some maintenance and a good scrub. The towels were very poor. Unbeknown to us the apartment backed on to busy Brompton Road. Our bed proved to be metres away from the traffic, making sleep very difficult. Eventually we had to abandon the bedroom and sleep on a lounge in the living room. We couldn’t get the TVs to work. I feel the host, Patrick Lopez misrepresented himself as a “Londoner”. I have a strong suspicion that he lives in Thailand and he is unaware of the true condition of his property. I sent three messages to Airbnb but none were responded to. We contemplated just walking out and going to a hotel, but we chose to stay because we couldn’t communicate with Airbnb and didn’t want to lose $750 per night. It is a shame when you have to count down the nights before you can leave. All other accommodation (independently booked B and Bs, hotels and an apartment) was outstanding.
This website summarizes it all: AirCrapNB Hell!!
I recently had my trip cancelled, TWO DAYS BEFORE the trip. To add insult to injury, I was offered either a refund, or that if I re-booked with Airbnb, they would credit me up to $75 if the new host charged more- all this with TWO days notice. When I contacted the host directly, she said it was due to an Airbnb error in double-booking some of the days of my stay- and since they paid a slightly higher price, my reservation was the one chosen to be cancelled. I coudn’t find anything decent on AirCrapNB, so I ended up paying nearly $1,000 more to book a hotel with 2 days notice. Absolutely LOATH aircrapnb, and please think CAREFULLY before using, either as a customer (you WILL be screwed) or as a host (they are concerned SOLELY with maximizing THEIR income, and not concerned AT ALL with your finances OR reputation). DO NOT USE!!!!!!!