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.

Thanks for nothing, Airbnb

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We had booked a flat in Barcelona last August and paid $600 for five nights. Before the Barcelona leg of our trip, we stayed in another apartment (also booked through Airbnb) in Paris for five nights, which worked out well.

Prior to flying to Europe, I had communicated with the host of our apartment in Barcelona, who said he would arrange a car service from the airport to the apartment, and asked me for my flight details. That was the last I heard from the host. When we arrived in Paris, I began emailing him, asking him if he was able to arrange a car for us as he said he would, and for check in details. Each day, my emails were ignored, and I heard nothing from the host.

The night before leaving Paris and flying to Barcelona, I decided enough was enough, and I called him. The host was immediately abusive, and began screaming obscenities at me, so of course I hung up on him and immediately tried to call Airbnb for assistance. I waited on hold for 40 minutes ($2 a minute adds up quickly) before I gave up and emailed them.

Airbnb responded by sending us links to three different apartments that they suggested we try…however the apartments didn’t have our dates available. We then received an email from Temperance at Airbnb…a Customer Experience “Specialist” who said our case had been sent to a member on her team, and that we would be in good hands. I replied that we were now on our way to Spain with no place to stay, and a child with us.

And, that was the last time I ever heard from Airbnb. I have been emailing Temperance daily, and it has now been four days. I had to go into the original booking and cancel it, and they issued a 50% refund. We had to shell out the money to stay in a hotel, so I will be contesting all charges with my credit card company once I am back in the states, as I’m not paying for services not rendered.

I am also not able to leave a review for the host (his name is Kristian, if anyone is interested) who was a complete psychopath, so there is no way to warn potential future guests of his.

I will continue to email – and call, once I am back in the States – Airbnb until someone from their incompetent organization acknowledges me.

Airbnb are criminals.

Phising in Airbnb

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I have been a victim of online fraud totalling 1,297 Euro whilst using your website www.airbnb.es.
Below I have outlined what occurred whilst using your website.On 10th February I contacted the host via the internal mail of Airbnb, the landlord of a luxury Chalet.

I do not have a copy of that email as all my emails in Airbnb have been deleted from my Airbnb account, and not by me.

It was the first time I rented an apartment via Airbnb so I did not know the normal procedure of the website, however, I reiterate, nothing seemed out of place to me.

I received the following e-mail from a fake Airbnb adresse that told me to contact the landlord.
I contacted the landord and the landlord agreed to give me a discount on the price and said Airbnb would contact me directly.

After that, I received and e-mail from a fake airbnb adresse confirming the reservation and with the details of the payment
I made the payment via Western Union Wire Transfer to the certified “secured Airbnb agent”

I read in the website that Airbnb sometime pays the host via Western Union so that seemed normal to me. Also the payment was located in the USA and I know Airbnb is an American company so this also seemed normal to me.

Airbnb is an interesting business model but it is not acceptable that the company does not validate ownership of properties, the identity of the users or if lessees are permitted to sublet. Apparently accounts are hacked quite often. Airbnb should be liable for the things that happen in their own website. In addition to that, Airbnb is aware that these operations are not compliant from a tax perspective as the landlords normally do not declare the amount that have been paid. Airbnb is profiting from this too.

International courts consider that websites that permit the transfer of illegal IP content such as P2P platforms (Napster among others) are liable because they acknowledge that the operation was not fully legal.

Airbnb cannot control all the websites and hackers, but that is why companies have insurance that cover situations like the one.

I can assure you that I am very careful in my online transactions as I am a lawyer. Something is very wrong if this has happened to me, a trained and practicing lawyer, because this means that could happen easily to anyone.

To resolve the problem, my request is that Airbnb would reimburse the full amount for which I paid for the fake apartment. I contacted the fake landlord through your website and I know that Airbnb as has insurance to cover these kinds of situations.

Unauthorized Charge on Credit Card

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Two days ago, I reserved a flat through Airbnb in Makati and was going to pay for it with a Visa card. When I pressed the “Book It” button on the airbnb site, a screen came up saying that my reservation had to be approved. So I waited and was expecting to be prompted to enter my credit card information. Soon after, another screen came saying that I had been approved, immediately followed by another screen that said my booking was confirmed and was paid for by my American Express card.

Without my authorization, airbnb had automatically charged the American Express card that I had used for a previous booking. First of all, I was not even aware that they had retained my card on file. Secondly, my experience of making payments on the internet has been that there is always a screen that asks how you want to pay for something. Since my American Express card charges were quite substantial, I had planned on using a Visa credit card.

My first reaction was to look for contact information on the airbnb site. That in itself was a project. One has to go through tons of FAQs before being able to send an email. No phone number was readily available. I later found out that I had to press urgent to get a phone number. Well, my reservation is a over a month away, and I did not feel it was urgent. At least not at that moment.

I immediately informed airbnb via email that I wanted to switch the charges–reply from them was that it would take a few days to address my problem since they were inundated by support requests. Since it seemed that the problem was easy enough to solve, I decided to give airbnb a call. My host who was aware of the issue provided me a couple of phone numbers, and I called– the wait time on the phone was close to an hour.

Here is the best part: upon hearing about the problem, customer service informed me that they would email me a link where FIRST I had to provide them with my Visa card number and that they would charge my Visa and THEN REVERSE the charges on my Amex. Well, I told them to first reverse my Amex charges, and then I would give them my Visa card no. After all, my reservation was over a month away. More importantly, I did not want to give airbnb control over two of my credit cards after they had unscrupulously charged my Amex without authorization. Would you? What I thought was a simple matter to resolve was quickly becoming a best practices issue. I spoke to a supervisor (supposedly) and was told that at his level airbnb was not set up to refund me first and then switch the charges. They wanted me to pay up a second time, and then they would refund the first charges.

To add insult to injury, airbnb’s customer service arrogantly informed me that if I disputed the charges on the American Express card and the reservation was cancelled, their cancellation policy would apply. What is their cancellation policy? Their cancellation policy is unconscionable: 50% penalty plus the airbnb fee on ANY cancellations made up to one week before the reserved dates. Bigger penalty on cancellations within one week of reservation. My reservation is more than a month away. Customer service informed me that if my reservation was cancelled for whatever reason, I would only get 50% of my money back. Airbnb, get your act together. RENTER BEWARE!

Last Minute Cancellation

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Nearly two months ago, my fiancee and I booked a beautiful apartment for a two-week stay in San Francisco. We spent a lot of time looking through listings, and found one that we thought was perfect. The host was well-reviewed, and there were many positive comments. We paid the full amount and thought we were on our way.

Fast forward to the night before we were to arrive. After several days of attempting to contact the host, she abruptly canceled our reservation with no warning and no explanation. We had only a few hours to find somewhere to stay.

Airbnb told us we’d be eligible for a mere $100 credit. We were able to find another apartment at the last minute, but it wasn’t nearly as nice as the one we booked originally.

I have had nothing but great experiences with AirBnB in the past. In fact, we are in a beautiful rented house for our second week here in the Bay Area, but have had to now pay the cost of moving to a second property (a second AirBnB fee and a second cleaning fee).

We also learned that you can’t leave negative feedback on AirBnB unless you stay at a property, so there is no other way for us to warn people about this on their site.

I believe that AirBnB is providing a great service, but this is an issue they need to address. They are very strict about renter cancelations, but to my knowledge, no penalty befell our host for canceling less than 24 hours in advance, besides a warning.

After Harassment from Host, AirBnB Sides with the Host

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AirBnB customer service does not protect its customers. My story is not the first nor will it be the last.

I stayed in an unacceptable hosting environment (there was no heat in sub-zero temperatures, in one of the coldest nights in history according to weather.com) and while AirBnB kindly refunded me, they also asked me to post a review of the host to “keep AirBnB honest.” I would post the host’s name, but this woman has acted like such a psycho that I’m scared of any retaliation.

I hesitated, as last time I posted a less-than-favorable review, the host retaliated and posted completely false and damaging things on my profile. I was able to get it removed by removing my original review, and I see the host continues to do the same things to anyone who makes any kind of complaint on her property. She writes slanderous and horrible things about ANYONE who writes anything even slightly negative– for example, one woman literally wrote a super nice review and then just said “I didn’t realize there’d be someone sleeping in the living room…” and the girl WENT OFF on her. So AirBnB won’t take any action against a host who does this REPEATEDLY.

Anyway, back to my current situation. The host seemed relatively nice/stable so I posted a fair but honest review of my experience. The host went nuts, calling me (as well as my friend who stayed with me) twice a day, harassing us to take the review down, and when I asked her to stop calling me, she sent me multiple messages via AirBnB, and even after AirBnB asked her to stop calling me, she continued to harass me.

She then went the extra mile and wrote a false, damaging, and defaming review on my profile. I contacted AirBnB and asked them to take action, or at least to remove the review on my page.

A customer service representative named “Frankie G.” responded in a fairly sarcastic way, saying that while they were removing parts of MY review because it referenced some of the actions of the AirBnB staff (such as the fact that they gave me a refund), they would not remove any parts of the host’s review. He even said “It looks like your response clears things up.” Uh, I still don’t want a slanderous review on my profile! Frankie G. informed me they were they taking no further action about the fact that this woman was harassing me– so I’m guessing she will have free reign in the future to harass customers who don’t completely agree with the substandard conditions of her property. They ended the email with a snarky “I’m sure you’ll get great reviews in the future” and basically put the blame on my friend and I.

The fact that I am being harassed because I posted a fair and balanced review outlining the facts of a host that offered an unacceptable hosting situation and AirBnB chooses to protect the host tells you all you need to know. Sure, if you are in a good situation with AirBnB, you’ll be fine, but the minute you need protection, you are screwed. Don’t bother. It is not worth the headache or money saved. I strongly recommend against using this service and will be sure to let everyone I know how unsafe this service is. You are putting yourself at a GREAT risk if you use this service.

Hosts who behave like this should have action taken against them, if they are not removed completely, then they should at least have some kind of suspension period. But no, AirBnB is happy to let erratic and unstable hosts continue to harass and bully anyone who doesn’t toe the line.

Airbnb took $470 from our security deposit!

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The host claimed that we made a damage soon after we left their condo. The damage was already there when we were there but the host claims that the maid took pictures of it before we were there and after we left. I contacted airbnb and told them can this host just lie and take money from us like this and airbnb kindly said no, but they will investigate. Few days later, airbnb took $470 from our credit card. I reached out to the supervisor and she hung up on me. She didn’t want to deal with this case. They just want us to pay for the damage we did not even make. Happy host who gets to have free $470 from an honest family stayed in their condo for one night. We went there to show our kids snow and it turned out to be a stressful, deceiving disaster! I feel so bad for airbnb. Never ever using airbnb again!

Mispresentation at teh Airbnb.com

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In September 2013 I booked a nicely looking place in Moscow.
When I arrived there I started receiving my bad experience with Airbnb host.
The floors were dirty,the linen have never been ironed, host was not friendly at all.
I left my negative review of my stay there on the website, then in 7 days I checked in to watch my review and found, that it was removed by the Airbnb.