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.

Pensacola Letdown Leads to Three-Year Battle for Refund

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I have been a long-time customer of Airbnb. In December 2017 we booked a place in Pensacola. When we arrived the place was a mess, and obviously not clean from the previous occupant. I phoned the host and she offered to rush over and clean it.

At this point my husband refused to stay. We left and stayed at a nearby hotel with free breakfast.

The host offered a full refund. Over the next two years and after countless emails, she refunded what she was given from Airbnb in March 2020. I had a stroke in January 2018 and again in November 2018. Needless to say, this slowed down my efforts to obtain my refund.

When I explained my situation to Airbnb support, they said I waited too long. Well, the host dragged it out to her advantage; I couldn’t even leave a review at that point. I’m not talking about a lot of money here; it’s the principle. Guess I’ll stick to hotels — at least they feed you and give points for free stays, and are usually ready for your stay.

Terrible Host with no way to Contact Airbnb

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Airbnb hosts accused us bringing extra people and that is not true. We booked for 12 and there were 11 of us. Proof is attached. I’m writing on behalf of members of KC Nippon and myself. I was a world karate champion. We travel a lot and use Airbnb very often. We never had a bad experience like the one in NYC.

I came to NYC for a competition with ten kids. The apartment was not ready when we arrived: the house was dirty and some workers were putting on a bathroom door that was completely missing. The other door was broken and some of the furniture as well.

After two nights, the toilet broke and all the sewage was coming back up. We contacted the super and she promised to fix it. That was very risky for the kids’ health and we had to close that bathroom. We couldn’t use it for the rest of our stay. That caused a lot of delays in our program and a lot of complaints from kids’ parents.

When we complained about it, the host sent threatening SMS messages (see attached photo). She also came the day that we were leaving to check everything, and when we complained she start to be very rude and was yelling at the kids. She is listed as a real estate agent and I’m not even sure can she legally rent apartments on Airbnb in New York State.

When we came back we saw a very impolite message: the agency wanted us to pay them extra money. We booked and pay in advance for 12 persons, but there were only 11 of us. We will not pay anything extra.

At this moment we would like to request a refund for our expenses. The kids’ health was in danger (considering coronavirus and all the unsanitary conditions). My personal opinion is that Airbnb should protect their users from hosts like this.

Bad Airbnb Owner Trying to Scam Guests

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My wife and I chose Airbnb to find a location to have our wedding reception. The first day was very busy getting people from the airport, getting and putting up decorations, helping the caterer, and so on. Given that, we noticed but disregarded the broken refrigerator and dirty house and other odds and ends. We took a couple of pictures but carried on getting things done.

The week went by, and we head home. My wife received a message from the owner saying that we damaged many things and needed to pay $300 in repairs. She messaged her back calmly saying that these things were already broken and sent the pictures timedated to her as proof.

She said that her management service is very thorough and accused my wife of lying. She became very hostile when my wife pointed out all the other things that were substandard with a $3000 house rental. She insisted that we were lying and gave my wife a very negative review saying, “It would have been nice for you to be honest about it.”

Now she is publicly calling my wife disrespectful and a liar when we have the proof of her management company’s negligence. To add insult to injury they have deleted my wife’s review of the house while the owner is still allowed to publicly bash and harass us online and on her personal email.

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$3000/week “Green Home” Rental Came with Head Lice

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In mid-February 2020, a friend and I flew in from opposite coasts to rent a $3000/week Airbnb house in Scottsdale. The house was recently renovated and seemed clean; however, 7-10 days later, we each discovered we had contracted head lice.

We each live alone and for several months prior to this trip, we had been only in our own houses. Neither of us has ever had head lice before; we are 60+ years of age with no history of lodging complaints (baseless or otherwise) against companies or Airbnb.

I contacted the property management company and Airbnb, and was told: the house was clean; we could not prove we’d contracted lice from this rental; and we needed to file a complaint within 24 hours of the stay. Obviously, this is hard to do with a pest infestation for which it takes 7-10 days to show symptoms.

Other than responding to my email, Airbnb has put zero effort into investigating this complaint. Why is the burden of proof on us when two people who live on opposite sides of the country contract head lice within two weeks of staying together at the same property?

Seriously, other people are at risk of head lice infestations and Airbnb has an obligation to do more.

Coronavirus Causes Hours of Customer Service Wait Time

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My host will not cancel and told me to go through Airbnb. Their chat is a bot and not a human, so that got me nowhere. I am on hold, but they said “we are experiencing higher than usual call volumes, expect to wait hours” and then started on hold.

Hours? I have never heard that before. I can’t believe they don’t have a away to easily cancel online with this coronavirus stuff. We have a family member with a respiratory illness whose doctor has said not to travel. We need to cancel and can according to their policy, but I need to be able to do it.

I will never book through Airbnb again. I have never had such a problem and it is so stressful.

Cured Photos, Airbnb Says Everything is Within Policy

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We had to escape from an Airbnb apartment. It was not as described, with photos only showing the best parts of it.

Most importantly, it was unsafe. The neighboring building was a dump and abandoned apparently; the picture of the entrance did not show this. I have proof of how it looks in reality and can send it. It is unsafe.

We couldn’t get into the apartment because the path to it was completely covered with ice. There were literally no steps; it had not been cleaned for weeks. We have taken pictures of this. I fell and almost ended up on the road with cars. The icy path opened directly to the busy road and there were no pathways.

The bed was yellowed and very old. We could not even think of sleeping on it. The toilet was clean but smelled of urine — filthy and not hygienic. The other small bedroom had the window shut from the outside. This Airbnb was nothing like the sunshine in the pictures.

Airbnb Doesn’t Delete Confidential User Data

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I wanted to unsubscribe from Airbnb emails but they have no unsubscribe function as required under Australian law (Spam Act 2003). To unsubscribe, Airbnb’s terms state only to “send us an email” to terminate the agreement. An email was sent as requested with the subject and body “cancel my account” for two accounts (i.e. Germany and Australia).

For the first account, Airbnb advised me with three reply emails sent from a third party (zendesk.com) that the requested account was cancelled. I conducted a test five days later to confirm the cancellation had failed. Access was granted to the cancelled account on login with the last password. Confidential account and profile information including my date of birth and phone number were still accessible, able to be updated, and obviously still held by Airbnb.

Airbnb refused to cancel my second account unless a “government ID” was provided, in spite of the request being sent from the same email address used to login. Airbnb was advised that the email reply was indistinguishable from a “phishing” scam. Airbnb was asked to state what legal authority Airbnb relied on to demand a government ID from me to cancel my account.

Airbnb simply continued to demand proof of identity to cancel the account without stating the legal authority for their demand other than suggesting it was merely an Airbnb policy. After replying to all further Airbnb responses with automatic resending of the original “cancel my account” request, Airbnb finally advised that the account had been cancelled but the data would not be deleted due to my failure to provide ID.

Airbnb has demonstrated their: failure to provide an unsubscribe facility as required by the Australian Spam Act 2003; failure to terminate (AKA “cancel my account”) the agreement while claiming to have done so; failure to give physical effect to the termination of the agreement granting Airbnb the right to hold confidential personal information necessary for service delivery by not deleting that information on termination.

The above evidence shows blatant breaches of Airbnb’s own policy, the Australian Spam Act 2003, and the German GDPR, which proves Airbnb’s intention not to protect consumer information.

No Refund for State of Emergency in LA

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On Tuesday evening I decided to spend two days in LA and booked with Airbnb. Wednesday morning, LA County declared a state of emergency. I’m not afraid of the virus, but deliberately going to an area where the state of emergency was declared because of the virus doesn’t make any sense either. I decided to cancel.

Unfortunately, the state of emergency because of the deadly coronavirus is no reason for cancellation and therefore the host doesn’t want to refund my money. I called the customer service on Wednesday early afternoon and they promised a call back from a supervisor.

Now it is Thursday at 11:00 PM (PST) and I called again. This time it was someone who promised a call back from a supervisor. No callback so far. I also filed a claim after I cancelled but I haven’t received any response here either.