Airbnb prioritizes greed over ethics, morals and subverting the law. They have endangered the lives of our guests – a single mother with two young children late at night in foreign country. Airbnb purposely blocked all means of support to all involved. Then they lied to both parties. Their customer service routinely lies to both guests and hosts when it comes to dealing with issues. Airbnb always sides for themselves to unscrupulously take your money and prevent any sort of dialogue that leads to a resolution.
We have been ripped off by Airbnb on several occasions. The first incident was as new hosts. Airbnb made serious errors in instructing our staff setting up the new listings. The results were very damaging to us and our guests. Airbnb errors resulted in a double booking (they admitted technical issues due to an “upgrade”), yet immediately denied any responsibility. They refused to provide any assistance to us nor our guests. The results put the well being of a single mother with two young children at serious risk of further harm.
Airbnb refused to provide any effective assistance to us nor our two groups of guests. They could have easily contacted the guests before their flights to a foreign country (where they were then unreachable). We sent four staff by taxis to the airport and the resort. We alerted airport security and other valuable contacts to help us find our guests. I had found a much superior accommodation (at great personal costs) to provide for the two separate parties.
Instead an Airbnb “manager” blatantly lied to both myself and the guests during a three-way call, stating that it was our fault. The Airbnb manager continued to lie to all of us – stating that there was “no accommodation available”. This Airbnb manager continued to bully myself and staff threatening to penalize us and steal more money from us. Airbnb admitted their error then lied to the guests and stole our money. Eight months of effort – (we recorded an additional 72 lies by Airbnb staff about resolution, and promised compensation) have lead to us being bullied to exhaustion.
We put this aside until the most recent and third major incident of their lying to steal your and our money to put into their pockets already fat with money they have effectively stolen from other hosts and guests. Most recently a guest decide to leave in the middle of his stay to go to another resort where other family members were staying. The next day the guest made a false complaint to Airbnb that the power had failed (not true) and demanded a refund.
Airbnb was informed that the guest left without notice and that the claim of power failure was false. We even provided a free upgrade to my very superior two-story penthouse, and a free week any time they liked. The guests were more than pleased with this. Two weeks later – without notice – Airbnb stole all the rent money. We have spent over 65 hours – mostly on “1-2 minute” holds that averaged over 37 minutes. Always diverted to a wrong extension, that only resulted in them bullying myself and staff with further lies and threats of yet more penalties.
Airbnb has a culture of lying that has been promulgated by their senior executives: to steal as much money for themselves while making huge efforts to obstruct resolutions. Does anyone know the names and contacts of these senior executives and board members for service of legal documents? Does anyone else want to join the cause for truth, prevention of further abuse, bullying and illegal actions? I believe that a settlement at this point will only serve them to be able to continue to hide their very serious infractions. A court decision will be thus made public. Hosts, guests, staff, service providers and perhaps even the competition will find this valuable.
The writer is write in many ways. Homeaway was the first ones to come out with this platform…but then again, homeowners have been renting their space before all of these came along..You CAN JUST MAKE YOUR OWN VETTED WEBSITE. Think about it…all Airbnb did was copy Homeaway and improved on their platform…they only created a website to post your rental, and then turn around and get your free inventory, your home or apartment, then they sit back and collect billions of dollars, yes, Brian Chesky is worth billions…thanks to all you stupid people who let him charge you a fee and your paying guest, who pay upwards to 12% of the cost of the accommodations…so they are making like 15 percent on every . booking..do the math!
Not to mention, they are now coming into your country and stealing the local businesses, like offering up experiences..why cant the locals do their own experiences, and keep the money to themselves..NOOO Airbnb want a cut from everything…get this…tell me Airbnb, when the customer books an accommodations , dont you charge their credit card right away? so where is the money held? or do you just put a hold on the clients credit card? then charge them on the day they arrive to the accommodations? or do you keep the clients money on your account, and make big interest on it, until you pay the Host…whom do not even get paid until days after checkin? All other travel sites, when i make a reservation, i have to pay upfront, they get their money right away..so why cant the host be paid upon booking?
The way Homeaway did it…Homeaway allowed host and guests to communicate before…and you were paid upon booking….now Homeaway went wrong by implementing the greedy extortionist polices of Airbnb……GREED IS THE ORDER OF DAY!
People go make your own home country websites and place your homes on it….keep the money in your country. Host you own local experiences, without interference from Airbnb..i mean why should you pay airbnb when you can do it yourselves? Stop being a slave to others, whilst they build their wealth off the sweat of your backs! Literally that is what they do…they only have website….! wake up consumers!
Having read your endless rant, the only bully in this case is you: get a life and get over yourself.