Long story short: I own a home that my husband and I have spent a chunk of our lives fixing, remodeling and shifting from shack to chic. We rented it out and made a terrible mistake of doing so to a deadbeat who posted our home on Airbnb. Obviously that was our fault; however, when we contacted Airbnb to remove the listing, they refused. We are evicting the tenant and will have him forcibly removed in three days’ time. Unfortunately, for those unsuspecting Airbnb users and renters, our home will once again be ours and they will not have a place to reside over the holidays. Bummer! Terrible service. Their motto should be “Screwing landlords and customers alike.”
Tag Archives: abandoned by airbnb
American Woman’s Airbnb Hacked by Norwegian Man
I am a frequent Airbnb user with a perfect rating. I was going to California for the weekend for a friend’s wedding. My husband, two other couples, and I were going to share a cabin. I tried to access my account yesterday to contact the host and the site told me my email was not valid. So I got on the Airbnb app on my phone, which luckily had still been logged in. From there I could see that someone had taken over my account, changed the email address and phone number to his, changed the picture, and changed the name. No matter what was on the profile there were still reviews saying “Sarah was a great guest.” No hosts seem to notice this and are gladly letting “Masteusz” stay with them. He is sending people messages in Spanish and as we speak is staying in someone’s home in Mexico City.
I called Airbnb about 14 hours ago and told them they needed to not only fix this but also find us another place to stay ASAP. I heard nothing for several hours, called again, and was told I would hear from someone in a couple hours. After hearing nothing, I called again this morning and was told they would “send it again”, that the case still didn’t have a case manager, and that there was no supervisor or anyone else I could talk to. Meanwhile, through the app, I could see that hosts are still none the wiser that this guy is a fake because they are still communicating with him about key drop offs, etc. In addition, my idiot host didn’t seem to notice that the person he was corresponding with named “Sarah” changed her name to Masteusz and is now a man from Norway. Masteusz canceled my reservation. When I messaged the host saying I didn’t want to cancel my reservation and that I was hacked he said “I’m sorry to hear that, Masteusz.” After having no luck on the phone, I posted something on the Airbnb Facebook page thinking the PR people wouldn’t like this situation. They told me to “tweet” them… really?
Airbnb Customer Service is Airbnb Hell
Airbnb customer service is horrible. They just hung up on me. While reserving a room, they flagged my payment method for fraud. I have great credit; I checked my credit card and there were no fraud issues, so I’m not sure why there was an issue. My ability to reserve a room was frozen, even after I supplied all the information they asked for. There was no response for over 24 hours despite my quickly approaching trip, that ultimately had to be postponed.
1. The first call to an Airbnb customer service representative generated an email that said they were working on it.
2. A second call four hours later. A different representative said he would try to email the department again. Then he said he had no ability to call that department.
3. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and he handed me off to a different representative.
4. I asked to speak to a manager, and he hung up on me.
Now Airbnb won’t take my call. These tech companies make their money by not providing any customer service. What a joke.
Airbnb Allows Theft and Does Nothing
We rented our house to three people from the Airbnb website where we advertised our three bedroom, two bathroom vacation rental. They stole all of our furniture, washer, dryer, artwork, and dishes. We immediately contacted Airbnb, filed a police report, found our receipts and emailed them all to Airbnb. They have done nothing to take care of this. They have a million dollar insurance policy and we never received a dime from this theft. Their insurance guy won’t return our phone calls and so we lost $15,000 worth of furnishings and appliances and Airbnb has done nothing to help us. I guess if you are a thief, rent through Airbnb and steal from the house you are renting, as Airbnb won’t do anything to catch you or help the people from whom you stole. I hope all thieves read this, rip everyone else off, and then, maybe when no one advertises through Airbnb anymore, they will go out of business. I am now going to contact the insurance commission and file a complaint. I will also contact other hosts on Airbnb and let them know about this so they can decide if they dare to continue with Airbnb.
Threatened by Host, Airbnb “Trust and Safety” Can’t Help
Your, your family’s, and your friends’ safety is at risk with Airbnb. They do not care about you and will not help you when a real threat occurs with a host. Our host did not show up at the apartment we rented and we had to pay for a taxi to her brother’s home to get the key. She expected us to ride a dilapidated old scooter with suitcases to the actual apartment; we paid for a taxi instead. The apartment was not the building on the listing: the room, size, layout, amenities, and everything else was different. Total scam. Initially Airbnb helped us get a full refund. However, the host threatened to call the police and somehow learnt where Airbnb relocated us. This is terrible customer safety. Our case was elevated to Trust and Safety but they never replied. Never. Not after being threatened, and not after nine phone calls, twelve emails and five weeks since the event. Not one single contact. This is the Trust and Safety team. This was a urgent priority matter and it is only by pure luck and our own initiative we were able to rescue our holiday. I have used Airbnb before, but never again.
Do Not Buy Airbnb Gift Cards
I purchased several thousands of dollars worth of gift cards on Amazon. Every time I try to book something with Airbnb I get an Error Code 500; if you look online this is a issue that they have with a lot of accounts. It’s not the same issue with the gift cards not getting applied to the account. I was able to apply them to my account and I now have over $1,900 worth of credit in my account that I can’t use. I actually needed to stay in another city for a medical treatment for cancer; I made Airbnb aware of my situation and nothing worked. All they can tell me is that they are working on it and this has been the only response for over six weeks. I have had to pay for a hotel instead and have been asking for a refund of my gift cards. Last week, they finally agreed to a refund, which has not yet happened, and they have currently stopped responding to my emails. I have contacted Amazon and they can do nothing about it. It looks like I will have to take Airbnb to court and hope that I get my money back. I have attached photos of what happens when I try to book. Please don’t lose your money buying these gift cards.
Account Hacked from Asia, Customer Service Does Nothing
I got a few emails written in Chinese and thought it was junk so I deleted them. On October 15th, I got an email saying it was time to check in for my reservations. Immediate red flag. I logged into my Airbnb account and sure enough I had reservations I did not make. It looked to me as though someone actually checked in on October 15th. One reservation was in progress; I clicked cancel as quickly as I could. There was still a receipt listed but under a card I did not own. In fact, there were several cards in my payment method folder that i did not recognize. This made me think whoever it was possibly opened credit cards in my name. Thankfully I have not seen anything unusual on my charges or credit score.
While I was in the process of changing my password for Airbnb and google (I signed in with my Google account) someone had made two more reservations. These were for Japan and possibly China. I was freaking out so I went ahead and took extra precautionary steps: I cancelled all my cards and had my credit card company and bank send me new ones with new numbers. I also changed my passwords to everything. When I spoke to Airbnb about this, they opened a ticket and placed my information on high priority. I called back several times and still did not speak to or get a call from anyone working on this account takeover case. The customer service line claimed they can only put in my complaint and someone from another fraud department will call me back. It has been seven days and I’m starting to believe there is no other department. I cannot just delete my Airbnb account and be done with it because I have an upcoming nine-night vacation in two weeks for which my condos are already paid through Airbnb. I think after this trip I will delete my account and forget I discovered Airbnb. I always booked my vacations through Airbnb and now I have no faith in their customer service. After I took matters into my own hands I haven’t seen any activity on my Airbnb account but I’m very cautious now.
Horrible Airbnb Experience for Overpriced Stay
I have used many sites to book weeks, weekends and one-night stays all over the country for years, but never had a more overpriced, over represented or more frustratingly terrible, amateur experience than booking through Airbnb. First of all, Airbnb charges fees, no matter what. Once you fall victim to them, they will never be refunded for any reason whatsoever. Also, they do not vet their so-called “hosts” (any Joe-blow anywhere who wants to rent out his nasty rooms to people who haven’t heard about this scam), their hosts’ practices, the actual properties, amenities, and any claims that hosts are allowed to post their listings, whether real or not.
What I booked, at the price of a 5-star hotel, for a weekend, was described as a beautiful downtown apartment, entirely for my use. It actuality, it was actually a third story walk up in an old, nasty building. There were no amenities or comforts provided; not even a spoon or fork in the kitchen, no chairs of any kind to sit on in any part of the so-called apartment, one shelf of refrigerator space, an unusable, old Keurig that leaked all over the counter and couldn’t make a cup of coffee, a metal sign outside the window that creaked, banged and made racket all night in the wind, and a full size bed with what appeared to be twin sheets stretched over the rubber sheeted mattress that came off all night and made sleep impossible. This bed was in the middle of the one “furnished” room – that’s all, just the bed; it had no bedspread, blanket or cover of any other kind. The host graciously left one newly purchased, never washed, Walmart towel for the entire weekend for 2 people.
We had to wait two hours to get into the place when we arrived because the host’s representative said she locked her keys in her car and couldn’t bring us the key to the apartment. They did not answer my calls or texts about where to leave the keys until the day after I sent them and were both upset that I left because I got tired of waiting for instructions and needed to get home. All in all, an extremely horrible experience. From now on, I will stick with the professional sites that stand behind their customers, vet their renters and properties, don’t charge hidden, exorbitant fees, and give you real value for your money.
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.
Scammed in Spain: Another Fake Airbnb Listing
We have never used Airbnb and will definitely not use it again after we booked a villa advertised on their site. We were looking for a villa to sleep eight of us in Alcudia Palma Mallorca, Spain when we found this property called Villa Pretoria with stunning views. We thought it was beautiful and suited us so we went ahead and made a booking. However, when we tried to pay by the secure credit card payment on the site it was not going through. The host said Airbnb was having some issues with this and advised us to use a link he provided with his bank details to do a transfer. We did, and paid 2,700 Euros. We were all looking forward to our family holiday as our daughter is working in Alcudia and we had not seen her for a while.
A few days before our travel date we emailed Hector for details of how to pick up keys for our stay but he did not reply. The day before we were supposed to travel we went on the Airbnb site to check our booking and there was not one there; it was then we became suspicious. My son got in contact with Airbnb and they said it looked like we had been scammed. They were going to report this but then we got an email from Hector with his contact details, telling us to call him when we landed to arrange to meet to pick up the keys. We thought maybe this was not a scam so we all got on the plane and landed in Palma at 9:00 am on Friday, August 26th.
We got our baggage and our car and rang Hector. There was no answer so we left a voicemail. Still no reply. It was then reality sank in: it was a scam. There we were eight of us stranded at Palma airport with nowhere to stay. This was really embarrassing as one couple who were our friends had not been away with us before. We then sat in the airport and got on the website to look for accommodation and was lucky enough to find a villa in Pollensa that was available. We then had to pay another 2,100 Euros. We were only there for 5 days so it worked out to be a very expensive 5 days.
We went to the police station to report this but they were no help at all as no one could speak English. They said sometimes a translator comes in but they never know when. It would be a matter of waiting around all day to see if they came in or not and as we were only there for 5 days we did not feel we wanted to waste our time hanging around. We did ring Airbnb from Spain as well and they apologised and said they would look into this. It took a few weeks for them to come back to say there was nothing they could do as we paid outside of the secure payment system. What chance do you have as a guest? We tried to make a secure payment and were told Airbnb was having problems and we should make the payment directly to the host.
As we said we never used this site before and will not again. We always use travel agents and think this is what we will do in the future, sticking to legitimate companies. We are so angry and disappointed that no one will help us get our money back. If there is something you can do to assist us in finding this crook who scammed us it would be appreciated. He gave us his picture and phone, which obviously may not be him at all. I do not know how people can sleep at night stealing from hard working people that save up to have a holiday for it to be taken away just like that. I have attached the emails and a copy of the Airbnb site with the host’s details so you can hopefully find out who does own this villa to let them know they are being scammed as well. If there is a villa there, we didn’t find it.