Tag Archives: airbnb customer serivce

The Tables have Turned: Hosts Rating Airbnb

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On March 10th 2017, I happened to check my account on Airbnb and found that my response rating had been reduced from 100% to 50%. No prior warning was provided. It appears that I had not responded to Airbnb inquiries, but I had not received any. I set about trying to make contact with Airbnb, but that proved to be impossible. There is no contact point and no way of raising a support ticket. There is a feedback form I found on their website but after trying to write in my complaint, I got a response saying that the feedback form will not receive individual responses and it s not a support ticket. So where is the method or means to raise an individual support ticket request? It appears there is none. Airbnb is happy to take our money and dish out severe ratings but certainly does not want to hear about any problems that they may have created themselves. I tried to post the following to their feedback form, but I think this will not get any response:

Complaints about Airbnb as follows:

1. Unable to make any form of direct contact with Airbnb, almost suggesting the company is not interested in any contact from its customers.

2. Airbnb suspended my listing without any notice or threat due to my lack of response to their inquiries. However, none of these enquiries have come through in any of the methods usually deployed by Airbnb including:

a. No email indicating an inquiry was issued by Airbnb.

b. No notification alert from Airbnb.

c. No mobile phone text message from Airbnb.

However, Airbnb threatened to suspend my hosting as well as immediately reduce my response rating from 100% to 50% with no prior notification. This clearly is an Airbnb system fault and not my lack of response. I know this because customers have actually made contact with me since there was no response via Airbnb. This clearly supports the fact that it is your system that has the problem. A Google search on the matter brought up multiple similar occurrences with other Airbnb hosts. While this may be a glitch in Airbnb’s system. There is no way of contacting Airbnb to inform of the problem or get help to rectify this problem. There is no human contact available. Given this lack of response, there is a loss of customer revenue from the host’s point of view, which also translate to a loss of revenue from Airbnb. I would therefore reduce my rating of Airbnb as a hosting site from 100% down to 50%, similar to what they have given me. Unless I hear from Airbnb within the next two days, that satisfaction rating on Airbnb as my hosting site will be reduced further from 50% to 0%.

Airbnb’s Unethical Service Fees

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Let me start by saying I am a host and other people have cancelled on me before. I also use Airbnb to travel to other sites. It is currently April. I booked a trip for July for work back in January. However, funding for my trip was cancelled and I am no longer able to go on the trip. I wrote to the host and asked if she would be willing to cancel my trip and issue a full refund. She said, “Yes of course! Let me just figure out how!” So I waited and waited and later got notification that she acknowledged my cancellation and issued a refund of about 3/4 of the money she said she would. Meanwhile, Airbnb kept $70 of the original amount I paid, citing that they were “service fees” and, therefore, nonrefundable. A service rep wrote to congratulate me that the host refunded the room outside of the strict policy (less than she said she would refund). I responded asking to be refunded the $70 services fees. Back and forth, back and forth. And still the answer was “no, the service fees will not be refunded.” Note that it is early April and there are still over three months before my planned check-in date. As a host, I KNOW that the likelihood of re-booking is high. Airbnb has a valuation of billions of dollars and now I understand why: keeping money for services NOT rendered and unethically keeping any money they are able to process… simply because “you agreed to” when this caveat is written in fine print somewhere. The attitude reminds me of street vendors in 3rd world countries. I’m not opening a dispute with my credit card company and hoping to find an alternative to Airbnb to both host and locate other go-to destinations.

Evicted while Renting on Airbnb

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My landlord sent me an eviction notice while my apartment was being rented on Airbnb but Airbnb provided zero support. I was in Africa at the time and could do nothing. It took me three days to get hold of an Airbnb representative who then said there was nothing they could do to help me. They could not even give me advice on how to proceed. They could not even recommend a lawyer. Nothing. Airbnb were very supportive in getting my apartment rented. They even sent a photographer to take photos of it for free. I really had no idea they were encouraging me to do something illegal and that it would cost me my home. Why would I do something illegal on a website that everyone can see? If I buy something from Amazon I don’t first check to see if it is illegal. I thought Airbnb was similarly a reputable company. But I was naive. Airbnb is pure evil.

No control of hosts – no help for guests

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A very bad experience in Uptown West69th Street apartment It was described as spacious, comfortable, you feel like in a hotel ecc It had good reviews. It was the contrary: extremely small, badly equipped with old stuff, smelly, old kitchen, cushions, sofa, carpets with stains. The fotos years old. When we arrived the sheets on the bed were so smelly, that is was not possible to sleep in them, we had to take it off and went out to wash and dry them and I bought one new pillow. We wanted to cancel immediately. But first you have to report to the host and find a solution with him. Only within 24 hours. You must be lucky to reach somebody and get an answer. The guy I contacted at airbnb told me to call back, but never did. The host agreed to accept the cancellation, but only at 50%, airbnb take their share anyway. They did not take any action even though I had sent them fotos that showed the reality. Only the host decides and counts. We had booked nearly two weeks, so we were not ready to lose so much money. We stayed and tried to be as little as possible in the flat. I wrote a realistic description of the flat in my review. Jane, the host, accused me in her review aggressively. Only lies and retaliation. Airbnb had our emails, knowing it was not true, only said: free speech. The only one that looses iand gets the blame is the guest.