Tag Archives: airbnb customer service agents

Airbnb Customer Service is Airbnb Hell

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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 Customer Service Unprepared to Help

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This has nothing to do with my host, but everything to do with Airbnb’s horrible customer service. On Airbnb’s mobile site, it states I have to call an 855 number in order to change a current reservation. I did that and waited almost 30 minutes listening to the same song over and over and over again, and no one came on the line to help me. Then, when I went to the full site on my computer, I first learned that I could request a change through the site from the host. As a customer who has done a lot of business with them, I do not appreciate Airbnb putting me on hold for ages when I have a problem that can be resolved by the website. This isn’t the first time I have had a problem reaching Airbnb when I have had to call them myself. I am at the point where I am ready to stop using their service because of this.

After I was on hold for 15 minutes, a representative told me over the phone that she would contact the host and wait 12 hours for a resolution. Another representative tried to talk to me early the next morning after I was on hold for 20 minutes but the call got disconnected after two minutes! Then the second representative told me at 4:00 AM that only the first could help me and that she would call me back. Why can only one person help me? This person did not even know how many nights I asked to cancel! He didn’t seem that interested in taking the time to read through my file to familiarize himself with the case even though I took an hour of my time on hold to talk to him. After all that, I dug deeper into the website and learned I could cancel the remaining days of my reservation through the website itself.

Why don’t the customer service representatives tell you this while they have you on the phone so we don’t keep wasting each other’s time? Now I have to calculate 24 hours before the first night I want to cancel the reservation for. So when does the first night begin? If I put in my request a day too early, will I be kicked out the day before? Or if I put in the request too late, will I lose 50% of that extra night? What is the cut off point? Why does it have to be this difficult dealing with Airbnb?

Airbnb is a Joke – Worst Experience Ever in DC

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I’m still trying to get a refund after an apartment host lied about his listing (in Washington, D.C.) I showed up to this piece of garbage apartment after a coast-to-coast flight (arrived at 9pm). The apartment was filthy, gross, and dirty: garbage overflowing in the kitchen and bathroom, bed sheets dirty and thrown on the floor, dirty socks and tennis shoes on the floor next to the bed, a wet dirty towel hanging sideways off the bathroom towel rack, etc. It was actually frightening.

I was shocked and not sure what to do. So I reached out to the so-called “host”… and never heard back. It took him 30+ minutes to finally contact me and proceeded to call me a “liar”, and that his cleaning lady had just cleaned the place. I sent him photos, and said I was leaving. He said he would like to “work it out” and offered me a $50 refund. I told him it was unacceptable and I needed a place to sleep that night. So I left (returned the keys to the doorman of the building). The “host” then texted me and threatened to sue me (he said he was an attorney) if I posted a negative rating on the Airbnb website. Ha! That’s a good one.

An official complaint (with photos and documentation) was filed May 19th, 2016. AMEX did a conference call with myself and Airbnb as well… to no avail. Anyway, there it is straight up. If you like this kind of treatment, then go for it. If you are a professional and expect good customer service from intelligent human beings, then run. Airbnb does not offer this. They hand you ill-trained customer service reps who lie, coddle you with a lot of false language like “Oh, I am so sorry that happened to you!”, and then NEVER DO ANYTHING to resolve the situation.

Your listing will be tied up for up to 12 hours if guest isn’t verified!

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We have been airbnb/VRBO hosts since November 2014. Yesterday we encountered a strange situation with a guest attempting to book with us via airbnb. I tried to decline them, but the site wouldn’t allow it, showing the dates were blocked (with “pending verification”). I called airbnb and they stated that the guest was still unverified and she needed to submit her online profile (and she has 12 hours to complete this, which ties up my calendar so that no one else can book during this time). Of course, I asked every question you can think of from “how is this possible?” to “how can I decline her now, so my calendar is open again for the next prospective tenant?”. All I got was that they understood that it was frustrating, but that’s the way it is. I had to wait 12 hours for the calendar to be freed up. Then, this morning the guest tried again – same problem all over again! For whatever reason, her profile wasn’t completed (or wasn’t being approved quickly) and our calendar was again tied up for 12 hours! I have had 4 conversations with 4 different airbnb customer service reps since yesterday, to no avail. They simply allow unverified guests who request a reservation before they’re verified, to tie up your calendar, therefore blocking anyone else from those same dates. The crazy thing is that your calendar is tied up, even if you’re just going to decline the guest anyway – you just have to wait to do it ! We haven’t had any trouble with VRBO – in fact, we used to think we’d like airbnb better, but VRBO wins by a landslide! We’ve had better experiences and we’ve gotten several more times the guests via VRBO than airbnb. We are seriously considering dropping airbnb altogether and just working with VRBO!