Tag Archives: airbnb customer service fail

Airbnb puts Owners on Timeout due to Guest Scam

Posted on

I have been using Airbnb as an owner for the past year or so. All of my reviews have been excellent except for two. One complained about the furniture, comparing it to a college dorm after she left, but never to me during her stay. Then I had another two guests after her who loved the place and wanted to use it again in the future.

Then a scammer reserved my home for four nights. He asked me to let him check in earlier than 3:00 PM. I told him 12:00 PM would be ok. Then I did not hear from him again. At 7:00 AM, the day after his check in, I got a message he had sent me at 4:00 AM saying that he just got there and found a roach. Therefore, he could not stay there and wanted his money back.

This was a scam because the previous guest never saw a roach and I use a professional bug company to spray the home inside and out. Airbnb had two different staff members ask me to tell them what happened. I did. They asked me if I was willing to refund the money. I said no, because it was a lie. I personally went to the home the day I received the message and did not find any bugs. The Airbnb person said okay, and closed the ticket.

A week later, another guest checked in and had no issues. I also got a guest request for a two-month reservation. After I pre-approved the guest, Airbnb sent me an email stating that they had suspended my listing for one week.

I immediately called them up to find out the reason why. The agent said she could not help me but would refer me to a supervisor who will call me at some point in the future. She had no idea when. I asked her what will happen with the prea-pproval and the guest trying to book my home for two months. She said I will not be able to communicate with her until Airbnb decides to relist my house.

Really? I did nothing wrong. I want to see what kind of hosting business will Airbnb have without any hosts! Please do not use this company to list your properties. Go to VRBO.

Unverified Property Leads to Nearly Ruined Trip

Posted on

I have been an Airbnb Host and also a guest so my recent experience took me by surprise. I booked a rental in a resort town in Canada, found a perfect location, had four beds (for four adults) and saw it was reasonably priced. I paid my 50% with my Amex Platinum card rather than using Paypal, which I have used in the past. I also sent a note to the owner.

After the Easter holiday weekend, my husband asked if he should cancel the hotel he had booked and I said that I had booked the Airbnb a few days ago. I went to check and there was no reservation, nothing in our upcoming trips or the like. I couldn’t find any messages either on the site or in my email so I was very puzzled.

I finally decided to call Airbnb and while I was looking for contact info on the “contact us” page, I saw a picture of the property with a message that said “did not pass verification”. What the heck? Why wouldn’t I have seen something online or received a message about this? And what verification?

I called customer support and the agent said she couldn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be verified and sometimes “mistakes happen” in their system. She sent my issue to another group and a case manager reached out to me this morning. After several exchanges of messages (after he said it was a system error on their end) he asked how many times I had submitted payment.

Well, only once and it seemed to have gone through; there were no error messages. I explained that my Amex Platinum card would not have rejected anything and have since checked; they did not reject anything.

The case manager said “I am leaving in 15 minutes” and asked me to call back with the number I started with yesterday. After being on hold, the agent said she would transfer me back to have a live conversation in the same department that I had been messaging with and then she disconnected me. I have not received any call back.

Now, the property is booked, we cannot find another one that fits our needs and I am seething. I would have been able to respond and fix the situation if I had been notified, but even the agent was at a loss why we couldn’t see this message except the one buried in in the contact us section. Fortunately, we have found two guest rooms in another place through booking.com but I would like Airbnb to admit to its mistakes (they sometimes make per the agent) and provide some restitution.

Unhonored Airbnb Cards as Wedding Gifts

Posted on

Recently married. On our registry we asked for Airbnb gift cards if people were inclined to gift us something; we love traveling and we’re in our 30s with most material items we could possibly need. A lot of people obliged and we received several gift cards in denominations ranging from $50-100/ card.

Today we went to load the cards to our account, and not one… not two… not even a few… but 13 of the gift cards aren’t able to be accepted. We called customer service and spent over an hour being told yes, we see seven gift cards accepted out of the 20+ new numbers you tried to enter (so they acknowledged the cards were only ever entered today, and that only a fraction were accepted). Then the rep proceeded to inform me she wasn’t trained or knowledgeable to assist us with this matter, and that we would ‘have to be escalated and transferred to payments center’.

I inquired as to whether I would be speaking with another person about this. The rep said “no, that’s not an option for customers” and that the only rep we would be able to physically speak with would be through the help center (which apparently was the number I had called to reach this rep). Okay… so then I requested to speak with a supervisor. I was informed there was none on site, or none with whom I would be able to speak period.

When in the history of business is there not a supervisor available to ever speak with? Then the rep informed us she never said she would transfer me, but meant that she would email the payment center. I asked when we could expect a response. She claimed within an hour (seemed really unrealistic especially since there was nobody but this person available to talk).

It’s been five hours, and I still have yet to hear from anyone. I have over $1300 in gift cards from family, friends, and coworkers that were given to us for Airbnb which this company has managed to swindle away somehow, and make unusable. There were zero real attempts to appropriately assist us. Highly unsatisfied here.

We’re Heading to Where Airbnb Offers Nothing

Posted on
My relationship with Airbnb has become more and more rocky as I have observed their tactics. I have watched them drop off lower price units that bolstered supply (and thus brought average costs down) trying to justify the move on the basis of quality control. More recently I have seen them shut complaint cases after providing a poor response – with no opportunity to see if the complaint response is useful – and more recently still shut cases without even responding. Either through negligence or design, I am currently ring-fenced.
The attached is a very recent complaint that has been closed with no solution provided.  I have lost the last three property opportunities due to this.  As an account holder where ‘legal consideration’ has passed, Airbnb is contractually obliged to afford a duty of care.  So many fundamental things are failing such as automatic acceptance of bank statement uploads and the promise of a couple of transactions to hit said bank account to be subsequently identified to finalize verification. This would suggest really bad glitches in areas such as banking and security or purposeful black balling techniques.
Either way, they selected the wrong customer for such fun and games because I have OCD when it comes to seeking remedies.  I am a god with a bone when it comes to man’s search for truth and justice. The good news is that my organization has a competing app on the horizon and if my situation is not unique there is a ready made queue emerging for the new services.  Thank goodness for Airbnb Hell as a platform.  I hope this gets resolved before the “open letter to CEO” phase.

Real Airbnb Hell with Snowstorm Approaching

Posted on

We’re having an unacceptable Airbnb day today. Let me explain what happened. We were not happy with the room at our first reservation, as it was so small that there was no place for our luggage. We have taken pictures of the room (and the rest of the house); the pictures in the listing are not false advertisement but not fair either. There’s no full disclosure of this.

We called customer service at 5:00 PM, after a long trip, to know our options. We spoke to a case manager who did his best. We were told we would get called within the hour but they were “experiencing system issues”. It eventually took hours to find a solution. The first hour we waited at a restaurant and customer service was kind enough to offer a $25 coupon for our dinner.

When it closed, we waited outside. It was freezing in NYC at that time. It was impossible to reach them because the system was down. We eventually went back to the flat, where our stuff was, and called again. In the meantime, the host told us he didn’t feel comfortable having us in the flat and that we should get the refund on his terms and find another solution, like going to a hotel. The situation started escalating.

Three hours after our first call, we received a call back. His best solution was to rebook us but by the time he called us back all the listings that we had looked at and throughly read were already gone. We looked at some other listings together and found a listing that was online. This was already between 8:00 and 9:00 PM and we had no luck booking it. As the situation at the host’s place escalated and we were tired and stressed, we just wanted to get out of there and as customer service found a listing in a different neighbourhood, we had no better choice but to take it.

Customer service sent us a coupon for that listing and we had to add 4 euros and take an Uber to the next place because there was no public transportation at that late hour. As we were not able to thoroughly read the listing because of the said conditions, we asked if it was okay to book the next place just for one night – a reasonable thing to ask after the earlier experience – and Airbnb said that we had to book all three nights. We had no choice and we were happy to get out of a situation where we felt compromised and unsafe.

We got to the place where we are now at 10:30 PM, 5.5 hours after placing the first call. This is a different neighbourhood than the one we wanted, and it seemed sketchy. The house is run down and we found out that this listing is a dorm type of situation with seven rooms rented out and who knows how many people; this was not stated in the listing. So many people are coming and going, the shared rooms including the kitchen and bathrooms are busy and it’s noisy. It’s a hostel here, not an Airbnb. Also the window is broken and wind is coming in with a snow storm coming tonight. We took pictures of it.

We feel like the solution we got was worse than the original problem. We were pushed to take just any solution. We are very upset with the way this was handled. Airbnb could have at least provided us with a hotel room, instead of making this situation worse. We don’t want to stay here and we also don’t want another bad situation with the host just like what happened earlier today. We have been using Airbnb for six years now and this has never happened to us. This is really bad. We feel very upset.

It is almost midnight and we are still chatting with Airbnb customer service, who is still trying to find a solution. The host is asleep of course, but the guests are still running around in this “hostel”. It’s been seven hours and our nerves are wrecked. This is not fair. Tomorrow the weather conditions are going to be terrible, with a snow storm. A comfortable and safe environment is essential. This is what we expect Airbnb to provide, especially after all we’ve been through.