I accepted an instant book for six nights starting in a few days time. I have hosted on Airbnb for nearly two years with great reviews (even from other hosts). My mobile home is based in Florida and is offered for sole use. Recently a guest brought in some bugs not native to the US and we had the unit treated several time to kill them. The guest that arrived started complaining the moment they walked in the door: “It’s dirty, the locks didn’t work, there were hairs on the sheets, the light bulbs weren’t working, the sink was blocked.” The list went on and on. However, as soon as we “corrected” an issue, even if there wasn’t one, suddenly there was another. We then got an email from Airbnb saying the guest wanted a refund! That’s when the resolution center came into the picture. I requested the guest leave, with Airbnb’s permission (she said). It took two days to get her out. I still have not been paid and now I have to deal with a case manager who has no supervisor to whom I can speak. I am so disappointed that Airbnb is so bad at customer service. I am thinking of cancelling all future bookings, telling the guests why, and getting them to contact Airbnb.
Tag Archives: airbnb customer service
Stupid Policies Keep Payment from Hosts
I am a host with Airbnb. I set up an account as a host, but I forgot to set up a payment method. I did not have a guest until November 30th, a 60-day stay. They told me that I would be paid a day after the guest arrived. When I did not receive payment I called Airbnb and they said I didn’t have a payment method select. I was instructed to go into my account and set one up. I logged in but forgot my password since I rarely used it. I was talking to an Airbnb agent who walked me through the procedure of resetting my password. I logged in only to find that I was blocked from my account. I could not go into my settings to set up a payment method. I called over seven times; all the agents were apologetic but they said this was out of their control. A case manager had to deal with me. It has now been over two weeks. I am still blocked, they still have my money, and my guest is still at my house. The policy of blocking someone out of his account without just cause is outrageous. All companies – credit cards, etc. – call, text, or email if they suspect fraud. They verify charges with the customer before cancelling their card. Airbnb does not. To wait more than two weeks and counting is unheard of. To hold back a payment is unlawful. Airbnb should change their policies or a new player in the rental business should take over. I posted a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and found out Airbnb has a 92% negative rating.
Airbnb Laundered Over $100K into Unauthorized Account
We are a corporate housing provider. One of our employees opened up personal Paypal accounts under their own name and Airbnb deposited over $100,000 into these accounts. It has been two weeks, several phone calls, and follow-up emails with still no response. We will have to engage a lawyer as Airbnb has shown no initiative towards a resolution in recouping our funds. If anyone else has experienced such fraud, and negligence on Airbnb’s part there should be a class action suit.
I have discovered a person who was working for me opened an account under his name with Bank of America and Airbnb through utter negligence was sending my payments for my company into this person’s account through Paypal. The result of this egregious negligence on Airbnb’s part is that over one hundred thousand dollars of my money went to someone else’s account. There was grand theft committed against me and my business solely due to lack of any security by Airbnb. In the past few months I called Airbnb multiple times and asked if there were using any other account for my company except the two authorized accounts I have. Each time the Airbnb representatives assured me that there were no other accounts being used except these two. I continued digging into all my Airbnb transactions and bookings as I was going over all of our company bookings and many tenant payment methods were missing. I thought it somehow linked back to Airbnb, yet they continued to have no answers.
Finally, on November 30th, I called Airbnb yet again and I asked them to go over every single payment they have paid me. When we got to the last few payments they weren’t in either of my accounts and the representative couldn’t tell me into which account they were deposited. After putting me on hold to research this, the representative came back to me and said that the payments went to a Paypal account. Not only did they never realize this in all my past conversations with them, they also – to my shock – had no information on this Paypal account and they asked me to call Paypal for more information. After I called Paypal I found out that multiple accounts had been opened and closed through my company, using someone else’s name since 2014, with Airbnb being the sole source of deposits. This was shocking news, again leading to what I have found to be well over $100,000 in theft.
Airbnb Wants to Give Hacker my Credit Card Number
I received a message from Airbnb that someone had changed my email. I immediately replied to this message as instructed saying I didn’t change my email. Days went by and there was no response. I finally found the customer support email on the website and called. The customer support representative told me to just create a new account. I wanted all my reviews and history. I discovered that I can actually log in to my account using Facebook – I didn’t remember ever connecting it – and it works. Now I can access my account and see that a hacker did indeed change my email and password. I can’t change the email because it requires knowing the password. I can’t change the password because it requires access to the email. At this point both the hacker and I have access to the account. I called Airbnb back and told customer support the situation. The response of the representative was that they couldn’t help me until I added my credit card to the account. Yes, that is correct: Airbnb will not even begin to help me recover my hacked account until I provide my credit card information to a hacker who they openly acknowledge has access to my account. This is insane.
I Lost £200 One Hour After Booking Airbnb
Four days before our flight we booked accommodation through Airbnb and it was only afterwards we realized it was a house share, which was a deal breaker for us; we like our privacy. We cancelled within one hour of booking. The total order was for approximately £346, and we were refunded only £146 a few days later. When I called Airbnb to find out why, they said they have a strict cancellation policy and that I would need to ask the host to refund in full. I emailed the host and said whilst I appreciate the terms and conditions with all due respect she did not lose business in this hour between our booking and cancellation. She said that she hardly gets any money, and the majority goes to Airbnb. So neither the host nor Airbnb are willing to help. I am sure this was the quickest £200 they made. Surely they should apply some common sense here and refund us but they are sneaky and hiding behind the terms and conditions. I am absolutely disgusted at both the host and Airbnb; they should be ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately, I am sure many other people will have this problem, I would recommend people stay away from this nasty organisation that clearly lacks common sense and customer service.
Disney World Christmas Turned into Airbnb Hell
My story doesn’t have any funny part at all. Actually it’s a disappointing and shocking one. This December my family and I decided to go on vacation to Orlando for Christmas because we thought it will be nice to go to Disney World for the holidays; we were looking for places to stay and I had heard about Airbnb before. This was not the first time we traveled; we have had the chance to do it often. In any case, we decided to make a reservation through Airbnb with Glasstone Vacations, from December 17th to the 28th, but the reservation was made from November 17th to the 28th. We made a mistake and we accept that, due to the excitement and everything I didn’t realize the month said November and not December. We didn’t realize that the dates were wrong until I got an automatic message the 28th asking me about my experience. You can imagine my surprise when I got that message because my reservation was meant to be from December 17th to the 28th.
As soon as I got that message I messaged the host and told her that my reservation was meant to be in December, not November. I got no reply, then I tried to call her. I called around five times and no one answered the phone, so I decided to call Airbnb. I kept calling Airbnb for at least an hour until someone finally picked up, but I didn’t get any solution. What I was told by my case manager was that he was gonna talk to the host to help me. This is the second week already and I still don’t have any solution, but it actually gets worst. The reservation was for 11 days at a house, the price of the house is more than 2500 dollars, and among my family there is a kid (my brother) and a pregnant woman (my sister). I needed to get this fixed because we had no place to stay. I was waiting for an answer about the money but no one was giving me a solution.
I kept calling Airbnb. Their answers so far have just been “we are sorry, we will contact you soon”, “wait for an answer”, “you have to wait for your case manager”, and a bunch of other excuses. I talked to my case manager on Monday (last week) and he told me he was going to be out of the office for two days. Of course I was supposed to get an answer by Wednesday, but I called Airbnb again and he was nowhere to be found. I don’t know if anyone has had the same issues with case managers but honestly he was no help. On Thursday I got an email from him saying that he will contact my host again. It had been four days, but I was trying to be patient and fix this so I agreed. I also talked to my host from Glasstone Vacations and she said that she needed to talk to the people from Airbnb.
The thing is that I still haven’t had an answer from Airbnb and it turns out that the host sent me a message saying: “We are just going to give you the cleaning service money back because you didn’t use the house, but the rest of the money you are not getting it back.” So you are telling me that you are just gonna take more than 2500 dollars from someone just like that! Without me using the house or anything? I was trying to find a solution that will work for both parties so I proposed that my host reschedule the visit; I didn’t want my money back, I just simply didn’t wanna lose all my money. I even told Airbnb and the host that if I have to pay a fee and don’t get 100% of my money back it’s ok, but I can’t just lose more than 2500 dollars. However, my host didn’t agree to any of this. She clearly wasn’t interested in trying to help me. Honestly, I feel like I’ve been robbed face to face.
I called Airbnb again and talked to a different person. I just keep explaining my case to every single person I talk to and I am not getting any real answer or help. Glasstone Vacations is definitely a horrible company to rent from and Airbnb is not helping at all either. I already asked for a different case manager but they look like they don’t care and just want the case to go cold. Well, I am not going to give up. I need my money back and I am telling my story so people don’t fall into this situation. I will never in my entire life recommend Glasstone Vacations and Airbnb. The first one just robbed me and the second one is no help at all. Glasstone Vacations said that “they already paid the owner.” Clearly they just don’t wanna give me my money back or provide any other option. They just care about their own benefits and that means to get money from someone who didn’t even stay at the house.
Fraudulent Reservation from China to Colorado
I was hit with a fraudulent reservation. In other words someone clearly hacked my account, and made a reservation with my name and credit card information. All the emails were in Chinese. I live in Virginia. The reservation was for Colorado. I immediately canceled the reservation which had a no refund policy… there’s a shocker. I was able to contact Airbnb on chat. They indicated they had the money in their account and that it would not be released until they investigated. It has been over a week. I’ve had one other chat and one email requesting information. I’ve provided all the information required. There has been no response in five days, none. My bank is involved as well, bending over backwards to help. Airbnb is not responding in any way. My email contact has dried up, and phone contact is sparse. Someone has answered, and then I’m put on hold for over an hour. Never again. I’m done with Airbnb.
Account Hacked, Payment Withheld by Airbnb
My account was hacked sometime before October 17th. I realized something was wrong one week later, because I could not receive the emails my future host was sending me, and I wrote Airbnb asking for help. There was no reply. On November 6th I realised, entering my account via Facebook, the system didn’t recognise my email, my account had been hacked, and my email address had been substituted with another. I was not able to change it back again, because I was asked for a password that I didn’t have, as it had been changed as well by the hackers. From that moment on I wrote six emails to safety@airbnb.com and never received a reply. I kept calling the assistance number in Rome and every time I was kindly told that they would take care of the problem.
On November 23rd, as no one had helped me yet, I tried something different: I cancelled my account. I could do it with no password, just a click. Then I called the number again in Rome, fearing that I would not be paid the following month, for the guest I am currently hosting, and again urging them to find a resolution to my case. I received two different replies: according to the first person I talked to, I wouldn’t receive any payment, because my account had been cancelled; it didn’t matter if my guest paid and or if I was out there without an account. Airbnb had my IBAN. That made me furious. The second person I spoke to told me to keep quiet, because I would receive my payment on time, even without an account. Well, I waited until today, because my payment was due yesterday. In the meantime I wrote two more emails to safety@airbnb.com, telling that I had cancelled my account, yet I was expecting a payment. There was no reply. Today I have called again and have been told that the payment has been blocked by them and there seems to be no way out other than to keep waiting for Airbnb to solve the problem. I have a long-term guest, who will stay here until June for 600 euro a month; she can’t cancel, because she would have penalties that we were not able to measure. So for the moment she is paying Airbnb for a month’s rent and they are not forwarding the payment to me. I am really angry and don’t know what to do…
Airbnb is Fine until you Have a Real Problem
We checked into our rental in San Diego just after 9:00 PM. On our way there, we observed tents lining the sidewalks with homeless people everywhere, so we weren’t off to a good start. Upon our arrival, we discovered that one window in the front of the house (on the ground level facing the street) did not lock at all, and another window had a lock, but would not properly fasten. We tried contacting the host (at approximately 9:30 PM) but got no response. We didn’t feel safe staying there. This would have been the case no matter what neighborhood it was in, but it was especially concerning considering there were literally hundreds of homeless people only a few blocks away. We left and I cancelled the reservation that night.
The next day we finally got a response from the host, asking if we would reconsider. He offered no apologies for the broken windows, and didn’t offer to fix the window either. We did not go back and never stayed one night there. I reported the incident to Airbnb as well. We have since requested a refund, which has been denied by both the host and Airbnb. I was told by Airbnb that it was my responsibility to research the neighborhood prior to booking, and so they refused to give me a full refund, only offering $66 back. I reiterated that our main concern wasn’t the neighborhood, but the fact that the house wasn’t secure. The host mischaracterized many facts related to the incident, telling Airbnb that we called her after 11:00 PM, which was false; she offered to fix the windows, which was also false. Airbnb sided with the host and made a decision contrary to their own guest policy, which states that the host must provide a safe environment. Our issue was about safety, but Airbnb doesn’t care. I will never use Airbnb again. They will not protect you.
Requests to Reactivate my Disabled Account Ignored
I’ve requested to have my Airbnb account temporarily reinstated after having three emails and several Tweets ignored. I have been trying to sort out possible bookings for next June from my account, only to find out that it has been temporarily disabled due to security reasons. There was a message requesting me to email Airbnb at account.inquiry@airbnb.com, which I have done. In the first instance, I have never received any correspondence from them regarding this matter, and have had to find out secondhand that I cannot access my account. There was a very tentative message saying that the account had been suspended due to security reasons with no explanation.
How can I get the account reinstated if they don’t answer my emails? I am trying to arrange for a place to stay in Budapest next June, and would like to get in touch with prospective hosts before I try to make a booking. Some help and an explanation from Airbnb as soon as possible would be appreciated. I have previously used Airbnb without any problems, so I don’t have a clue why this is happening.