Tag Archives: airbnb damages

Airbnb Colludes with Host to Fraudulently Charge Guest

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A few months ago I rented a large property on Airbnb in Cape Town, South Africa. During our stay we accidentally caused minor scratch damage to one of the interior walls whilst moving our belongings up a stairwell. I notified the host via email of the damage to his wall (including attaching a photo of the wall) and offered to immediately arrange for repair work to be done (i.e. a refill/replaster of the scratch and repaint of the affected wall in the existing wall colour).

After no response from the host, I decided to go ahead and call a local contractor to do the repairs on our last day at the property and then sent a picture to the host of the repaired wall and asked him to confirm if he was satisfied. A couple of weeks later, the host sent me an email demanding to be paid R4000 (USD 300) for the cost of repair of the wall damage and the replacement cost for a couple of broken wine glasses. I naturally queried this, as the wall had already been repaired by a professional for half this cost claimed by the host, and at my own expense. I therefore asked the host to provide photos of any additional repairs he had allegedly done and invoices for those expenses.

He refused but instead sent a formal complaint and damages claim to Airbnb more than a month after my stay at his property (which according to Airbnb policy is not permitted beyond two weeks following a stay). I then sent several emails to the relevant Airbnb consultant, disputing this claim. Airbnb never responded to any of my emails. Several calls to their call center/”help centre” also proved fruitless. A month or so later, without warning, Airbnb summarily deducted USD 400 from my credit card account (claiming those funds would then be transferred to the host for damages.

The host has yet to provide a single shred of evidence that any such expenses were ever incurred and why his damages claim suddenly jumped by a further USD 100 from the initial USD 300 the host had first claimed to me directly. Should you ever find yourself in such an unresolved dispute , I recommend you cancel or block your credit card before Airbnb can make such fraudulent deductions on your card.

Fair Warning? Who’s to Blame for this Airbnb Accident?

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My husband and wanted to return to the New Forest for a weekend 23 years after we had our honeymoon there. I found a beautiful barn conversion on Airbnb. We arrived around 8:00 PM on the Friday evening and was treated by our host’s son, a student. He said the door was unlocked and the key was inside. We went in and made ourselves at home. I cooked a meal and we lit the fire log burner. We sat and tried to access the internet; I had to ask him for the password. He said it was in the manual on the fridge. I looked and there was nothing but a bread board. I located the book (which was a completely unmarked ring binder in a small bookshelf), we found the code and I started to read through the book. There were lots of pages to read, but I read them all. There was a little note at the end, almost an afterthought, saying that the towel rail gets hot.

We then watched some TV and went to bed around 11:00 PM. When we woke on Saturday morning my husband wanted a shower. It was a great shower. However, when my husband got out and bent over to pick the towel off the floor, he burnt his buttocks on the towel rail. He screamed so loud, I ran to him and thought he was messing around at first. Then he turned around and he had the most horrific burns I had ever seen. It had removed several layers of skin and seeping raw flesh was in welts across his buttocks. He was in agony.

The worst part of this was that we had arrived on our Victory motorcycle, and the thought of travelling 3-4 hours home on Sunday was worrying to say the least. I wanted him to go to the hospital, but without knowing the area we opted for the nearest chemist. I asked the host where that was; he asked if everything was ok and my husband replied: “No, it bloody isn’t! I’ve just burnt my arse on your f%&#g towel rail!”

He was in so much pain. We set off tentatively to the chemist where he did not want to come in out of embarrassment. I went in, described the symptoms, and got the largest wound dressings they could find and some burn gel. Returning to the barn, I dressed the wound. However, the gel he’d given us was hurting it even more, so I carefully washed that off and tried to keep as much of the skin I could around the wound.

Later the same day, my husband went off to find his friend to take his mind off the pain as much as he could. At this stage we still had not seen or heard from the host’s son. I was sitting in the sun when a friend of hers came by, saying she was just popping in to see the host’s son. She was there for some time so I gathered he was in. I thought this extremely rude, especially under the circumstances. We stayed until early Sunday and left.

There was another surprise when we returned home as the host had written a report that I was pleasant, but my partner was rude and had shouted at her son about the towel rail. She also stated that we had left black marks all over her white rug which she said we had made from our dirty boots from the motorcycle we arrived on. Instantly I realised she was completely prejudiced against bikers and would blame anything she could on us. We took our boots off at the door (as we always do) and the marks were already on her rug; I thought they had probably come from the log burner. I thought nothing of them when we entered the property.

As you can imagine, we were both livid with her response. We decided to make a claim against the host and got our solicitor onto it as soon as we could. However we seem to have many problems with that, as the host has not responded to any email and our solicitor wants another address we can contact her by. This I realised was more difficult than I thought as trying to contact Airbnb is almost impossible.

Memorial Day Airbnb Disaster Could Have Been Avoided

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We have used Airbnb for almost a year now. We’ve had several issues with prices randomly changing and people booking our home for holidays at an off-season daily rate. That is not what this story is about, though.

On Memorial Day Weekend 2017 we rented our house out to a party of ten. Our house rules are very clear: no smoking, no parties, and no more than ten guests. As many people do, we count heads with a ring doorbell. We noticed a party developing as group after group showed up.

Saturday morning, we called Airbnb to ask if we could evict the renter without issuing a refund. We intended to keep the deposit as well. We also did not want negative feedback. We spoke to an Airbnb representative who was absolutely clueless and seemed to want to make our call about himself. We were told, “they can leave feedback if they stay at your house. They can request to be refunded.”

Not wanting to lose over $2,500 or get a bad review, we left the guests alone. We were told that the Trust and Safety team would contact us as this was urgent. They continued to promise there were no more than ten people. Over the next two days we gathered videos of probably 100 people coming into our house. Still, we waited for Trust and Safety to contact us. They didn’t, so we called back. This time we spoke to a supervisor who told us the same thing as the first representative.

On Monday, I came to my house to find carpets ruined, furniture broken and stained, and the decks trashed; everything appeared as if there had been a wild party. We have videos of the partygoers, the drinking, puking in our bushes, and other deplorable acts.

We want to submit a claim, but how? Trust and Safety won’t tell us what to do. Why? Because after more calls than I can count, they have not reached out to us. We have 14 days to submit a request. We don’t know if that means a request to the house violator (guest) or through resolutions, or through the host guarantee. Airbnb told us to “submit your request for additional guests and cleaning first. That goes to one department. Then we have another case for your damage.”

I don’t have a case number to refer to. We have many thousands of dollars in damage and Airbnb just refuses to lift one finger to help us. They have many unqualified people to answer their phones, but all they can do is BS us about how important our call is. I will upload files after I have some resolution. However I am thinking if Airbnb does not want to involve themselves in this, maybe it’s time for an attorney and perhaps a class action suit.

Bodily Fluids Stains and No Refund from Airbnb

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I am extraordinarily unhappy and feel unprotected and violated by Airbnb during my last few resolution calls. It is a vicious cycle of abuse, combing terrible customer service shielded with bad excuses the representatives call policies. Isn’t it bad enough that Airbnb allows people like this? He got to keep his account after he demonstrated an affinity for threatening hosts and landlords just to get a discount; Airbnb never suspended or deactivated his account. Airbnb allowed him to violate these hosts’ lives. In addition, he left the keys in the apartment when he departed with the door open.

It does feel like Airbnb does everything in its power to not protect the hosts. Now, I am in the middle of another disagreement with another guest over damages to my organic mattress topper. Because it was bought over a year ago, I didn’t have a receipt and the full amount may not be returned to me. That means that a partial refund – if any – that could be collected would still mean that every guest who damages something would be given Airbnb’s “let it slide” approach; this would mean that I could not afford to replace anything. Consequently, that would mean I would have downgrade or throw away all the damaged furniture and downgrade my entire apartment overall.

My case manager did not seem to understand I cannot just be repaid the cleaning fee; something that goes on a bed damaged due to a guest’s bodily fluids cannot be given to another Airbnb guest. Is that what the Airbnb team recommends? Furniture damaged in such a fashion needs to be completely replaced. It is simply too easy for Airbnb to blame hosts who are left with damages, bad experiences and a downgraded personal apartment. If you were in my shoes, would you honestly be very happy with this kind of service?

We Found the Host Having Lunch in our Airbnb

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I had a five-night stay in a Brooklyn Airbnb, where my brother and I rented the entire home. After the first night, I called the host to express my dismay at the lack of cleanliness and got nowhere. If I had contacted Airbnb at that moment, none of the following would have happened; I would have gotten my money back, and all would be well. I didn’t know that was an option at the time. I tried to work with the host directly. I didn’t think I could have afforded to move to a hotel and I was worried about paying for two places and not getting my money back. I stayed and tried to make the best of it.

On the third day, the ceiling started to cave in from an upstairs plumbing issue and the pipes had backed up into the bathtub. The bathroom was completely unusable. I contacted the host, requested a refund and he refused. He literally said, “Why?”

Really? He said it was an old house and he would get it repaired. When I returned to the home that evening, the repairs had been made. I only had two more nights in that awful place and I figured I would make the best of it, really wanting to avoid any further hassle. The next day, we came back to the rental to find the host and another person inside. They had been there for quite a while, totally unauthorized. My suitcase had been packed and moved aside. The host was eating a meal on the patio and refused to leave even after I showed him my reservation. There was a huge fight. He said it was his house and he wasn’t leaving. I certainly wasn’t going to stay and hang out with him.

It was an unsafe and very volatile situation. I had no choice but to leave immediately before things got out of hand. I contacted Airbnb by phone from my alternate lodging less than an hour later and they said they would look into it. A few days afterward, I received an email stating they have issued me a refund for one night’s stay.

Does this seem right to you? No one should have been inside much less going through our things. Despite all of my other complaints, this alone should warrant a full refund. They were trespassing. He had no reason to be in there much less hanging out with another person while we were away. How many other times was he there while we were out for the day?

Airbnb Does Not Care if Criminals Want to Rent your House

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Airbnb is a giant scam. Beware. Their customer service sucks (both as a host and as a guest). But that is only the tip of their iceberg. Hosts (especially) should use VRBO or other vacation rental resources, and travelers and guests are advised to do likewise. Airbnb claims to verify their renting guests, and puts many hurdles in the way of hosts trying to require potential guests to fully identify themselves. Only owners or hosts who own fleabag properties would allow any Joe Schmoe to take possession of their property without providing full ID – SSN, Drivers License, DOB, full name, mailing address, etc. – and permission to run a credit check. Maybe that is why so many Airbnb properties are fleabags.

We have properties worth over $1 Million with valuable furnishings and artwork and there’s no way are we going to give the keys to someone Airbnb will not let us verify. I am a realtor and attorney, and I can tell you horror stories when owners do not fully vet guests themselves.

We recently tried to check on one “verified” guest, only to find that their cell phone was really someone else’s (same first name, but different last name and no idea who the “guest” was). No other information Airbnb gave us access to checked out either. We tried several ways of contacting the booking guest but only got one reply – through Airbnb’s anonymous contact email, which was clearly written by a non-native English speaker (even though their name was listed as “John Smith”; I am using a pseudonym here, do not want to implicate anyone directly).

I am guessing they were Eastern Bloc scammers who had cased our Airbnb listing through the pictures, booked for a weekend, and planned to simply rob the entire place during their stay. When I called Airbnb to report my reasons for thinking this was a scam and cancelling the reservation, they penalized me and said I was being unreasonable in the information I was requesting from the guest even though my listing clearly stated what I require prior to a stay.

VRBO has no problem with me getting full verification and ID from guests. Airbnb claims they have a $1 million dollar insurance policy on each rental. When the bandits steal all my valuables, I then get to argue with a third party insurer who has no relationship or loyalty to me (only to Airbnb, their real client), prove my losses to their satisfaction, and hope that I am ultimately made whole (of course, after paying out of pocket for six to twelve months to refurnish the property, not to mention trying to replace irreplaceable artworks, which I enjoy sharing with my otherwise respectable, and fully vetted, guests).

Any legitimate business model would give paramount importance to securing the person and property of the owners and hosts. Any hotel around the world will make you show authorized IDs (passport, credit card, etc.) for every guest before renting you a room. Only Airbnb thinks it can bully owners (increasingly sleazy slumlords and fly-by-night “re-renters” who have no real connection to the properties or neighborhoods they have on offer) into rolling the dice on any jackass who can present a credit card with a limit equal to a few nights’ rent. They then might steal or cause damages worth 5, 10 or 100 times that amount.

My Place was Trashed and Airbnb won’t Pay

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A guest booked my place for three nights. She agreed to my house rules: no parties, no noise, be respectful of neighbors, and have a maximum of four occupants. She hosted a prom party with a large group until 4:00 AM and trashed my place: they jumped on the bed, ripped kitchen back splash tiles off the walls, left spilled booze pooling on my countertop (it seeped into the seam, inflated and warped the countertop so much I had to replace it). All of the linens, comforters, blankets and towels were covered in food, makeup, and booze. The inside of the oven was black with food scraps and a big pile of stinking, rotten forgotten food. The floors and furniture were covered in scattered garbage, half eaten food, drink bottles, and personal items that had been left behind. My dishes and decorations were found tossed around in different rooms. What normally takes four hours to clean took twelve hours. The cleaning and countertop repairs cost me over $700. Airbnb took eleven days to get back to me, despite many calls I made asking for an update. They responded via email, refusing to pay for anything and described it as normal wear and tear. I emailed them back twice asking for someone to contact me, but they have not. I have hosted for almost two years and have had hundreds of guests. I have never put a claim in. I have zero trust and don’t feel safe using Airbnb after their refusal to honor the host guarantee. If it doesn’t cover partiers trashing your home, what does it cover? It appears that the host guarantee is a scam that gives you a false sense of security. If your place gets trashed you have no recourse.

Nightmare Stay in Rio de Janeiro Leads to False Accusations

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I stayed in Rio de Janeiro last summer. My host, Carolina, seemed nice enough. My boyfriend and I rented the entire place for two weeks. She claimed I caused a number of damages, the most ridiculous one being a round mark on her kitchen sink that was present on my arrival. She requested the security deposit of 500 Brazilian reals, which unbeknownst to me was unable to be collected because Mastercard had frozen my card in Brazil (I used it and it must have been flagged for suspicious activity – there is a lot of corruption there). My phone did not work as I had to put a local sim card in, and I hadn’t logged onto Airbnb for days when I realized this.

I politely explained to Airbnb how her sink was leaking, which caused her towels to be in poor condition which she also charged me for falsely. I included photos of bugs in her bathroom when I got home (to the US). I called Airbnb but never heard anything for months until January of this year. When they sent that email (about five months later) my account had been frozen since my trip. They ambiguously worded an email that said I owed 500 reals with an additional 2800 “to be collected ” on top of the security deposit. I again stated honestly that I did not causes any of those damages, and asked for clarification over the matter: why did they seem to be asking for much more than even she had asked for originally?

After I asked for clarification, they refused to give me an answer. I called them and again asked for clarification. I later received an email back, as the customer service representative put a note on my account or something. The response: I was no longer welcome as a customer and they blocked my account. It didn’t matter what evidence I showed Airbnb or proof. I only had pictures of the sink and bathroom bugs, but she claimed it cost her about 400 dollars to replace the countertops (which had marks on it when I arrived – she claimed I made them in order to scam me).

I would recommend everyone using Airbnb to fully document anything about the place upon arrival so this doesn’t happen to you. It was a perfect service for me, until it was not. I did not have one bad review.

No Toilet, No Concern, Old Plumbing… Our Fault?

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My husband was working in France over the weekend of our anniversary so we decided that I would meet him in Toulouse, a city we previously had enjoyed. I picked <a href=” https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/15017680″>this Airbnb listing</a> because it looked comfortable, had a great location and most importantly, had favourable reviews.

To start: we never met our host. The meeting spot where I was going to pick up the keys from her was vague and I only figured it out the day before I left. I was having travel issues and let her know as it would affect our meeting time. Not only did she not respond to me but she did not call my husband to make sure everything worked out; he had to call her once she arrived. Her brother let my husband inside but gave him no warnings that would have been helpful like: the door is very difficult to lock and you need to jimmy it just so; only one of the windows opens; the plumbing is old and the toilet doesn’t work properly so even though I haven’t included toilet paper, you should probably not use it and not put anything inside of it because it’s due to fail at any moment.

After a weekend of the toilet making strange noises, it finally overflowed our last morning and went immediately into a hole in the floor and flooded the downstairs neighbour’s kitchen. We had a confrontation with her because it was not the first time this has happened. We cleaned up the mess and could see how to fix the toilet but as it is not our apartment (nor our responsibility), we chose not to fix it and let our host know instead. She said there had never been any problems and didn’t seem concerned that we didn’t have a toilet to use for six hours. This also didn’t factor in the importance of the Airbnb customer service team. Our host also didn’t meet us to take the keys back, stating that we should just leave them under the doormat.

A day later, we received a claim from her for 1048 euros to fix the toilet. She completely changed the machine that chews up matter from the toilet and then sends it down the tubes. She did not contact us at all, or make a claim for the security deposit. She immediately went to the Airbnb resolution center for the entire plumbing bill. My husband and I were completely baffled by this, even enraged when after all the information I gave them about her lack of empathy, how this machine works and why it fails (never from regular use), my happy cooperation was only to end in the resolution that we pay half of this bill.

We would understand if she wanted the security deposit as that is what it is for, even if we were not at fault. However, to include this as a part of the bill in any way was enough for me to cancel my account and never considering work with Airbnb again. They made no effort to act as an actual mediator, and did not send us paperwork and related material that would have helped us understand not only where the case stood but would have given us an opportunity to get more information and paperwork to strengthen our position. They feel resolved in their final decision and there is no compromise. We are going to keep fighting their lack of neutrality and pursue this as a civil case outside of Airbnb for recuperation of the cost and lawyer’s fees if need be. As someone who is skilled at mediation, I doubt the customer service agents at Airbnb have the ability to be objective in their cases; they seem to only create lazy and quick resolutions. I am furious. I will use the resources listed on this site and email the founders (as they can be found on the airbnb site and then through social media) if need be to complain.

Airbnb Promises to Pay us Back for Damages, but then…

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While Airbnb claims it has people in every major city of the world, they remain unreachable when you are locked out in the middle of the night in Paris. Whatever action you take, such as calling a locksmith, Airbnb will not cover the inconvenience, even when you rent one of those superstar flats. We had to call a locksmith who ultimately cut the lock open and charged us 1200 euros, and left us with an open door all night. When the host calls the help center (they only respond when it is a host), they promise to reimburse the guest, but then after one month of back and forth lingering, announce they are not covering the costs. Here is our 1200-euro story.

We arrived at the flat after a romantic dinner in Paris at about 12:30 in the middle of the night. When we inserted the key, it somehow got jammed in the lock. After trying incessantly to unlock the door, we finally called the host. There was no answer. The Airbnb help center? No answer. Our passports and belongings were in there, including our credit cards which are required to book a hotel. So we called a locksmith… on a public holiday. Finally we got hold of a locksmith that came over, and forced the key out. Now that the key was broken, the only option was to cut the lock with a mechanical saw. Once inside, the locksmith is quick to pimp the bill with holiday and nighttime labor fees which finally amounted to 1200 euros. The next morning we got a hold of the host who quickly contacted Airbnb (she is a Superhost and quickly gets their attention). Because she insisted, Airbnb called us and told us not to worry about the money; they would reimburse us. After one month of back and forth emails, always asking for the same clarifications, they finally announced that they closed the case, and that we should ask the host for reimbursement. Bottom line: Airbnb is like renting your friend’s flat, but without insurance. Just pray nothing bad happens.