Tag Archives: airbnb different than pictures

Being Scammed with a Fake Listing Would have been Better

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We booked this Airbnb in Switzerland, seeking a peaceful beautiful corner of Swiss alpine experience that was indicated in the advertisement. Instead, we would instead just putting up a tent in a train station. You would have more room, and get the same experience of living on a railway track.

Literally every few minutes a train was passing by, even throughout most of the night. Many were so fast that the place shook. It is so close to the train station that we could hear the noise of cars being loaded onto the train. It was the complete opposite of the peaceful and scenic spot that we were expecting.

Sleeping in train station might also have been cleaner. The bed sheets were disgusting, stained and grimy. Desperate for sleep, we even stripped the bed hoping that the mattress might have been less awful. That was a mistake; it was a stomach-turning science experiment.

The towels looked marginally clean, so we made pseudo sheets out of them and disinfected ourselves in the morning. The floor and chairs were covered with spots of grease; we just didn’t feel like touching anything without putting on gloves or needing to take a shower afterwards.

Someone in the building must be a chainsmoker, as we were so often greeted with puffs of cigarette smoke floating into the place. Not exactly the fresh alpine air we had in mind.

We have stayed at hundreds of Airbnbs and similar accommodations at this point. This was nearly the worst. The only ones we can think that might surpass the awfulness of this place are the couple that were pure scams that didn’t exist. Honestly, we would have preferred this to be a scam versus the misery of staying at this place.

We should have left in the first hour, but all the hotels in town were booked and we just didn’t want to spend our limited time battling with the host and Airbnb. Anyway, we realize it is impossible to post negative reviews on Airbnb without getting hassled or blacklisted. We’re hoping this candid review ends up helping someone else avoid our experience and just put up a tent in a nearby train station instead.

Cured Photos, Airbnb Says Everything is Within Policy

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We had to escape from an Airbnb apartment. It was not as described, with photos only showing the best parts of it.

Most importantly, it was unsafe. The neighboring building was a dump and abandoned apparently; the picture of the entrance did not show this. I have proof of how it looks in reality and can send it. It is unsafe.

We couldn’t get into the apartment because the path to it was completely covered with ice. There were literally no steps; it had not been cleaned for weeks. We have taken pictures of this. I fell and almost ended up on the road with cars. The icy path opened directly to the busy road and there were no pathways.

The bed was yellowed and very old. We could not even think of sleeping on it. The toilet was clean but smelled of urine — filthy and not hygienic. The other small bedroom had the window shut from the outside. This Airbnb was nothing like the sunshine in the pictures.

Most Terrifying Airbnb Experience, Haven’t Received Anything

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I had a super intense depressing day. All I wanted to do was just take a shower, lie down, and relax. I recently had a fire and lost everything so I got an Airbnb yesterday. Everything in the post was a lie: it said it had its own entrance; it said it had a hot tub; it said it had two beds in my room; it said it had heat; it said it had a gym.

I came to find out the house that I got dropped off at after I spent $30 for a Uber ride wasn’t even the address listed on the post. I found this out when a girl from across the street came out and said she was the Airbnb host. I walked across the street and asked her why the listing said it was that house. She said that it was a glitch in the GPS.

I walked inside the house and there was no heat. Mind you, it was below zero outside. The whole house was nasty and trashed. My room was not the room in the post. That it had no heat was bad enough, but she also had a bunch of people there. She was doing drugs inside the house with all her friends.

There was no hot tub. I didn’t have my own entrance. I mean basically everything was a complete lie. I got on the phone with Airbnb and they ended up telling me to leave. I ended up walking a mile to get to the next closest place. Mind you, it was below zero and I just had the worst week of my life. I ended up at a Wawa convenience store. My phone’s going to die here.

The Airbnb people told me they were going to comp me some money to go somewhere and get some food until they figured out what to do. They told me they were going to call me back. It’s the next day and I still haven’t got a refund or anything. I had to spend another $30 on a ride, spending extra money out of pocket to stay somewhere. I missed a day of work and got written up for it. It’s been one thing after the next and they still haven’t even called me or done anything to fix my issue.

Breezehome in Overveen Haarlem Netherlands near Amsterdam

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I have been visiting the Netherlands since the 1990s and have come to understand the mentality of the people quite well now. It is quite normal for some Dutch people to misrepresent something in the interests of business.

This Airbnb rental is located in Overveen close to Haarlem or Harlem, which is about 17 Km from Amsterdam in The Netherlands, or Holland or Nederland Europe for Dutch speakers. In the near future, Formula 1 racing events will be held at Zandvort or Zandvoort, which is close by. This operator told me about all the money that can be made by local people renting out rooms locally.

I don’t want to seem harsh to the host because he isn’t a bad guy and is quite pleasant and interesting to be around. However, I do have some objections to his listing as it stands on Airbnb right now (October 2019). Unfortunately, this rental is listed in a way that is not representative of the condition it is really in now.

The main complaint I have is of misrepresentation and omission. Haarlem is a nice alternative to Amsterdam, an authentic medieval/Golden Era town which is well worth a visit, with easy and quick railway connections with Amsterdam and the airport. The location of the apartment is 15-20 minutes from the town center or the railway station on foot.

The room that you will be renting is not a separate room, but is on a blind landing at the very top of the apartment, with no door. The room is a good size but has no window and no form of external ventilation. There were two fans but the room was still very stuffy even though the fans were on and the summer was over by then.

Sleeping in this room for me was similar to sleeping in an underground bunker. With all the lights off, it was absolutely pitch dark and too warm. The in-house ventilation fan in the electrical cupboard in the room made a continuous noise. I resorted to sleeping on the floor in the living room. The room made me feel very claustrophobic. It was not really possible to hang-out in your bedroom because it was not a comfortable experience in that respect. The lighting was provided from one energy-saving bulb in the ceiling.

There were other problems. The living room was cluttered and untidy and in need of a cleaning, as was the whole apartment. The sofa covers absolutely stank. When I removed the covers from the duvet and pillows to wash them at the end of my stay, I saw they were not very clean and in need of dry cleaning. The mattress had a few old stains on it. The kitchen area was not all that clean and there was always a huge pile of washed utensils in the drying area by the sink.

There was a tiny part of the fridge for guests. When I offered the host some coffee I was planning to brew he said that he did not drink coffee, which meant that there was nothing to brew it in available. I was not really invited to use the kitchen so I did not use it.

The open hats and coats area by the front door was a cluttered jumble of shoes, very untidy and certain to create a poor impression with many visitors. There were two very steep flights of stairs from the living room to the guest room. Not a problem for me, but should be mentioned in the listing. The bathroom and toilet need a cleaning. The cover to the toilet cistern is missing and the toilet bowl below the water is black and denotes a lack of care over a long period of time.

The décor in the apartment is rather tired and there is a huge pile of water-soaked cigarette butts in a dish out on the terrace and more on the floor. This is the best part of the apartment, but again it was neglected.

I did ask the host if he could print out my return bus ticket, offering him a couple of Euros for his trouble. He said it was okay and he would do it. I left an old USB flash drive on his coffee table where it remained for several days and then I noticed it was gone. Because time became short I got it printed at a local printers.

I asked him if had picked up the stick and he said that he hadn’t seen it. In order to be diplomatic I shrugged off the incident and make no conclusion about it. The stick was worth nothing, only had the bus ticket on it, but it did disappear from one day to the next and I had to accept a denial from the host. I did also check the living room very thoroughly when he was out, but it did not turn up. He did not further enquire as to whether I had got the ticket printed.

This is one of those pointless and quite surreal incidents when using Airbnb when you have to make an instant decision to insist on something or just laugh it off. If he had said that he lost the stick rather than presenting me with an adolescent explanation then everything would have been fine.

I paid just over £200 Sterling for six nights here (approximately US$246). It is not the worst Airbnb rental or the worst host, even if he could be described as bad, I have encountered by a long way and I am used to accepting differences and inconveniences as part of the interest in staying in different places. I think that this rental is probably worth half what I paid.

I have given up complaining or making suggestions to hosts or Airbnb. I do not like leaving bad reviews on Airbnb because I do not wish to get into an on-line dispute and Airbnb sanitises reviews anyway. Airbnb expected me to provide pictures of this let, which strikes me as a strange and anti-social activity in itself.

The presumption that the paying customer is somehow a bit of a fool and that they are there to be milked by the Dutch is still alive and well in the minds of a lot of them. If you are pleasant, personable and respectful then it is possible that you will be seen as something of an idiot.

Airbnb is not going to ask the host to list his property more accurately, because I did not take any pictures during my stay. My comments are corroborated by the feedback given by other guests. I did not read all of the feedback when I booked in the Spring of 2019 and so missed the crucial detail about the lack of a window.

Airbnb in Miami Beach not what I expected

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I booked a seven-night stay at an Airbnb in Miami Beach in May. The place looked nothing like the pictures: the hotel was rundown and old; there were garbage bins at the front and back of the building; they had smelly elevators and smelly hallways. My mom found bugs in the kitchen, and people were doing marijuana at the pool. The customer service sucked.

I contacted the host right away and told her my concerns. She decided to stop replying to me and I didn’t hear back from her. I contacted Airbnb for help. They were terrible at handling this case. It took over a month. I had to keep calling them. No case manager called me back and when I got a hold of one he was nasty, rude, and unprofessional; he even lied to me on the phone about a conversation we had before.

This whole experience was really bad, from the terrible host to the terrible Airbnb service. Don’t ever book from here. The host may give you a description of the place and when you show up it may not be it and no one holds them account. Do not book with Airbnb. I expected average. This was a Motel 9 experience: below average and I never got any of my money back.

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Los Angeles Airbnb Nightmare Forces Guest Out

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I booked a trip in Los Angeles and when I arrived the Airbnb was not as it was on the site. First off, there were homeless people hanging out on the staircase; I had to ask if I could pass to go up the stairs. They obviously slept there. The whole staircase stunk of urine.

Going into the apartment was a shock as the place was so dirty and dusty; they even left us a present in the toilet: a nice big poo. There were stains on all the furniture and thick dust everywhere. In addition, we could not use the aircon as the plug socket was off the wall. The host said it worked.

I drove six hours to come here. I had to spend another $300 on another hotel. I stayed in the property thirty minutes before leaving and opened a case straight away on the 29th of last month. I asked for a refund. Every time I messaged Airbnb they kept fobbing me off.

It’s been two weeks now and I’m still waiting for a refund. They keep passing my claim around in order not to pay it I’m guessing. I’ve also read other stories of similar experiences in which they keep passing the claim around in order not to pay it. I paid $300 for two nights yet I didn’t stay here. I provided pictures and they still don’t want to help me. I will never book through Airbnb again.

Avoid Bait-and-Switch Airbnb Hosts in Paris

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The following is the story of the last 20 hours. On April 1st, I received an email that my Airbnb flat wasn’t accessible 10 minutes before arriving on site. Since I was travelling, I only noticed when I arrived.

I was offered a different flat in exchange which was 7 km from the original one (I had my reasons to choose the area and good luck travelling through Paris during rush hour). I took it and spent the night there.

The morning of April 2nd we had an appointment at the original flat at 9:30. I was there; nobody came. After 45 minutes in the rain, a delivery service delivered some badges and a key. I entered the building as described in the access instructions, but there was no door that matched the description or the key.

After another endless back-and-forth via mail there was no conclusion because I realized that the person who claimed to be the owner didn’t actually know the premises at all. I went to the gardienne of the residence and with her help we found that the studio was in a completely different location, obviously without a lift as described in the access instructions.

While going to the studio with the gardienne we stumbled upon the owner who claimed not to know anything about the rental, and that he delegated everything to an agency. This meant that the person I was talking to and who claimed to be the owner was not. He didn’t tell me his name, even after I asked. In any case, the “real” owner rejected any responsibility, which I found outrageous, considering he was the owner.

When entering the location, I found a tiny room without daylight, dirty cupboards as if just installed, and so small that opening the only sofa for sleeping meant not having space left to move anymore. I felt very uneasy because of this unprofessional treatment. I lost an entire day because of these people’s inability to get organized, a day that I had planned to meet people that were only available this day.

I came here for business and instead of taking care of my business I had to chase down access to a studio, because nobody at Airbnb even knew where it was. When I saw the dirt on the cupboard I had had enough and booked a hotel nearby.

Alas, I didn’t take photos and I’m bracing for a long email exchange with Airbnb. There was another commentator who mentioned it looked like a cash cow and they weren’t concerned with the guests. That’s exactly my impression with this host.

Host Used Misleading Photos and Kept the Money

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I met someone in January 2019 in Costa Esmeralda, Panama. He responded to a sign on my rental property. He said he was an Airbnb host and could easily rent the one that I had unoccupied. He wanted 5% commission. I was fine with that.

He booked a party of four into a one-bedroom casita for three nights. The guest was surprised to see that the rental was not the same as the photos posted. The host paid me my rental fee the following week, and said he had a new booking who had booked the one bedroom for a period of one month.

This host charged her 1400 instead of the 850 I had told him to charge. The guest was unhappy about the isolation of the rental as the host had not told her there was no transport from my property. I told her I would drive her to the supermarket whenever she needed to go.

She left but returned in three days and stayed only about two weeks, as she left on March 12th, instead of the 19th. The photos in the ad showed my personal house and pool, not that of the rental, so the guest thought she was getting my beautiful Buddha garden with the pool.

Until this time I had not looked at the ad as I was preparing for a yearly art sale. I now searched for the ad and found the photos were indeed misrepresenting. At this time the host emailed me and told me he and his wife were sailing in the Caribbean and would “keep in contact”.

That is the last I heard from them as they obviously left the country without paying me a cent, and they collected 1400 USD from the guest. These two are obviously criminals and I want my money from Airbnb that these crooks stole.

They have other listings where they are listed as hosts. I am hoping that Airbnb has the brains to remove their listings; they are in El Valle. I have emails from both guests to support my comments, and I have screenshots of the bookings.

Airbnb Ruined Holidays with Poor Customer Service

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We recently booked a long haul xmas holiday with a stopover in Hong Kong. We booked two-night stay in a place advertised as an “arty, bright and quiet oasis in trendy Sheung Wan” by the host. The photos looked perfect.

When we arrived, the flat did not match the photos. It was filthy and disgusting. The bed sheets and pillow cases had not been changed from when previous guests stayed; there was hair and oil.

There were food scraps and hair everywhere. The shower door was broken and the toilet seat was loose. The listing said it accommodated three people, but there was only a double bed and a small two-seat sofa. We could not sleep a third person in the flat.

The location is twenty minutes from the MRT station, up several slopes from the street to the building, The flat is on the fourth floor with no lift; there were many stairs to climb. None of this was mentioned in the listing.

We contacted Airbnb immediately and told them we could not trust the hygiene standard the host kept and would like to change to a hotel. We asked Airbnb to recommend another place for us to stay. The agent said she could not and insisted we send her photos. We sent the photos as she instructed.

It was very stressful as we had a long haul flight – over ten hours – and arrived in Hong Kong in the early morning. This was already in the evening. We were very exhausted. The Airbnb agent did not seem to understand this.

We told Airbnb we preferred to stay in another place. This place was dirty and the listing was dishonest. They admitted there were cleaning issues but insisted we work it out with the host. We could not sleep in such a flat and had no clue when the issue would be solved. We left the flat and found a hotel.

When contacting Airbnb for a full refund, the agent said we should contact the host ourselves. We did contact the host. He tried to bully us to shut us up. The host insisted his flat was clean and refused to provide a full refund. He told us a negative review on Airbnb would harm his business. The host did not care about his guests and was dishonest about the listing. It is only money. Airbnb encourages that.

Hours and days spent communicating with the host and Airbnb agent. To say the least, we feel humiliated by both. It’s end of our Airbnb experience. We had to cancel our two other Airbnb reservations for our holidays. It is loss for us. We feel sorry for those honest hosts who do care about their guests, but the experience we had was so bad. We cannot risk having any more.

Airbnb Host Lied About Refund to Cover up her Mess

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On March 21st this year, my niece, her husband, and I stayed at an Airbnb property in Merimbula NSW, Australia. The three of us were on a road trip taking in parts of NSW and Victoria, and unfortunately our stay there was near the beginning of the trip. This property was not a good introduction to travelling in this country for my relatives who were visiting from the U.K.

On arriving at the property and taking an initial look around, my niece, who was walking upstairs to the main bedroom, could see the side of the bed where the doona was not fully covering the mattress. She was horrified to see a mark on the sheet, and on closer inspection, to realise it was blood.

She then called me and her husband to take a look and we found several more blood stains on the bottom sheet. The doona had obviously been laid on top of the sheet while the blood was fresh as there was a mark on the doona cover directly above one of the blood stains on the sheet.

I immediately rang the host, who sounded genuinely horrified and asked me to send some photos over to her, which I did right away. On receiving them, she rang me straight back and told me that it was the first time she’d used the cleaner (her usual cleaner was away) and was appalled and what we’d found. At the time she couldn’t apologise enough, telling me there was nothing she could do to help as she was on a course in the mountains, but promised me a full refund.

We then spent some time searching the property for clean bed linen (most of the cupboards were locked), only finding two doona covers which were a screwed-up bundle in the bottom of a cupboard. We stripped the stained linen off the bed and replaced it with these two doona covers and as we had no other option, my niece and her husband spent a nervous and uncomfortable night, sleeping on bedding that they didn’t even know whether or not was clean, but felt it was better than sleeping on blood-stained linen.

I declined from writing a negative comment on Airbnb as the host had been so obliging in offering us a full refund for the inconvenience caused. It is a decision I have come to regret, as despite my contacting the host I have received no refund at all. My niece has also sent two emails to her from the U.K. through the Airbnb site, and heard nothing. We are assuming she is totally ignoring us.

The experience we had here was a great disappointment, very unsettling, extremely unhygienic and totally unacceptable. I feel that other people should be made aware of what might await them at this property and that this host should not be permitted to continue to offer it for use. I would also like to add that we stayed at many other Airbnb properties on our trip which were all lovely and restored our confidence in other hosts.