Tag Archives: airbnb double booked

Forced out of Airbnb Cabin in the Woods

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I live in Atlanta and had guests coming in from Bangkok to visit, so I wanted to show them a good time. I took three days off work in the middle of the week, as weekends are almost always booked up, and grabbed a really great looking cabin up in the Smoky Mountains. It had a hot tub, wifi, and best of all an air conditioner because summers up here get really humid and sweaty. I also took note that the place had no cell service – which is common up in the mountains – but with internet it should have been okay.

We arrived in the afternoon and stopped to buy $150 worth of BBQ fixings and snacks. Nice little town: the country folks are fun to people watch. Then we made the trek in to the scary dirt roads of North Carolina and found our way to the cabin.

The first thing wrong was that there was a guy parked in the driveway in a beat up old truck. We got out and started unpacking (strangers don’t scare me) and when finished, we walked over and asked if we could assist him with something. The young man said he was the pool guy, and got out and put some chemicals in the pool. Then he turned on the BBQ to high, heated it up to 400 degrees, and scrubbed the grill.

Meanwhile I was inside the living room looking at the huge muddy mess on the floor. It looked like somebody with hiking boots just tracked mud back and forth all over the living room. On the wall there was a thermostat, and under it was quite a large pile of drywall dust on the table. The table was also muddy. What the hell went on in here?

Outside, the pool guy turned off the grill and put the cover immediately back on. A 400 degree grill… yeah. As he drove off I watched from the window as the cover began to melt. “What sort of brain dead…” went through my head as I went outside and pulled it off. Too late – he melted a couple holes in it.

I went back inside and pondered the meaning of a $100 cleaning fee while I was on my knees with paper towels cleaning mud off everything. There was no mop I could find. The sun was heating up the place pretty good so I turned on the AC. The temperature inside went from 75 to 80. What? Why was the AC making it hotter?

Meanwhile, my friends were watching wrestling with a TV sound bar that was broken, and we decided just to watch TV with the speakers while I sent a message to the owner on Airbnb that the AC was not working. Remember there was no cell service here, which the host pointed out on the listing.

“Oh yeah. We had some messages about that. Lightning struck it and it’s dead,” replied the host.

“You did not think to inform me of that?” I asked, feeling a little bit like this vacation was getting to be a bit more stress than I had hoped for.

“Property management called you and left a voicemail,” he said.

He called my cell phone, at a cabin where it is documented that cell services don’t exist. To this point we’ve only ever interacted over email or messages on Airbnb anyway. What the hell?

“Somebody will be there tomorrow to fix it,” he told me. I thought only of the fact that more strangers would be walking around tracking mud all over my rental, interrupting my attempt to show foreign guests how great our mountain forests are.

Now, I’m a fully functional independent adult. Some problems happen, I deal and move on. I’m upset that my trip to The Cabin In The Woods has turned into a stress issue, but I pour myself a drink, sit on the sofa, watch Mystery Science Theater, and calm down.

At 9:30 PM there was a knock at the door. I thought it was the host, or a manager who had come to see what was going on. It was very much not. A family of four Chinese tourists stood outside looking puzzled. Maybe they were just admiring the man in his underwear sweating inside the cabin watching loud television… but no. They had rented the cabin too. She pulled out her phone and showed me. Yup, correct dates and address. In fact it was the same form I had. We share. She looked horrified, so I got dressed.

Now we had a real problem. I messaged the host on Airbnb and got no reply. I did some math; they outnumbered me, I only lived three hours away, so I decided to be the gentleman and give them the cabin. We packed up and left.

Before I lost wifi (and all connectivity for the next two hours) I saw a message from the host that said “Are you sure?” and I reply “I am leaving. I want a full refund.” and started my long midnight drive back to Atlanta.  The Chinese tourists were exceptionally gracious, nice, and we all had a laugh about how insane the situation was. I hope they enjoyed their sweltering humid dirt cabin.

Once I had cell reception I called Airbnb and got their less than helpful call center. He asked me to authenticate. I did so. Then he asked for my credit card number. Not kidding. They record their calls; this seriously happened. I swore at him and hung up. There is zero chance he needed that. I arrived home to an email stating “Thanks for reporting your issue, we’ll look in to it.”

I spent the last hour on the phone with them trying to explain what happened: that I never got to use the place, that I had to clean it, and it was misrepresented in the posting. They said they will look in to it.

I know these things take time so I’ll give them two business days before I call American Express and just report the charge as fraud. Let them fight it out with Airbnb. I feel like this whole disaster was just a series of unfortunate events. If phones had worked I might have been able to work out a new place before I spent hours in the car driving home.

The host for sure dropped the ball on informing me of their issues and double booking a rental (what an idiot). Airbnb just seemed disinterested and clinical about it but if I were a huge corporation I would be too. What they do in the next 72 hours will tell. Lesson learned though. I will never book anything through this site again. I will use direct rentals only.

SOS: Help Airbnb Understand my Birth Year isn’t 2020

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Yesterday I was sent an email from Airbnb in the evening requesting some ID details to be updated. I did this immediately including my birthdate and a verified photo of my driver’s license. You’d have thought it would be easy, but not so. Within 30 seconds 20 emails arrived in my inbox one after another, each one notifying me that a booking had been cancelled. All 20 bookings I had in total.

Some technical glitch at Airbnb had registered my birthdate as 2020. According to Airbnb I was underage (and somehow not even born yet) so without reaching out to me as a long-time Superhost Airbnb automatically cancelled every single booking and refunded every single payment to every single guest.

I called Airbnb immediately only to be put on hold for 20 minutes by one of their operators. I called back and the call was disconnected. There was no return call. I called back again each time explaining over and over the urgency of the situation. By this stage I had frantic guests texting and calling me asking why their booking had been cancelled. One guest rang Airbnb herself only to be told that the problem was at my end because I had cancelled her booking?

It is now the next day and I am still waiting for all bookings to be reinstated. I now have guests who have paid for their original booking confirming that they wish their booking to be reinstated only to be double charged. They have received no refund for the cancelled booking. One guest is out of pocket more than $7,000. I only get to talk to Airbnb at their offshore Philippines call centre, which is useless.

Problems with Airbnb Platform, then Customer Service

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I had an issue with the Airbnb app so this is a horror story about that. I was trying to book one night somewhere I was passing though and wanted to check out the outdoor scenery for a day. The app kept saying error every time I’d click to the end to book. I found out apparently two of the places were booked, but I wasn’t made aware they had even been booked.

I didn’t stay at either of them; I ended up at a hotel instead. Now I am being charged for two places on the same night, neither of which I ever visited. Airbnb is being monumentally unhelpful. The first time I called, the “customer service” lady hung up on me while I was talking. Then I talked to some guy that supposedly opened a case and I could message him on the site. I messaged and got no response in over twelve hours.

I just called again a few minutes ago and got a dial tone then an auto hang up. I really feel like this is a legitimate scam and not just a tech problem. If this isn’t a scam like I suspect I hope their whole customer service department gets fired and replaced.

Airbnb Unable to Handle Clients When a Host Double Books

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The following is a letter that was sent to Airbnb:

Thank you for sending this email last Saturday. As per your request, we are am responding with receipts for our unnecessary lodging accommodations in Vancouver BC. Please find the following:

– Receipt from Poco Inn and Suites for the night of Sept 2nd, 2017

– Receipt from Expedia.com for the Budget Inn Patricia Hotel for the night of Sept 3rd, 2017

– Receipt for food is attached, though we are a little confused by this as you did not ask for food receipts over the phone.

Based on our phone conversation, it was our understanding that the $50 towards food was extended as a courtesy. We do not see the need to verify that we ate while on vacation. Nevertheless, a receipt from Sept 3rd is attached. We are aware that the amount on the food receipt exceeds the $50 you had extended to us. We do not expect a full reimbursement on this receipt. We expect Airbnb to uphold its obligations laid out in your email: $500 reimbursement for lodging and $50 toward food. We expect this to occur in an expedited manner. We expect an immediate reply to this email as well as same-day confirmation when the funds will be processed. We expect that the funds transfer will be completed by EOD Friday, September 8th, 2017.

Regarding our receipts, please note the following:

As you were equally aware during our phone conversation, finding lodging in Vancouver on such late notice was difficult. Our budget did not allow for high-priced rooms and I’m sure you will agree that hotel room prices tend to be higher when booking the same day, let alone in the early evening. Poco Inn and Suites was one of the only hotels in that area that had a room for under $300. Please be aware that this hotel was 30 miles away from our originally planned location. Also, once we completed our phone call with you (which lasted nearly 1.5 hours), it took us another hour on the phone to find a this room. The additional travel time to this hotel was also unwelcome. From a financial point of view, it is lucky we were able to use a credit card, but also unfortunate. I would hope that others who have experienced a similar dilemma were able to find cash on hand to cover Airbnb’s inability to find other lodgings.

The Budget Inn Patricia Hotel was cheap and available, but a quick look on Tripadvisor.com will inform you that the hotel is less than safe. Again, the travel time had been added to find this hotel but is disappointing to be confronted with safety concerns. We await your prompt reply to the above.

We are greatly disappointed in Airbnb and its apparent lack of preparedness to take care of situations such as this. In our case, a host reneged on her obligation and we were unnecessarily thrust in to a situation that cost us more money out of pocket as well as cost us a great deal of wasted time – time that was intended for vacation, not for talking to customer service and looking for last-minute lodging on a very busy weekend. This loss of funds and time were completely unnecessary had Airbnb a stronger vetting process to avoid hosts who are uncommunicative and irresponsible. Airbnb’s options, as you described them over the phone, are weak strategies to protect users of your service.

Option 1: We, the clients could find new lodging using the Airbnb app. But as you were quickly able to understand by your own searches, this was simply next to impossible. On that day there were no Airbnb listings available within our budget.

Option 2: “Instant Book”. This seems like a good solution on the surface, but as we understood from your description of this option, we were expected to accept a new booking sight unseen. This is unreasonable. We asked for more details on the location, room size etc. and in the time it took you to look up this basic information, the room was booked. We are surprised that your customer service team is not better equipped to find listings more quickly and with greater detail.

Once Airbnb’s first two options were quickly exhausted, you offered to reimburse us for our hotel costs. However, you were clear that Airbnb has no way of booking a hotel for its displaced clients. This left us to find last-minute lodging, thereby defeating the entire purpose of using Airbnb in the first place. It also seems clear that Airbnb is incapable of vetting their hosts. As you’ll recall, when we arrived at our host’s location, we followed her instructions very carefully. Her instructions were sent out automatically and, ironically, mentioned she required clients to be in contact with her prior to arrival as she “had been burned in the past”. We can verify that we attempted to contact her several times.

However, we never heard back from her on Sept 2nd, nor have we received any communication since. As you will also recall, on Sept 2nd you made two unsuccessful attempts to contact her. When we arrived at the host’s location we followed the host’s instructions and went to the rented room. As per her instructions, the door was open. However, upon entering we found the room was unready and still contained the luggage and personal affects of another client. There was another resident at the house. He informed us that the other guests were out of the city but had no intention of leaving as they were under the impression that they were allowed to stay.

We would prefer to leave a review on this host’s profile – but this situation does not feel safe. To write a review, a user must allow a host to write a review of the user. However, we are hesitant to write a review (and thereby warn other Airbnb clients) that this host was negligent. Why should a client who was stood up by a host be required to allow the host to submit any review at all? I hope that customers can expect Airbnb to address these problems. Indeed, you mentioned over the phone that we were not the first to experience difficulties on that day and in that location.

This was our second experience with irresponsible hosts. Our first was a host who cancelled our reservation 12 hours before check-in, also for the same weekend and in Vancouver BC. We booked another location on Sept 2nd and received confirmation as well. If Airbnb is unable to process same-day reservations, or if Airbnb is unable to provided hosts the proper support they need, then Airbnb needs to step up.

The bottom line is this: Airbnb allowed a host to double book a room; Airbnb allowed a host to remain out of contact with a client; Airbnb allowed a client to become displaced because the client trusted the integrity of the services that Airbnb offers. By not vetting your hosts and by leaving clients for fend for themselves when stood up or double booked, it is clear that Airbnb is more interested in making a profit in the easiest and cheapest way possible than looking after its clients and therefore Airbnb’s own reputation.

Your services cannot be trusted and this is too bad. Your business concept is a good one. Perhaps you should do more to make it function well. It is clear from a quick Google search that Airbnb has many problems protecting clients from unethical behavior by hosts: Airbnb Hell came up quite quickly. I’m sure a more thorough search would reveal much more. We will be posting our experience to social media in hopes of adding our voices to a growing chorus of dissatisfaction with Airbnb’s sloppy business practices. In the mean time, we truly hope that Airbnb can become a better business, or that some other entity can step in where you left off.