Tag Archives: airbnb glitch

Non-payment of Cancellation Fee to Guests

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A guest made a booking with our establishment on June 2nd, 2018. On June 27th, due to unforeseeable circumstances, I had to cancel the booking. I received the following message from Airbnb:

“You canceled ………… reservation ……… has been fully refunded. Learn more about host cancellation.”

On June 28th, I received an email from Airbnb pausing my listings as well as a message informing me that a penalty fee of $50 would be deducted from my next booking. So they acknowledged my cancellation.

On July 5th at around 15:00, the guest and her husband arrived at our premises. Apparently they had received no notification of the cancellation and furthermore had most certainly not been refunded as had been advised by Airbnb on June 27th. The guests double checked their banking records and reconfirmed that no refund had been made by Airbnb.

We tried to find them alternate accommodation in the area, but unfortunately could not find anything available that was decent and affordable at short notice. Since my tenant had to delay her occupation date from July 1st to July 8th due to handover issues at her work, I was thankfully in a position to accommodate the stranded couple.

What we are trying to establish from Airbnb is the following: will the guest be refunded as should have happened through Airbnb, and if so when, so that guest can pay me directly? I was still liable for a cancellation penalty of $50. Will Airbnb reinstate this booking so that I may expect payment from Airbnb today, since the guests checked in yesterday (penalty fees will obviously be waved)?

I find this entire debacle extremely frustrating as the guests were totally unaware of the cancellation and therefore stranded on arrival; from my side I did everything correctly in terms of cancelling the booking and I accepted that I would be liable for penalty costs, but my heart goes out to this couple who were totally left in the dark. Where is Airbnb’s commitment to guests and where is the follow through in terms of cancellations?

Surely refunds should be made immediately so that guests have the funds available to make an alternate booking? One would assume that the $50 penalty fee borne by the host would cover the extra admin involved in refunding the guest as well as covering commissions lost to Airbnb. I have tried to email Airbnb’s CEO, COO, Operations Manager as well as First Line Contact and all emails have bounced back as their server considers my email address to be spam. I most certainly do not have the time or financial resources to sit on a telephone for hours at international rates to sort this matter. The entire system is email based, so we can’t speak to a live body through emails where we will also obviously have a paper trail.

Airbnb Charged Full Amount… And Then Kept Charging

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When booking an apartment through Airbnb, I chose “payment in installments” but was charged the full amount of about 1500 EUR by Airbnb from my PayPal account, immediately. I only realized this three weeks later when I was charged by Airbnb, again, from my paypal account. That time it was the first installment of 770 EUR which is to be followed by the second one in a few weeks.

I contacted Airbnb several times via telephone and messaging explaining that they had charged the full amount by mistake and asking for them to transfer the amount back to my PayPal account. So far, one week has passed and I have not been helped at all. On the contrary, one Airbnb person wrote to me that the amount of 1500 EUR was shown but not charged, which is a lie. All transfers are documented by PayPal.

Yesterday, I insisted in speaking to a person with more authorization. Finally, I was called by somebody who literally hung up on me in the middle of our conversation. This morning, I received a message telling me that if I have an issue with a suspicious credit card transaction I should first check on family members who might have used my card information. This was totally off topic as the charges for my booking were made from my PayPal account. I have the feeling that there are very limited means to get any further than the “customer support shell” which is doing anything but solving problems for Airbnb customers.

Airbnb Guests Part of Identify Theft and Fraud Ring

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I always ask people what time they are arriving and get a confirmation on a time frame. Locking them into a set time gives me an idea about what kind of people they are too. Since this individual confirmed for 2:00 PM, he had me sitting there until 11:00 PM without showing. It smelt of “let me sleep over and then look through your s$%t when you leave home for work.”

I just got that vibe and I was correct. I did a Google search and found I was in a Airbnb Hell story. It was already past the cancellation deadline on the website. Dude was outside my house; I had to deal directly with Airbnb instead and get the knife out of my hand. They probably intended to rob me. I intended to wait at the door and prepare for any kung fu battle that always begins with an ambush.

I told Airbnb he was not coming into my house. They said, “Wow, how did he manage to make a reservation this time? We have procedures in effect that were bypassed by the reservation system.”

I said I didn’t care what was bypassed or how they managed to do it; there was no way they were coming in.

Airbnb said “You wont be getting any money for cancelling.”

“I could bloody care less, and I don’t care about my Superhost status either.”

Booking not yet Confirmed Cash Withdrawn

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I sent a request through to the host asking him for the exact location of his home and was prompted on the system that he would need to reply within 24 hours. He did with the address and before I could confirm, the booking went through and the amount was taken from my account. There was no payment screen – I did not authorize any payment. How is this even possible? Surely I have to go through a process of entering my bank details and authorising payment?

I then proceeded to cancel the booking and was told that I would only get a 50% refund in ten days. The host said he only received payment the day after I arrived from. Where has the money gone in the mean time? I then proceeded to request the balance from the host and have had no reply, which makes no sense as he was quite prompt in replying to all my messages.

I have reported fraud to my bank on this transaction but the point is how was it even possible for Airbnb to have this authority over my banking details? Is this what a host can do, confirm a booking and payment from his side without the consent or authorisation from the prospective guest? Because he has a strict cancelation policy, he can now keep 50% of my money, from a booking that was never authorized by me? I am extremely disappointed in this system.

Airbnb Allowed Bookings When My Calendar Was Blocked

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There is a flaw in the Airbnb system when it comes to same-day bookings. The following has happened to me now at least five times over the last two years (it could be more but I recall five for sure). The situation is this: if someone goes to Airbnb looking for a same-day reservation it allows them to book my studio even though my calendar is blocked. It only happens when it is a same-day booking and the calendar is blocked by me as opposed to an Airbnb reservation already on the calendar.

I have my calendar synced with booking.com, HomeAway/VRBO, and a couple others. If someone books on those other sites it automatically blocks the dates on my Airbnb calendar. In addition, I manually go in to block dates when I have a cash paying guest that is not booked through an online site. I didn’t understand what was going on the first couple times but by the third time I figured it out and I told Airbnb customer service to please forward the information on this flaw up the ladder to whoever needs the information to fix it. Every time this happens I tell them again.

Well, it just happened again on Saturday, February 10th, 2018. The guest booked at about 4:15 PM stating he would be arriving between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM that night. I already had a guest in the studio who was not scheduled to check out until Sunday. I had to call him to explain that Airbnb messed up and that this is not the first time this has happened to me. I had to call Airbnb and after waiting on hold forever (as usual) and explain what happened they cancelled the reservation with no penalty to me (supposedly). Now, to make matters worse I got an email today asking me to review this guest. The following is exactly what the email said: “You can leave a review for your guest even though the trip was cancelled. We won’t share your review until after [the guest] leaves feedback for you”.

Can’t Share Phone Numbers When You Need Help

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Airbnb has no way to for hosts and guests to share phone numbers via their email system. You select “contact the host”, enter your number, and it gets removed from the email, preventing the sharing of information.

Here’s the scenario. I stayed at a great place two weeks ago and left a jacket there. I contacted the host, who offered to give me the number of the person managing the unit (the host was traveling). The first few times we tried to share the number, in place of the number was a message saying the number had been removed. It took us a good number of attempts to trick the system, but we finally succeeded.

While we were going back and forth, I called Airbnb, waited about 15 minutes for someone to answer and then went round and round trying to explain the simple problem. They had no solutions. Wouldn’t it be really easy to say “we can’t share the host’s number with you, but we can give the host your number”?

That would be so simple. It would protect the host and allows us to contact each other with the host being in control. Did they do that? Nope. The person on the phone spent a few minutes telling me it was the host’s email account and not Airbnb that was stripping the numbers. Once I finally got her to understand we were using their system via ‘contact host’, she then denied that their system stripped out the numbers until I offered to send her the email with the number removed. At which point, she admitted that they did.

Then, believe it or not, she told me she could show me how to send the number. First, she said I should go to the listing. Then click ‘contact host’. I thought she understood that’s what we were doing from the five minutes of explanation we just endured. Clearly they have a serious shortage of skilled resources.

I know this isn’t a big deal for most and my issue was simple, but what if I had a problem while staying there and couldn’t get in touch with the host? What if I left some kind of medical device there? Clearly there needs to be a way to simply share a number. This whole incident shows that Airbnb is still very immature in their systems and processes and that means if you use them, be prepared for to waste time fixing simple things that their systems can’t handle. Also be prepared to get no help from folks who don’t seem to understand the fundamentals of how their own system works.

Gold Coast Booking Leads to Being Double Charged

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Please read this letter I sent to Airbnb less that three hours after I had made a booking:

Hi Airbnb,

I hope you are having a fabulous day. I am not and I am writing here to let you and others know why. In a few weeks one of my best friends is getting married on the Gold Coast (we never thought it would happen – he is not that pretty). I am the only member of his friends and family who is in the southern hemisphere so I am absolutely delighted to be going.

Today I decided to book my accommodation through Airbnb. You have such a good following and cheaper rates so I thought, why not? That is definitely the kind of service I need as I am on a budget and the rates seemed fabulous. I made my booking with a lovely woman who immediately contacted me. We could not wait for our trip.

Where is the issue, you may wonder? After booking this, my partner and I thought that doing a small run to the food shop would be a good idea. I checked my bank account just to see how much we could splurge after booking our trip. I was expecting to see between $400-600. It wasn’t a great surprise to me when there was a measly $28 in the account. Obviously this was a great shock. When I investigated this further it was clear that Airbnb had double charged me and also refunded me on their system.

This would be all well and good and if I were a millionaire I would find it slightly irritating; however, I am not a millionaire. I was a bit upset but because I am a reasonable person I figured I would contact you and just ask what was going on.

Firstly, I struggled to find contact details on your website – I just kept getting redirected in a loop to your FAQ pages (on a side note: this is extremely irritating). The next step was Facebook, where I found a telephone number. This was an 02 number so I assumed I was calling someone in NSW. The first two agents that I spoke to (in Southeast Asia Pacific – this is where they told me they were) hung up on me when I said I needed to find a solution to procuring the money that had been refunded. The third agent told me I did not know what I was talking about.

At this point I am willing to admit that I lost my temper a little and demanded to speak to someone more helpful. Again, somebody hung up on me. During this time my partner contacted the bank and told them about our little conundrum and they said there was a really very simple solution to resolve this: Airbnb had to email or fax the bank on an email address and/or fax number that they provided with some details.

After receiving this information, the good people at the bank said the money would be released within two hours. At this point, all of the details required on this fax or email were about myself. The only thing Airbnb had to provide was a headed fax or signed email. After some cereal, a bit of a cry, and being a little bit stressed, I called back.

This time I spoke to someone who was a little more helpful. She went and found a supervisor. This person got on the phone and relayed back the same ridiculous diatribe that the first couple of people did and only when I mentioned the word fraudulent and legal advice was anyone on the phone remotely helpful. When I pointed out that I was expecting to call NSW and actually ended up on the phone to Southeast Asia, saying “would I be getting charged a fortune for that on top of having no money in my bank account?” the supervisor hung up and called me back.

After 45 minutes of being on this call I was told the call was very irritating. I was also told that the managers and payment teams that had the capacity to deal with my unfortunate situation were in another country and there was nothing you could do. I am a human being and understand mistakes happen. However, in our modern age of technology and communication I am struggling to comprehend the fact that nobody in a global company can send an email or fax to resolve this situation. It would take less than five minutes.

I won’t keep going on but what I will say is this. You took a charge out of my bank account twice and actually tried to take it a third time. Because of this (and you not being able to send an email or fax) I have $28 in my bank account. Because I only have this much money in my account, either my partner or I are going to have to sacrifice going to work as we will not be able to both afford fuel and/or public transport to our employment. I apologize that we are not more well off and able to cope but even though both of us work 60+ hours a week we are still struggling to make ends meet. If either of us lose our employment I will be seeking legal advice.

I still have no email, fax or refund.

My Story Hosting on Airbnb in Ottawa

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On September 17th, a guest arrived. The next day I received payout of $808.01. This guest was supposed to stay for 13 nights. On September 19th, Airbnb requested an alteration for one additional night but did not include the amount to be paid for this one night.  I accepted this alteration for one night and within two hours, I cancelled it, due to what I believe was a technical problem. I have a lot of correspondence with Airbnb and the guest from that date to support this statement.
Airbnb made an input error and showed that I must make a refund of $808 or more (uncertain) to the guest. When I learned of this, at the beginning of October, they told me that they would correct this error. This did not happen.
Airbnb has kept payouts from three of my guests, totaling $795.40 to cover this error.  I closed my account for one week. Managers assured me that I would receive the money owing me. I reopened my account for guests, and learned that they did not do what they said they would do. I am now closed down permanently as my calendar will confirm. Even PayPal shows that I owe $261 in addition to what they have kept – or at this time I wish to say, stolen.
I have dealt with customer service representatives daily now for 17 days, including a few managers. I call Airbnb or email daily, only to receive similar responses every time. I am good with details as you can see, and everyone with whom I spoke could see where the problem lay and the mistake, but no remedy was forthcoming. Written responses in no way reflected the content of our conversations.
One representative from a North American office, listened, understood, and told me on October 8th that I should receive what was owed to me within 24 hours, but his written response instructed me to “check with your bank”. Another manager told me that it was stuck in the system and would take a few days. Another manager told me that my case had been sent on to their payment department. A manager from the Manila office refuses to communicate with me in any way.
October 20th: I was informed that I requested a new manager.
October 23rd: I spoke with Airbnb’s Manila office. They mentioned that they would need to contact the guest.  That is not my problem, and Airbnb, like any company, is obliged by law to compensate victims from hardships of errors.
October 24th: Customer service told me that I have almost paid off my debt, and would get a partial pay out for the next guest. This was after I had reviewed the details, the error – as if I would be comforted.
October 24th Airbnb’s Nevada office informed me that I had a new case manager.
October 25th: The manager was not available.
I have repeatedly asked for a supervisor above the manager to be told that there was no such individual.
Many support workers replied with the statement “I hope you are happy with the resolution”.  They do profusely apologize. I cannot count the times that I have heard “I am very, very sorry”.
I have been hosting for two years, with over 90 reviews and 4.7+ star ratings. I am a senior, rely on this income, and do enjoy all the wonderful guests that I have hosted, but now my income is gone, and I have shut down as mentioned earlier.  This is a tragedy, and I will hope and pray that the principals of this site can direct me to someone that can intervene, and give me justice.

Host Extorted Money for Confirmed Reservation During Eclipse

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Last week, we wrote a review for a host who made us to pay more money for our confirmed booking (a month after we had paid in full) because of the high demand for booking her location during the August 21st eclipse. She claimed there was a booking glitch and she intended to have Instant Booking charge us more. When we booked, there were other options, but at that point (a month before the eclipse) there was nothing left. We couldn’t afford what she was asking, and were worried she or Airbnb would cancel our booking if we complained, as has happened to other guests on forums where hosts claim a “booking glitch”. This would have left us high and dry with our small children. We offered to pay her $500 instead of $1700, which she accepted.

After our stay, I wrote a review detailing the experience, but I have yet to see it posted on her site. Do you know how long it takes to for a review to show up for a host? It has been a week since I submitted it, and I hadn’t received any messages that anything was wrong with it. I’m worried the host will get Airbnb to not post it. They will be able to see it is accurate; all our communication was done over Airbnb messages, including her request to “adjust the price” and her explanation that she decided to adjust the price due to demand. Ultimately, I’d like to see the host respond to our review with a refund of the money we paid under duress, and to agree to post surge-pricing dates on her site in the future, and address future website booking glitches within 24 hours and with Airbnb rather than putting pressure on guests.