Tag Archives: airbnb guest warning

Airbnb “Sleepwalker” Guest Approached Me Naked

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My guest, Sean, arrived with two of his friends who were in a band. They seemed like a nice group of young men, although I had mistakenly thought his party would consist of a female and two males. Had I known it was three men, I wouldn’t have accepted the booking. At about 3:30 am, I saw the bathroom light come on, heard someone use the bathroom, and saw the bathroom light go off. Then I saw the person who had used the bathroom coming towards the living room where I was lying on the couch for bed. As he got nearer, I was surprised that he was approaching me and asked, in a normal speaking voice, “What do you want?”

That’s when I realized it was Sean and he was either nude or wearing “barely there” underpants. I couldn’t tell which it was in the room, which was only illuminated by streetlight and the light from my computer and other electronics. In response to my question, Sean said something like, “My bad. I sleepwalk,” and returned to his private room near the back of the house. Alone, with three men in the house – one of them just having gotten very close to me while naked, or nearly so, and while I was lying in bed – I was too afraid to go back to sleep. So I called Airbnb and they gave me $100 to book a hotel, which I did. I spent the rest of the night there.

I returned well after the time Sean had told me his group would leave. They were indeed gone and had left my exit doors and windows open and, therefore, unlocked, which was against my house rules. However, given the whole naked sleepwalking thing, that was the least of my concerns. Because of what happened with Sean, I looked up sleepwalking on the National Sleep Foundation website. According to the researchers there, a sleepwalker is not easily awakened and, when they are, they are confused and disoriented. Sean using the bathroom without stumbling or being confused about where he was – just as normally as an awakened person would – as well as responding to me coherently and, it seemed to me, with full alertness, when I asked him, without raising my voice to get his attention, what he wanted was not typical of a sleepwalker, according to research.

In addition, if he is aware that he sleep walks, why would he choose to sleep naked, or practically so, while in another person’s home – especially the one of a total stranger and a female at that? He also should have informed me before he booked my space that he was a sleep walker. The Airbnb representative told me she had “educated” Sean about the fact that he should let hosts know he sleepwalks. In my review, I informed Airbnb that, in my opinion, Sean should be barred from being a guest before he rapes somebody. As an Airbnb host, this was the first time I felt like my safety was threatened. This experience has made me rethink how I will proceed as a host going forward. In the attached photo, Sean is wearing pink.

Unauthorized Charge on Credit Card

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Two days ago, I reserved a flat through Airbnb in Makati and was going to pay for it with a Visa card. When I pressed the “Book It” button on the airbnb site, a screen came up saying that my reservation had to be approved. So I waited and was expecting to be prompted to enter my credit card information. Soon after, another screen came saying that I had been approved, immediately followed by another screen that said my booking was confirmed and was paid for by my American Express card.

Without my authorization, airbnb had automatically charged the American Express card that I had used for a previous booking. First of all, I was not even aware that they had retained my card on file. Secondly, my experience of making payments on the internet has been that there is always a screen that asks how you want to pay for something. Since my American Express card charges were quite substantial, I had planned on using a Visa credit card.

My first reaction was to look for contact information on the airbnb site. That in itself was a project. One has to go through tons of FAQs before being able to send an email. No phone number was readily available. I later found out that I had to press urgent to get a phone number. Well, my reservation is a over a month away, and I did not feel it was urgent. At least not at that moment.

I immediately informed airbnb via email that I wanted to switch the charges–reply from them was that it would take a few days to address my problem since they were inundated by support requests. Since it seemed that the problem was easy enough to solve, I decided to give airbnb a call. My host who was aware of the issue provided me a couple of phone numbers, and I called– the wait time on the phone was close to an hour.

Here is the best part: upon hearing about the problem, customer service informed me that they would email me a link where FIRST I had to provide them with my Visa card number and that they would charge my Visa and THEN REVERSE the charges on my Amex. Well, I told them to first reverse my Amex charges, and then I would give them my Visa card no. After all, my reservation was over a month away. More importantly, I did not want to give airbnb control over two of my credit cards after they had unscrupulously charged my Amex without authorization. Would you? What I thought was a simple matter to resolve was quickly becoming a best practices issue. I spoke to a supervisor (supposedly) and was told that at his level airbnb was not set up to refund me first and then switch the charges. They wanted me to pay up a second time, and then they would refund the first charges.

To add insult to injury, airbnb’s customer service arrogantly informed me that if I disputed the charges on the American Express card and the reservation was cancelled, their cancellation policy would apply. What is their cancellation policy? Their cancellation policy is unconscionable: 50% penalty plus the airbnb fee on ANY cancellations made up to one week before the reserved dates. Bigger penalty on cancellations within one week of reservation. My reservation is more than a month away. Customer service informed me that if my reservation was cancelled for whatever reason, I would only get 50% of my money back. Airbnb, get your act together. RENTER BEWARE!