Airbnb House of Horror Contained Blood and Mold

Posted on August 24, 2021

As a travel nurse housing can be difficult in some areas. I turned to Airbnb which is a last resort for housing. The host only showed four pictures: two of the front of the house and two of the front rooms. When I walked into her house it was a nightmare. There was blood on the fireplace glass, mold on the carpet, open containers in the refrigerator, urine on the bed hidden with a sheet, who knows what in the shower, and these were just a few things.

We booked it out of there. I returned the key to the neighbor I got it from and he looked shocked. I told him that house was nasty and unlivable. We called Airbnb and they were horrified. We called the host twice and emailed three times with no response. We sent her the pictures. A day later she cancelled so I got a full refund and Airbnb refunded me half of the cost for extra expenses that I incurred because of the host. I am still traumatized by the photos. She also didn’t have any reviews since 2018 but I gave her a chance. Big mistake.

Almost left stranded in California with nowhere to stay

Posted on November 5, 2019

I strongly suggest anyone who has also had terrible experiences with Airbnb to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau, and the Attorney General of your own state or California. Trying to contact Airbnb has been the single worst customer service experience ever in my entire life. Their poor service is creating danger for individuals both in the state of California, nationwide, and worldwide.

This business poses a threat to the safety of citizens because they do not respond to clients who book with them in a timely manner, their customer service agents hang up calls, and they refuse to resolve issues with locked accounts/verification even when people are stranded with nowhere to stay at night because of their poor processes and poor technology. I can only provide my story here, but there are countless others accumulating online from people who have been left out of luck, stranded, and in some cases have come to personal harm and dangerous situations due to Airbnb’s procedures and their horrendous customer service.

On October 31st, I moved out of an Airbnb which my friend had booked for us. I have stayed at two Airbnb’s: one near Temecula, CA and another at Big Bear Lake, CA. Trying to book one for myself, I immediately ran into issues in which their system could not verify my phone number and locked me out even when I had service.

I tried calling them and explained I was a customer and unable to book with their service due to technical issues. If they didn’t get their issue of my phone number being verified fixed then I would need to book a hotel for the night and incur an unnecessary expense.

The agent was unable to do anything to help me get my phone number verified so that I could book an Airbnb. Despite a manager saying that hopefully I would not have to book a hotel room and it would not come to this, I never heard back and ended up incurring an expense of around $82 to book a room at a cheap motel, which was the last option I could find because they never got back to me as promised.

The next day I tried contacting someone again and was told by an agent that she would work on it and send me an email. Lo and behold, the next day without receiving any followup from anyone from Airbnb I suddenly found out I could verify my phone number successfully with Airbnb, and I went to book a reservation. The host I stayed at was great and I got a good night’s rest for two nights with the first Airbnb I booked myself, but I thought it was poor service that no one followed up with me and that I was left to deal with their faulty systems on my own.

My main issues with Airbnb which entails my primary formal complaint I filed with the BBB began today, November 3rd. I am currently booking a place to stay for a month near Corona, CA, I found a listing on their website and contacted the host, who said he would get back to me. The host would not be ready for me in the evening, so in the meantime I booked another Airbnb at a nearby location in Chino, CA for the evening, and for the next day in case the first host could not accommodate me and I would need to find another living situation.

Later the same day, the host of the other Airbnb got back to me and let me know I could come tomorrow. My reservation for the night also messaged me and said I could check myself in with a door code through the Airbnb app. Thirty minutes after this message, around approximately 7:30 PM PST I became mysteriously locked out of the Airbnb app and website due to “security reasons.”

Because I was locked out of the app I could no longer message the host or see the door code to get in to my reservation to stay for the evening. I tried calling Airbnb’s customer service and the first person hung up on me/the call dropped. The second person said she would mark it as “urgent” and it would be handled by a proper team.

I explained this issue needed a resolution tonight so that I would be able to message the host I had already paid for, a sum of $95 in order to get into the room I had booked and paid for. The agent said someone would be contacting me shortly by phone/email and hung up the call. Thirty minutes later I had no response and was standing outside in the cold with no way to get into my booking because the code to enter my reservation was inside their app which they had locked me out of for “security reasons.”

I tried calling back to which another agent I asked for help. She stated she would look into it, placed me on hold for five minutes, got me back on the line, and said she could not do anything. I asked to talk to somebody else. She said she had one more thing to look into, then she placed me on hold, and after five minutes of hold time, the call was dropped.

Because I knew the address I was able to find the host’s phone number and contact them directly so that I would have a place to stay tonight. However, my Airbnb account is still locked and I am unable to use their service which I have paid for. I have never in my life been treated so poorly from call center agents, and I saw it all because I used to work in customer service.

This is not how you treat people, Airbnb. We demand justice.

Airbnb Nightmare in Austin: Stranger Walks in

Posted on October 18, 2019

This is a long one. Ten friends and I are in college and were traveling to Austin. We booked a apartment that advertised it could host 20+ people. We showed up on Friday around 8:00 PM. We were unable to get in. We called and texted the host numerous times, to no avail. The keypad entry finally worked about 30 minutes later. During this time, a neighbor welcomed us by flipping us off when he saw us.

After getting inside it was clear the apartment hadn’t been cleaned: no sheets on beds, no toilet paper, trash bags, shampoo or other listed amenities. Again, we reached out to the host (still no response). There were seven glasses and four dishes, not a fully stocked kitchen as advertised. We had no other choice but to stay (since we had paid up front and we are broke college girls).

On Sunday night (we had rented through Monday) we were awakened by a uninvited guest who was able to get into the apartment. That’s correct: a man entered at midnight refusing to leave because he said he had rented the apartment and wasn’t going anywhere. Thankfully the neighbor who welcomed us with his middle finger jumped into action when he heard the commotion and literally kicked him out for us.

Airbnb is slow to respond and has wasted hours of our time, and the host is now threatening us if we leave a bad review, saying that he will tell Airbnb we were extorting him. We don’t need a refund. We need this shady apartment and host removed from the platform.

Airbnb Hosts: If you want to get paid, beware

Posted on September 11, 2018

I am a multi-host with Airbnb and operate in Palm Cove, Queensland as a fully qualified real estate agent. I recently had two bookings, one in Palm Cove and the other in Sanur, Bali. Both payouts were due very close together. When no payment was received I checked my account only to find that somebody had hacked the Airbnb page and added their details as the default payout party. Total money lost: just under $2000, of which $1500 belongs to my clients and I have to honour.

I immediately contacted Airbnb after changing my default details and password. I was told that the Airbnb computer system was secure and that they had no idea how this could have happened. I was told my case was being referred to their Trust & Safety Team to investigate, and that I would be contacted very shortly. Well over a week later, and almost daily calls by myself to Airbnb, I have yet to get a call back from anybody, despite promise after promise to do so, and “Of course, we are so sorry this has happened.”

I have asked to speak to the Trust & Safety team to see what they are doing about my money. I was told today that the Trust & Safety Team works in the back offices and they don’t have phones. Well I kid you not, I nearly wet my pants I was laughing so much.

If that weren’t bad enough, here is stage two of Airbnb at its best. I was invited to join Airbnb’s Plus Programme where they send a party to your nominated property to inspect and do a photo shoot. This, according to Airbnb, will elevate your listing to a preferred status whereby potential guests will be convinced to book your property because you are a trusted host whose property has been inspected by their professional team.

I put forward the two properties Airbnb had chosen from my portfolio. A date was set for each property, and here are Airbnb’s requirements: schedule your home visit; choose a date and time for an Airbnb partner to visit your home in person. The visit will take 1-3 hours and includes an inspection and photoshoot. You or someone who maintains your property should be there the entire time.

You know what’s coming next, don’t you? Of course Airbnb did not turn up to either property to either prearranged time and date, and I had to pay my staff for sitting on their backsides watching TV waiting for Airbnb to turn up. So once again I have to contact Airbnb to get a credit for $236 which they charged for these two non-visits. Then again, they are oh so sorry for what has happened and will arrange a credit.

Now I know you are going to ask, did they credit you? You already know the answer. Of course not. “Please go away and stop bothering us” is the impression you get when you ring and get put on hold time after time after time. For today’s call I was on hold for 14 minutes. I am sure they were just hoping I would go away. They are like insurance companies who receive a claim, and adopt the declined declined declined response, until they realize you mean business.

Today I have reached the end of my tether. I have been told that the Trust & Safety Team does not have phones and when I requested to speak to a Public Relations Officer, I was told Airbnb does not have one. I just got the round robin treatment of “Well, we cannot do anything from here as we are a call centre.” I asked to be directed to a phone number to speak to somebody who can actually act with responsibility. “I am so sorry, we cannot give out other numbers as we are only a ‘call centre.'”

Time to go public and tell the news media. I know they just love this juicy type of story to get stuck into Airbnb.

Airbnb Destroys 10th Anniversary Celebration

Posted on July 1, 2018

At 11:55 AM on June 21st, I was enjoying an amazing time with my wife of ten years, driving up the coast without a care in the world. Little did I know that Airbnb had just decided to blow up our long planned anniversary trip. When I had first started planning, I was hesitant about using Airbnb because I worried about the potential for homeowners to make sudden changes. However, I was assured by friends that Airbnb had always worked out extremely well for them, so I decided to go for it.

On March 27th, nearly three months before our trip, we booked our stays and were extremely excited. We paid in full, paid off our credit card, and were so eager for our getaway. Fast forward to our actual trip, and once I got wifi access later in the evening, I discovered an email informing me that our bookings had been cancelled without explanation. We had no place to stay, on a weekend, in June.

Panic set in quickly. We called customer support but were only told that it was for a ‘technical reason.’ We were told it would be escalated, but who knows when we might get a response. It was only later that the explanation email arrived and we knew what ‘a technical reason’ meant, which was that somehow I’d been tagged as having failed a background check.

I’m a pragmatist. I understand that businesses must minimize risk. However, the onus must be on the business to minimize their risk in a way that does not harm their customers, that does not strand them 2000 miles from home. When I found out the real reason for my cancellation, I immediately filed a dispute. As expected, that dispute was resolved in my favor, because the information provided to Airbnb was in error. However, winning the dispute eight days later doesn’t fix the emotional turmoil that Airbnb caused on what was supposed to be an amazing trip. It doesn’t give me back those lost hours with my wife where we were both crying and agonizing.

Had Airbnb made this mistake in March, three months ago, it could have been easily corrected. I’d have disputed, and everything would have been fine. However, because Airbnb decided to do so the day before our stay, we had no recourse or remedy. Brainstorming, we tried to sign up my wife and have her book the stays, but she was also denied. She was told that because she was connected to me, she was blocked as well. My wife was devastated when she was told that, because she was married to me, she wasn’t allowed to have an Airbnb account, either.

The follow up email that Airbnb sent to her was brutal, and brought her to tears yet again. Not exactly the emotion one is going for on an anniversary. Airbnb did its absolute best to destroy our long planned, long saved for trip. It hurt us both financially and, more importantly, emotionally. This is the kind of story you only read about; you never think it will happen to you. Now that it has happened to me, I do think people should read about it. It seems like exactly the kind of publicity that Airbnb deserves. Wouldn’t you agree?

We Found the Host Having Lunch in our Airbnb

Posted on May 28, 2017

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 Refuses to Pay for Damages for Guest Party

Posted on January 27, 2017

My roommate and I had a guest staying at our apartment for December break, since we were home visiting our parents. One guest in particular stayed on the 27th of December and decided to host a party. When I say party, I mean that the police were called multiple times, and we reached home two weeks later to find an eviction notice slapped to our front door due to multiple noise complaints. Since the maid service who had cleaned our apartment in between guests had only told us about damages in the apartment and the mess that it was left in, we were shocked to say the least. We went to the building manager to sort things out, and we were met with another surprise. The party that the guest had was not only loud and noisy, but her attendees were throwing things off the balcony, had broken the entry door as not all of them had the access key, and – here’s the kicker – pooped on the stairwell outside our apartment.

Airbnb had been contacted after the guests’ stay as the maid service had informed us about extra cleaning charges, and so we emailed them again telling them the new information. They gave us a two-day extension to provide us with an invoice for the damages. For those of you who have never had to live in an apartment building with a highly bureaucratic administration, you’re so lucky. For us, any little thing that has to be fixed or replaced has to be reported to management, who then has to file a maintenance order for it, report it to their office who will then call a company to take a look at the damage or assess repairs, and then they will call another company to do the actual repairs. The delay between each of these communications is at least two days.

Added to this chain, there is a legal team who is currently handling our file, as they are trying to review what has to be paid for and if we should pay for it. This team is not reachable by our building office or by us; communication has to go through the manager who will then ask them. This adds another few days. I explained this to Airbnb and they gave me another extension of another two days. This went on for a week. Finally, they emailed me saying I have 48 hours and no more extensions. I have repeatedly gone to the office and explained to them that I need the invoice asap, but my urgency was probably not conveyed to the legal team. When I emailed the case manager and told him this he replied saying that this is their protocol and he cannot change it. He refused to connect me to a manager and said that there is no customer care helpline I can connect with (I checked, there is).

Airbnb knows that we are helpless and is using that to get out of paying for the damages caused by that guest. The manager told me that including the cleanup and everything, the damages would amount to approximately $800, maybe more. We cannot pay for this ourselves. We’re students; we were just trying to make up a portion of our rent for the month that were away. Most of it went towards a maid service who cleaned the apartment between visits. Airbnb has turned a blind eye to us, and emails to the CEO have gone unanswered. We cannot pay the amount in damages, and we are at our wits end, missing classes to go talk to the building manager, and staying up looking for other channels of communication since our case manager has shut the door in our face. We cannot afford to start off a term like this, just as we cannot afford to pay an insane amount for absurd damages. Airbnb said that they would commit to better service after their 2011 situation. But everything they had promised isn’t being held up by their representatives, and I don’t know what to do.