Tag Archives: airbnb never again

Airbnb Closes Case After Vegan Host Asks to Cancel

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Our Airbnb host asked us to cancel the reservation after we discovered that we couldn’t eat honey, milk, etc. (vegan craziness) and asked for a full refund. Then she refused to refund our 50% strict cancellation non-refundable deposit ($800 CAD). Airbnb asked her to make the refund, she refused, and then they closed the case, bouncing back any email reply. That’s it. We’ve been deceived with a misrepresentation and lost 800 CAD after following the host’s directions one day after booking. Airbnb washed their hands of it, and the case is closed. What a horrible company and experience. There’s complicity in theft, which doesn’t even apply their own terms and conditions. I will never deal with them again, and am closing my account.

Four Families with Seven Children Kicked out at Midnight

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My family and friends’ families were staying in State College, PA for the Blue and White Weekend. We arrived at the Airbnb rental property at 10:00 PM on Friday night. When we arrived, the owner showed us the house and strongly encouraged us all to use the hot tub, despite it being late. We stayed the night, did not enter the hot tub, went to the game the next day, and came back to the Airbnb rental around 6:00 PM. We then played with the kids, all under the age of five, in the backyard, ate dinner, put the kids to bed, and retired to the patio and hot tub for the night. My three-year-old daughter is scared of the dark, so my wife was rocking her to sleep on the patio with us. Some of us went to bed with the kids, some of us were wrapping up the night, and some were having nightcaps on the patio.

A couple of us got in the hot tub at the owner’s suggestion. The hot tub was so full of water that it overflowed with just one adult entering it. As others got in, it continued to overflow. We knew this was odd, but didn’t think anything of it. We were sure to keep proper care of the hot tub, as my dad owns a very similar hot tub that we have used in the same manner many times. Around 9:30 PM, my 62-year-old father walked around the house to make sure we weren’t too loud, as the sign asked us to keep it down after 9:30 PM, so we started to wind down around that time. After all, a person can only really stay in a hot tub for 15-20 minutes. My brother and his wife had already gone inside and another couple was already in bed asleep. At 10:00 PM, the the owner came out from behind some bushes and started screaming at us, telling us we were being too loud, it was past curfew, we were breaking the rules, and we were misusing the hot tub. He said we had to get out of the house right away and the cops had been called (at this point he had already called the cops himself and reported a noise violation). When my 3-year-old asked why he was yelling at us, he turned around and yelled at her, scaring her and causing her to cry.

The cops came and when they arrived, they actually thought they were at the wrong house because it was too quiet in the front driveway. We explained the situation to the police and the police pleaded with the owner not to kick us out. We even apologized, despite not doing anything wrong, and said we would go inside and head to bed as we had seven children sleeping in the house ages seven months to four years old. He would not take no for an answer and had the police forcibly remove us. He showed the cops a video, allegedly from the surveillance system (it is illegal to film someone without their consent in a private setting, let alone in bathing suits). The hot tub is surrounded by three walls and leads to a yard with an eight-foot privacy fence, making it more than reasonable to expect this area not to be under video surveillance.

The cops said they had never seen anything like this, but they had to ask us to leave. It was very traumatizing, especially to the kids, who kept asking why we had to leave, and my autistic sister,who was crying throughout the whole thing because they said we’d have to go to jail if we didn’t leave, and our kids would be given to child services. This is a traumatizing thing for a parent to hear, especially without being given a legitimate reason. We asked an officer and the owner to walk through the property so they could all see there were no damages to the household in any way. The owner chose not to walk through after all the guests were removed (he did storm to the door to go inside before we vacated and was stopped by the police). We have video evidence of the walk through along with pictures of how we left the house. For being kicked out at midnight, we left that house in pretty amazing shape.

According to the police, “officers cleared the call at 12:23 AM on April 23rd.” As for the hot tub’s condition, after the owner jumped out of the bushes and yelled at us, my father observed him close the hot tub, and everything was still working fine at that time, including the jets. There was no damage to the hot tub. The owner turned off the jets and placed the cover on. Several witnesses saw the jets working after the abrupt exit, the hot tub was 103 degrees when covered, and there were no drinks in the hot tub. The only difference was that there was less water, which is normal in any hot tub.

Now this traumatic incident has continued to disturb our lives with this fraudulent claim that we broke his hot tub. We exchanged words about the capacity rating of the hot tub and we informed him that my father has a similar model and we treated his hot tub the same as we treat his and did not misuse it. I think it is also worth noting that we were in one of the largest college towns in America; the parties of concern generally involve many college kids with extremely loud music and absurd amounts of alcohol.

We had a few 35-year-olds with a 62-year-old grandfather on a patio deck. We were kicked out in the middle of the night, packing toys, pack n’ plays, food, clothing and toiletries and loaded everyone into our vehicles for a two-hour drive home with our children. My 2-year-old was wide awake on the ride home and continued to ask: “Bye-bye? Why?” We did not get to our friends’ home until 3:00 AM, and our poor kids were tired, confused, and saddened. Not to mention traumatized because the owner yelled, screamed, was rude, and inappropriate through the whole ordeal. We are all shocked and stunned and are still suffering. There were no noise violations, no warning, and certainly no understanding or empathy for children. My friends’ wives and my sister were in tears because he was so out of control.

When we found out, he had been videotaping us in the hot tub as “surveillance,” we no longer felt safe. We called the police Sunday and the sergeant was very nice. He complimented us on how we handled the situation and even mentioned the guy tried to charge us with a noise violation and public disturbance. The police said, “the first officer arrived at the house at 10:15 PM and was met in the drive by the property owner. The officer did not hear any loud voices or music.”

The owner asked the police to charge us with a noise violation and public disturbance. The police did not witness anything that would warrant such charges and called the district attorney’s office to see if they could charge us with anything. The district attorney’s office told them we were doing nothing wrong. They called it a civil dispute in their report. This cop even apologized for having to do it, and said he would not have handled that as well as we did. We did not break any of the house rules. We did not have a party; we were not given a chance to vacate the patio by 10:00 PM, as his online house rules state, as he jumped out at 10:00 PM.

According to the police there is no noise ordinance for that area anyway. There were no rules anywhere about hot tub capacity or use. The owner then tried to open a claim against us on Airbnb for damaging the hot tub. His evidence is screen shots of random hot tub services, an invoice (which I have no doubt is fake), and his word. Looking through this evidence, I do not even understand where he is getting the number of $750 that he thinks we owe him. There are mostly screenshots of estimates from the internet. All of the screen shots of hot tub services/values prove nothing. There is one invoice, which our we believe is fraudulent. We believe this was fraud to exploit innocent families and children.

The invoice is also for cleaning the hot tub, which there was no need for. Airbnb ended up denying his claim because of the evidence we provided showing his claim was fraudulent and ruling in our favor. The owner and his friend were laughing as we carried our children from the house. I don’t know what kind of human being does this to kids and families. We have pictures and video evidence that we left the house in great shape despite being kicked out in the middle of the night. We tried to resolve this issue through Airbnb. Our first case was opened and seemed to be making good progress, but then communication stopped from Airbnb’s case manager. I called customer service and it turned out they closed our case for no reason. I reopened the case thinking it was a mistake. It took weeks to even get a response from them. I called every day for four weeks to check on the status and provided many pictures, police reports, and accounts of this story. On my final call I escalated the issue to a supervisor of the call center. The supervisor didn’t get on the phone and just relayed the message that the case had been closed. They did not give any reason or explanation as to why they closed the case, but offered to open another case, which I did. I still have received no response from Airbnb as to their handling of this. It is awful that they would let a host treat families like this with no repercussion. We will never use Airbnb again.

Stranded in Seattle, Airbnb Host just Ignores Us

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We booked a room through Airbnb for three nights in Seattle. There were four of us staying in the room. We are all from Orlando, Florida, and booked this vacation because we were headed to Alaska on a cruise. We left May 10th and had a layover in Houston. We were supposed to receive an email confirmation for check-in 24 hours before the 10th but never received a call or email. We decided to call them in Houston to make sure we could check in at our scheduled time. When we called they proceeded to explain to us that the guest who stayed in the room the night before had completely wrecked the place and it needed to be inspected to make sure it was safe for us to live in for the remaining days. The man on the phone sounded sincere at the time and said no matter what happens he would set us up in one of his other places if the inspection came out negative. He also offered to send a shuttle to the Seattle airport to pick us up and bring us over to our room.

At this point we figured everything would work out okay when we landed. After a 4.5-hour flight to Seattle we made it and called Saigon Hospitality (the host) to let them know we were waiting on them. There was no answer. We called a few more times; again, there was no answer. We all called from our phones probably 5-8 times each. At this point we decided to get an Uber and go to the Saigon Hospitality Office so we could check in and get settled. We arrived at the office; the door was locked and there was a large window in the front through which we could see inside. Inside there was a lot of furniture. It looked like the furniture to the room in which we were supposed to stay. It was all stacked in the office front room as if they were using the office for storage.

We headed over in another Uber to the address of the room we were supposed to be staying in. It was a large building that was locked with no numbers or indentification outside. I asked some people going inside if it was residential and they said it was strictly an office building. At this point, we were on the side of the road in Seattle, with nowhere to stay and an Airbnb that was paid for in advance. Once again, we called Saigon Hospitality. There was no answer. After thirty minutes of waiting outside in a city with which we’re unfamiliar, we called Airbnb to see if there was anything they could do.

Let me just say that I used to love Airbnb and never had issues with them until this day. However, I will never use them again because of this event. Airbnb told us that they would try to call Saigon and see if they could reach them. They got no answer. We spent anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour and a half on the phone with Airbnb back and forth. Airbnb said there was nothing they could do for us except refund our money. They also said they would pay back our Uber rides and $25 for food. So they told us to wait it out and they would call us back.

Imagine being in a new city with four huge pieces of luggage on the side of the street without a place to go. We paid over $500 for our Airbnb and it wasn’t guaranteed when we got there. Airbnb said they wouldn’t find us another place until we waited a few hours to hear back from Saigon. We were already on the sidewalk of 1st Avenue for two hours. We started looking for hotels, only to discover a convention was in town and all hotels were $400 a night. We struggled all day to find a place that was available to us for three nights. Airbnb never called back so we called them after we finally found a new hotel, and sent them our receipts for Uber.

Ten days later, and we still have heard nothing from Saigon Hospitality or Airbnb. Airbnb is a big company all around the world, and I will never use them again. It’s their responsibility when a hospitality management company leaves you stranded to find you a new place. Nobody helped us from either of these companies. Honestly, it takes very heartless, selfish, and terrible people to leave their guests on the streets for hours with no place to go. They didn’t have to tell us they would send a shuttle; all they had to do was call us back. Saigon Hospitality has some terrible people working for them – this is not a company worth giving your money to. Don’t book with them. If you do you could end up starting your vacation miserably.

Airbnb is unreliable and that’s why I can’t book with them anymore. We got lucky that we were stranded in our home country. Imagine if we had booked a property in another country and were left on the side of the road. Airbnb should have something to fall back on when their hosts screw you over. They don’t and therefore they are an unreliable company that doesn’t deserve our money. I would rather book a hotel and know there’s a roof over my head on vacation.

Cold House from Airbnb, Used Electric Oven to Stay Warm

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This is my personal Airbnb Hell story. I was born in Canada but had not been there in almost 50 years as I had moved to the United States when I was very young with the rest of my family. However, I had no choice but to return for personal reasons. I arrived at the Airbnb listed as “Comfy Room” at a house located in Surrey on August 21st, 2016. At first, everything went well. In fact, I lived there for several months before things starting falling apart.

I began to notice the following issues. Every time that Lyn Taylor (real name Evelyn Mercado) would clean my room she would turn off the nightlight that I had plugged in so that I would not be stumbling around in the dark when I woke up during the night to use the restroom. The nightlight only uses 0.7 Watts. She later complained to me that I was leaving that light on – how cheap can you get? The weekly housekeeping started turning into every eight days, then nine days, then ten or more days. Eventually it got to the point where I had to get myself a clean towel as I could not depend on either Paul or Lyn to take care of that.

They have Instant Book so people would be checking in at all hours of the day and night, including 2:00 AM in one case. Many times they were not even there when people would come to check in and I would have to answer the door and explain to them that I was only a guest. Many guests were told that the key to their room was in the lock box outside the front door, but when they opened the lock box there was no key inside. They were staying in the basement suite underneath the house but it began to feel at times like they were absentee landlords.

I stayed there only because I had no close family in that area. At that time I had not driven in over four years and did not have a drivers license. The weather was turning cold, so I did not want to take the chance of going through all of that hassle to find another place that might be just as bad, or even worse.

One time I was having trouble sleeping. It was almost 2:00 AM; I heard noises outside my room and noticed that some lights were on. I opened my door and discovered that Lyn was cleaning downstairs, in the middle of the night. Another issue I noticed is that several times when I was taking a shower the warm water disappeared and all that came out was cold water. One time the water was so cold when I got out of the shower I actually felt warmer. They rented out all five rooms in their house and were staying downstairs in the basement. When the house was full there could be nine people or more using the hot water to take a shower, wash clothes, etc.

I also noticed that as it got colder outside that I would feel cold in the house even when I was wearing a flannel shirt over another shirt. I mentioned this many times to both Paul and Lyn and they would always say “the thermostat is set at 22 Celsius” even though I complained numerous times. I know that 22 Celsius is the same as 71.6 Fahrenheit so I knew that was not the real temperature; 71.6 Fahrenheit is a very comfortable temperature. I told Lyn that I was feeling cold one time and she told me that “I am sweating inside here while I am working.” Of course this ignored the fact that she was dressed in very cold weather clothing and was vigorously cleaning around the house. Many other guests also complained to me personally about feeling cold. Eventually it got to the point where my hands felt like ice even when I was fully dressed. One evening another guest who had also complained to me about feeling cold took their meal out of the oven and then told me that they would leave the oven door open for a while to heat the room up. I noticed that soon after he did that the room started feeling warmer. This other guest and I began to use the oven to keep us warm. Otherwise, we would have felt like putting on our jackets inside the house. That is how cold it felt. We did that for about a week.

The other guest left on a Saturday morning as he was retiring and moving to a property that he had purchased. I continued to use the oven every now and then to warm things up and on Sunday, the day after the other guest left, Paul and Lyn confronted me about using the oven to stay warm. I told them that I had only been using it for a week and had only used it because I was so cold. Lyn became very angry and told me that “ever since you have moved in our electric bill has gone up.” She told me that “I want you out of here tomorrow.”

I truly believe that she would have thrown me out then and there even though it was cold with snow on the ground outside except for the fact that her husband Paul said, “Nothing is going to happen tonight.” Lyn threatened to report me to Airbnb and give me a bad review if I did not accept their cancelling my reservation. I left the next day as they requested. Lyn sent me an email in which she accused me of taking hot showers even though it was “minus 5 outside.” What does she think I am going to do, take a cold shower when it is so cold outside? She also accused me of leaving the oven on when I went to bed which is not true. I owned up to what I did and told them why I did it. I would never have done that if they had not ignored my numerous complaints, as well as the complaints of other guests about feeling cold.

I had paid for the entire month of March yet I moved out on March 6th. I received a message from Lyn in a day or so in which she said that she and Paul were in line to become Superhosts and they would appreciate it if I could give them a good review as she felt I was a good person. Against my better judgment I gave them a good review and Lyn had stated that she would review the February and March billing for the electric and get back to me about a refund. I never heard anything back so I contacted Lyn in April about my refund. She stated that she was still having jet lag (even though she had returned home about two weeks before) and that she would get back to me by the end of April.

When May arrived I then contacted Airbnb to see what I could do as I was told by my bank that I had to contact them to see if I could resolve the issue as they were the actual merchant. Airbnb checked with Lyn and their last message stated: “Thanks for your patience. I wanted to give you an update on your refund request for your reservation. At this time, Lyn hasn’t agreed to issue you a refund for the adjustment to this reservation.” I have now filed a formal dispute with my debit card issuer as I am owed for the 25 days in March that I paid for and did not receive. The only refund I received was $18.00 Canadian dollars and a $75.00 credit from Airbnb. I am owed about $840.00 Canadian dollars. It is obvious to me now that Lyn never had any intention of refunding my money and just tricked me into giving them a good review to help them become Superhosts. I feel used, to put it lightly. Basically I got ripped off big time. I will never use Airbnb again. I could care less about the $75.00 credit they gave me.

Massachusetts Airbnb Host Tries to Jack up Price

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I booked a four-night stay in August for a listing in Provincetown, MA back in February. At first, Airbnb charged my credit card twice for the large amount (almost 2000 USD) and then told me I had to wait five days for a refund. After speaking with about 234 representatives and supervisors, I got my refund and a whopping $50 credit (…thanks). Fast forward to a few weeks ago, the host (Ned) decided to attempt to increase the rate by $400. When we spoke with Airbnb, they said they would negotiate with him. They said he would change it to $200 increase and Airbnb would cover half. It was still a scam, but I didn’t think it was worth the fight. Then he cancelled the reservation entirely. I have been waiting for my refund for 2.5 weeks now and Airbnb is trying to say that I already received payment since they refunded the second charge. I now have a formal investigation through my credit card company to get my refund. It’s been a headache. Never book with Airbnb – it’s a joke. And the supervisors and case managers are flat-out liars. Once I get the refund, my account will be cancelled.

Late Cancellation Strands Guest at Seattle Event

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I joined Airbnb three months prior to an event in Seattle which I attend each Memorial Day Weekend. I made my first reservation with Dario, who apparently manages five homes in Seattle and rents rooms in each. That’s not a bed and breakfast, but I’m new to this. Dario and Airbnb sent me a cancellation notice 70 days after I made the reservation. He stated that he’s lost his lease on the property. I went online and learned Dario was still offering the property for lease up to the 25th. My reservation was from the 26th to the 29th. It is possible that he’s found people to pay a premium rate due to the event, so my reservation was cancelled. I do not know for sure. I do know the laws surrounding the leasing business. If Dario did not have a lease on the property, he is not allowed to offer it for sublease. That is the first illegal act. Of course, it’s not just an offer because I received a written confirmation and he accepted payment. The second illegal act is his failure to deliver after contracting and accepting payment. Airbnb will not permit me to review them or him on their site. The result: more people will be fooled and inconvenienced. Airbnb is another business I will avoid, and I’ll tell my friends.

Airbnb Host Never Responded to an Instant Book

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I chose an apartment in Tangerang, Indonesia for a one-night stay. I chose the Instant Book option and without confirmation from the host, the reservation was instantly approved (and my credit card was instantly charged). I reserved the room a day before check in (April 25, 2017). Up until 11:00 AM in the day of the check in (April 26, 2017), the host never responded to any of my messages. As in any Airbnb booking, I need to have information on the exact location of the property (address and room number of the apartment) and also on how to obtain the key from the host. Up until noon, there was no response. And as I could not wait any longer, I then canceled the reservation. As the cancellation was made on the same day as the booking, my credit card was had already been fully charged by Airbnb and the host. I tried to explain this to Airbnb, but it turned out it was really difficult to contact and/or to find how to file a complaint. I think Airbnb has a great policy not taking complaints. Until today (my reservation was for April 26, 2017, while today is May 2, 2017), the host never responded to my messages and complaints. There were no responses from Airbnb. I used to use Airbnb to find cheaper accommodations. It however turned out that it cost me much more than that. Airbnb is a nightmare. I will never use it again.

Airbnb Left me High and Dry for Nashville Music Festival

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I booked this property on September 4, 2016 for a vacation I’m taking June 6-12, 2017. That’s nine months in advance because I knew the majority of properties would rapidly fill up and be extremely expensive seeing as it is the week of the CMA Music Festival in Nashville. I booked my property and paid in full that day for a great price and the house was spacious and beautiful. With that said, I stopped looking for places to stay because I had already found one. On Saturday April 29th, I received an email stating that the property had been sold. With that I expected to at least have a conversation with the host with alternatives or even an apology. What I got was a message saying “sold property.”

I’m utterly disgusted and livid about this situation. Why would a host be allowed to list a property that is for sale? Had I known the host was selling the property months ago or even weeks ago, I would have had many more options but I was kept in the dark. I’ve used Airbnb in the past and thought it was great but this experience has changed my perception. I’m absolutely out of luck at this point because now I have to find a different place to stay, all of which are nearly triple the price now if not entirely booked already. Airbnb says 75% of properties are booked for that time frame. Because of this, I’m looking into ways to cancel my flight and car rental but it’s not looking so promising.

I am absolutely outraged and disgusted by the host and the service of Airbnb. Clearly all the two care about is making a profit and not putting a single thought into the customer or their experience. I already paid close to $500 for the flight alone to enjoy this special vacation with my friends and now we’re looking at well over $400-$500 each more for just a place to stay because this service is unprofessional. I can’t believe our entire vacation was abruptly ruined without even a simple “I’m sorry for the inconvenience” or replacement accommodation.

Caveat Emptor: Worst Customer Service Ever

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My wife and I recently booked 30 days of travel through Iceland and Western Europe through Airbnb. I would caution anyone who considers using Airbnb to consider that after eight days of calling and hours of dealing with customer service there is no way for a traveler to reach a manager after a case worker. Once it reaches a manger at this level the case is basically frozen in time. If you have an issue there is no resolution. I am quite worried about leaving a trip like this in the hands of this company. I know that before leaving my front door that if I have a problem there is no chance to get help. I did open a Twitter account to try to communicate with Airbnb when I couldn’t get through via email or the phone center. I received this response from them: “We see that a final decision has been issued on this matter and will disengage from further discussion. Thank you.”

I can only warn people at this point to run the other direction from Airbnb. If it goes badly you will regret it.