Tag Archives: airbnb no contact

Cancelled in July, Still no Refund in August

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I made two Airbnb reservations for this summer in December 2019. I cancelled them both on July 6. There was no question at that time of whether I was allowed a refund or not — both hosts agreed to give me a full refund. I got the full refund for one of the cancellations on July 10. I got billed a “cancelation fee” for the other reservation on July 10, but I haven’t gotten any money.

I called July 6 to ensure that this would work out since I had changed my credit card, and the customer service person assured me there was no problem. And indeed, I got the other refund without a problem. They said to wait 7-10 days.

I called again on August 17 and talked to a customer service person who said it looked like there was a problem and “an expert would contact me.” But here it is August 24 and no expert. Today I tried calling, and got a phone tree that explained: if the reservation was made before March 15, no refund is allowed. If the reservation was made after March 15, no refund is allowed.

If this is not about a cancellation 72 hours from now or less, nobody can talk to a person, just leave a message and an expert will contact you. Based what I am seeing from other people, I think my mistake was not insisting that I talk to a manager last week when I had a live person on the phone. This is pretty terrible.

No Response After Long-Term Guest Cancelled

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My guest cancelled her one-year reservation on Feb. 26 after staying just one month, sent an email, and was gone the next day. I’ve contacted Airbnb and they promised to contact my guest.

Since then I haven’t received any messages from Airbnb. I did call twice myself (since I live abroad, it’s an expensive phone call) and got the same message: “We will contact the team involved and they will be back with you asap.”

I also wrote three emails asking about any kind of update. So far I haven’t received anything. I put my apartment on hold at Airbnb, and told them in an email that I would have a look at Booking.com. Now thanks to the coronavirus madness everything is on hold anyway, but boy I am disappointed about the attitude of Airbnb.

Airbnb not Paying out more than Four Months

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I own and rent out an apartment, mostly through Airbnb, in Budapest, Hungary. I realized only in January that the last payment I received was on November 11. The business is being managed for me by a company who specializes in this and who have been doing a great job. They have registered/contracted with Airbnb — not me — but Airbnb has been paying my account directly.

The management company has been in contact with Airbnb customer service — as difficult as it is to make meaningful contact with them — but only told that we need to wait for some payment system issue to be resolved. Then of course nothing happens for weeks and weeks.

As I personally am not even a client, I am unable to contact Airbnb directly which is incredibly frustrating. Having managed to get through on Airbnb’s phone line, they managed to set up a call with a CEE regional manager, who promised to investigate and get back to me.

This was three weeks ago and obviously nothing has happened since. Airbnb has been holding my money ($6-7000) for more than four months now and seems to be ignoring its obligation to immediately resolve this situation that is clearly in conflict with their contract and with the law. Their behaviour is just unthinkable and unacceptable in every way. Any help with what the hell I can do would be greatly appreciated.

Thought I was the only one going through Airbnb Hell

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I had booked an entire large house on Airbnb for a family reunion and a wedding in Orlando for one week. We have five kids, six grandkids and a few newfound siblings (through Ancestry.com) that were all going to stay under one roof. At my age I do not know how many more times I will get to be together with all of them, so I cherish each one immensely.

The day before the trip, I went to contact the host for the information to get into the house and that is when I saw a big red cancellation notice on my reservation. My heart dropped. My son and his family were in the air on the way. They were going to be the first to check in, and now that he was in the air on his way from Fairbanks, Alaska to Orlando, Airbnb had cancelled our reservation.

This was my first message to Airbnb after I saw they cancelled our reservation:

Help! Our entire family and a group of friends are flying from Alaska to Florida for our daughter’s wedding. I went to our reservation to see the check-in procedure and saw that Airbnb has cancelled our entire reservation, without contacting us via email or phone or other.

We have had this reservation for a month and are leaving today to meet up with the others. We had no idea they cancelled us.

As it turns out, our credit card was compromised last month so they sent us a new one. We had no idea this was happening until we received a new card. Airbnb must have tried to run the old number and when it did not go though they just cancelled us without any contact with me letting me know.

This is terrible. What can we do now? Why would they not contact us? Help!

All of our contacts with Airbnb and the host were cordial, but in no way helpful. At least if you have an issue with a hotel, they help secure new rooms. We ended up having to find hotels so none of us got to stay together.

Here is the full story as I told it to Airbnb and still they will not refund my deposit, even though I never cancelled it.

As we grow older we realize there are only so many times left in our life that we get to be surrounded by our whole family: our kids, their spouses, our grandkids. Every single one of them. People grow up and move away.

For our family, Florida was to be that time. And to have a wedding in the midst of this. I could hardly believe I was fortunate enough, dare I say blessed enough, for this family reunion and wedding to be upon us.

The last time we visited Florida, Hurricane Irma chased us away, but now we were back. Imagine my shock when on the night before we were to leave Alaska to begin our amazing family reunion, to see that our reservation had been cancelled. I was in disbelief. Denial. Shock.

How would I tell my kids who were already in the air and were to be the first to arrive with their new baby, my grandson? In my heart I felt somehow someone would be able to work this out, to make it right. It was not to be. I am writing this from my hotel on the other side of town from where our eldest son’s family is staying.

Our daughter who is getting married is at another hotel, and our daughter’s family from Atlanta is arriving tonight to be in yet another hotel. It turned out this was a holiday (Valentine’s Day, which is also the 37th anniversary of my proposal to my lovely bride) so getting hotels together did not work out.

I am telling you this so you will know that you are renting these amazing properties to real people, with real stories, not just numbers on paper. People who work hard so that when it’s time, they can also play hard and love even harder. Real families who cherish their time together.

As we now learned, unknown to us, our credit card was compromised. Between the time I paid my deposit and the time you were to charge the remainder. As someone who has done many hotel reservations, but never an Airbnb reservation, I always assumed if there was an issue I would be contacted. I was not.

My Airbnb profile has my phone, email, address and even a photo of my driver’s license: many ways to contact me. My hope in writing this is to prevent this from happening to anyone else. Ever. What should have been a glorious trip, has been so difficult for me (I was in charge of securing our place to all stay together).

The kids have been great though and are making the best of our situation. The wedding tomorrow will still be amazing, I am still blessed to see see the kids and grands. Florida is about 100 degrees warmer than Alaska. Life is good. But please remember that your guests are real families counting on you to help make their dream vacation destination a reality.

Your job is so important, as most families do not get enough time to play together. To just hang out together. In our situation, a phone called would have resolved this immediately. Immediately.

Because I was not contacted to remedy this situation, which I knew nothing about, I am expecting a full refund of my first deposit. I only hope if this ever happens again, you will contact the guest for a quick solution.

Tomorrow I am contacting the credit card company to demand they cancel this charge as we never received a notice of cancellation. They also hold some responsibility for cancelling my card.

It was really the perfect storm; they cancelled it right at the same time Airbnb tried charging the remainder. My problem is Airbnb never contacted me, even though they said they emailed. They also had my phone number and could have easily called or texted.

This was a really important week for us, and it has caused so much stress. What should have been an amazing week turned into another episode of Airbnb Hell.

No Payouts for Airbnb Owner for Two Months

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One of my owners has been waiting since December 2019 for his payouts. I have contacted Airbnb numerous times, sent emails, rang local Airbnb offices, sent messages through Facebook… all to no avail. Initially they said the issue was there was not enough information on this particular listing, so whilst they were on the phone I did it again, submitted it and waited. Nothing. Rang again. Redid the information again. Re-submitted it. Nothing. Rang again.

I have done this on repeat half a dozen times now, and made more phone calls. Not one person at this organization has done anything. They have very basic skills that are limited to basic knowledge. I have emailed Chesky, I have called the head office and waited on hold forever. I am at my wit’s end now. This poor owner has thousands waiting to be released but these idiots cannot work out the issue.

Airbnb Can’t Stay up to Date on Tax Laws

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Recently I was contacted by the County of Marin, stating that I owed $2,400 due to Airbnb paying the wrong amount of Transient Occupancy taxes. I was notified by the county after one year, so the mistake was very expensive.

I contacted Airbnb approximately three weeks ago, and I still have not heard back. I have called numerous times. They promise to call back within 24-48 hours but they never do. I spoke with a supervisor who said he would call back within 24 hours, but no success.

I keep getting reservations, and they still are still charging the wrong amount. I have asked at “a minimum” to please change it to the correct amount, which they have verified to be accurate on their end, and they tell me someone from “the appropriate department” will contact me. This never happens.

This is only one example of the horrible customer service received by hosts. I recommend that everyone boycott Airbnb, and go to VRBO. That is the only way this monopoly will learn how to treat their customers with respect. Absolutely horrible customer service.

Cancellation Due to Failure of Second Payment

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I want to make a complaint about my booking. The reservation was cancelled as the second payment failed. This experience and the service quality of Airbnb were disappointing. First, Airbnb didn’t try their best to contact me about the failure of my second payment. I did change the payment method but it seems that Airbnb was willing to see the failure happen and then ask to change the payment method instead.

Anyway, Airbnb didn’t do everything they could to contact us about any emergency. The only way they can is by sending email, no matter how serious the case it is. They should call you or send an SMS. Second, I do hope that Airbnb will show some pleasant customer service as they collect commission from us. However, they won’t admit they have flaws and only reply about their policy.

Airbnb didn’t help me with anything on my trip. As for agents, they won’t help you find an alternative solution. All you can do is to talk to the host or find hotels on other platforms.

I was hoping that Airbnb would have admitted that they had not tried their best to contact me and would refund or compensate me for my loss. This was a very naive thought. They are not real travel agents. They earn profits on your mistakes, carelessness and misfortune. They earn commissions by just providing a platform, not service.

All we need to know is to pay extra attention when using such a platform. They are irresponsible. Although there are many hosts doing great, many travelers have a terrible experience there. Airbnb won’t admit anything or improve upon it.

Australia Phone Number for Airbnb Customer Service

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The Australian number I used for Airbnb was 0285203333. From outside of Australia it will be +61285203333. Don’t ask where I found that – my other half, The Fixer, found it; he can find anything.

I’ve not had the pain some have had going by the stories here. However, my login to my account on my phone and laptop became a total nightmare and I couldn’t get in, so I lost our New Zealand stay at the last second, and made a scramble for another stay. My login had me dropping in and out of the site/app which was hugely frustrating. I tried to sort it but couldn’t: even the techs were bewildered. Three months later I took another stab at it and it’s finally resolved.

I just wanted to give a phone number for those that want one. Maybe the Aussie number could direct harried customers to the correct country number.

Airbnb Customer Service Ignores Fraudulent Charge

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My wife and I received a fraudulent charge from Airbnb while we were out of town on our honeymoon during a holiday weekend. We could not stop the charge for $832.38 since the banks were closed for the weekend and the holiday on Monday. Our Airbnb account showed no upcoming trips for the charge to be tied to.

We contacted the Airbnb call center five times to have the charge investigated but we have gotten nowhere. Airbnb is protecting those committing fraud by structuring their company so that customers can never speak to anyone but the operators in the call center. They still refuse to refund our money or cooperate with us in any way. They are only concerned about money and the fees they are paid regardless if the charges are fraudulent.

I will be sharing our experience in as many places as I can find. I will never use Airbnb again and I hope others can learn from our experience.