Tag Archives: airbnb support

There’s No One Home at Airbnb Support

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I just spent a splendid two weeks trying to get through to Airbnb support. I have received robot messages from several mythological support people. Some are insulting, some claim to be supportive and not do anything, and none seem to read the messages I sent. Yesterday they added another fun category of pretending to call me back and claiming there was no answer.

I think even a robot could see that the messages were being sent from my phone that was in my hands. I have blocked all my time with Airbnb and plan on finding a company with actual people in it to take my money for use of the website. They charge nearly as much is a reputable rental agency and give nothing in return.

American Woman’s Airbnb Hacked by Norwegian Man

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I am a frequent Airbnb user with a perfect rating. I was going to California for the weekend for a friend’s wedding. My husband, two other couples, and I were going to share a cabin. I tried to access my account yesterday to contact the host and the site told me my email was not valid. So I got on the Airbnb app on my phone, which luckily had still been logged in. From there I could see that someone had taken over my account, changed the email address and phone number to his, changed the picture, and changed the name. No matter what was on the profile there were still reviews saying “Sarah was a great guest.” No hosts seem to notice this and are gladly letting “Masteusz” stay with them. He is sending people messages in Spanish and as we speak is staying in someone’s home in Mexico City.

I called Airbnb about 14 hours ago and told them they needed to not only fix this but also find us another place to stay ASAP. I heard nothing for several hours, called again, and was told I would hear from someone in a couple hours. After hearing nothing, I called again this morning and was told they would “send it again”, that the case still didn’t have a case manager, and that there was no supervisor or anyone else I could talk to. Meanwhile, through the app, I could see that hosts are still none the wiser that this guy is a fake because they are still communicating with him about key drop offs, etc. In addition, my idiot host didn’t seem to notice that the person he was corresponding with named “Sarah” changed her name to Masteusz and is now a man from Norway. Masteusz canceled my reservation. When I messaged the host saying I didn’t want to cancel my reservation and that I was hacked he said “I’m sorry to hear that, Masteusz.” After having no luck on the phone, I posted something on the Airbnb Facebook page thinking the PR people wouldn’t like this situation. They told me to “tweet” them… really?

Crazy Airbnb Host in Bologna Keeps Calling

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Recently my boyfriend and I stayed in an apartment in Bologna, Italy. We had a rather unfortunate start with poor communication from the host about arrival times and confusion about who would be greeting us, leaving us stranded outside the apartment block for over an hour in 34-degree Italian heat with no water, no access to a toilet, and no contact from our host in response to our phone calls and messages. The stay itself was relatively good once housekeeping had let us into the property, though we had some slight issues with the area around the apartment being quite dodgy; this left me in particular feeling quite unsafe.

We returned home yesterday and I wrote a review about my experience. This afternoon my boyfriend received a missed call from our host. Confused by this, I emailed the host asking why he had been calling my boyfriend from Italy. At around 10:00 PM English time I received a barrage of messages from my host, whereby he advised he was calling to “thank us” for the bad review and continued to shout at me about my review, how he felt it was not accurate. When I tried to explain I felt I wrote a fair assessment of the situation that happened he then called me a “ugly little princess” and told me to “stay away from my balls.” He stated that I was not attractive to him and never will be and he has better things to do with his time than talk to me… when he took the initiative and went to the effort of contacting me from the start.

I have since had to contact Airbnb to ask them to intervene as the correspondence is becoming prolonged and making me feel uncomfortable. They say they will investigate. However, I don’t have high hopes after a brief dalliance with their customer service department while staying in a moldy apartment in Tokyo; at that time, they essentially told me that the host had such amazing reviews they felt my opinion went against this and they didn’t personally agree. Even though I had photographic proof of the endless black hairs in the bed and the mold in the bathroom.

Negative Airbnb Review in Middle of Investigation

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Airbnb customer support is horrific. Every time I have sought help, I found no help whatsoever. I have been cut off, told investigations have been opened which resulted in negative reviews, and they do not consider them in violation of Airbnb guidelines. They treat their customers with disgust. I will not be making money for their company any longer. When I unlisted my account I was told to send an email which brought me to a support page that purposely deters people from actually contacting customer support or leaving feedback. The pretense that they are here to help is false, and obvious. They do little to nothing to help, let their agents give horrific advice and support, and let their customers take the fallout for it, all while taking their money.

Their business practices are shameful. I was told to open an investigation with my guests about stolen headphones, which resulted in a negative review (a direct response to the investigation I was directed to open by Airbnb’s support team). The evidence that the review is negative due to this is written in the review. I do not see why that is acceptable. If somebody steals my things and I have to look into it, they are apparently allowed to write that as a negative for their stay. It violates Airbnb’s policy but they have no issue with it. They are making me do this despite the fact the headphones were not in a common area, and should be covered by their host guarantee, which you can never seem to avail yourself of. It is a lie. I do not see why once an investigation is opened, a review can still be left reflecting that. The only reason is simple: they do not want hosts (or guests) to open investigations because it causes them more trouble. They want you to accept your losses as your own and not start an investigation. “Be a good little customer, and there will be no bad reviews and no trouble.” It is that simple.

They deter you from using customer support and their guarantee as much as they can. I was directed to open investigations by their support team regarding my stolen headphones because they stated it was necessary to do so to reclaim the loss. I have now done so, and received negative reviews as a result. This is a direct result of their support team’s advice, and they do not consider it an issue that this is easily possible for reviews to be left in the wake of open investigations that they told me to open. The review does not directly state the entire issue, but does most certainly make reference to it. As Airbnb policy states, a review is disallowed when there is “content that refers to an Airbnb investigation.” It most definitely does refer to it. It is not hidden. And it is through their support that this has occurred. Contact with Airbnb has been meaningless at best. They will not honor their guarantee and they will not honor their own policies when their policies support you. However, they will take 20% of the total booking income, and do their best to make it look like they don’t. I think they need to seriously rethink their policies and staff training.