Tag Archives: avoid airbnb

Airbnb Refused to Refund Fees Despite Obvious Mistake!

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BEWARE OF AIRBNB!!

This is a warning and a true story of what happened to me when I rented a house using the Airbnb service.

I had a project in the USA and I rented a house using Airbnb. I found a nice 2 year old 2 bed room + garage house with a reasonable price of 105€/night. I made the deal with the house owner using Airbnb from August to December, 2015.  In November I found out that my project would last longer than the original move out date in December.  I agreed with the house owner that I would stay at the house until January 26th, 2016. Airbnb sent me an offer stating that I could continue renting the house until January 26, 2016 at the same price of 105€/night. I accepted the offer and everything was OK. Middle of January I found out that my project would not be finished earlier than February 8th, 2016. I ask the house owner if it was possible for me to stay at the house until February 8th, 2016.  The house owner said that it was OK and Airbnb sent me a new offer for the additional 13 days of renting. I was busy with my project and also very stupid and accepted the offer without checking the offer carefully.  Afterwards I noticed that the rental price had risen from 105€ to 137€. It was OK for me that the rental price increased for the last 13 days, but it is not OK that the rental price ALSO increased for the PAST 165 days from August 8th 2015 to January 26th 2016 considering I had already paid! I sent a message to the house owner to see if it was possible to correct that mistake. The house owner said that Airbnb refused to correct the mistake. I called Airbnb and the guy on the phone said that according the Airbnb policy, if the customer accepts the price it cannot be corrected by airbnb anymore.  The Airbnb agent asked me to contact the house owner to ask if I could get money back. Why didn’t Airbnb want to help a customer with this kind of obvious problem?  Instead they asked me to directly contact to the house owner… is it because Airbnb wanted to keep their additional fees?  I think so! I talked with the house owner and he agreed that I had paid $5,940 USD too much and he understood why I would like to get my money back. The house owner said that Airbnb had already taken their fee, so he could only return $4,339 USD!  I made the deal with house owner and received the $4,339 USD refund for the mistake, but I still had to pay $1,601 USD extra because Airbnb would not refund their fees!

Don’t be as stupid as I was and never accept any Airbnb offer before you have read it very carefully. My personal advice is to never ever use Airbnb’s services because the company policy is not to correct an obvious mistake if it means giving up any of their booking fees!  Please share this warning with all of your friends so nobody else will have the same problem I had.

The Psycho Airbnb Host of Cyprus

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My girlfriend and I saw a beautiful wooden bungalow on Airbnb in the mountains of Paphos Cyrpus, and it was called the Zen bungalow, so we thought, it must be very silent there and clean and nice and if its zen the owner must be a cool guy, he advertised as a nice surfer and etc. We wanted to rent for 3 months the entire house as we needed to stay in Cyprus to do a course. We rented, he made us a price and my partner and son went first, they arrived late and he was waiting, they got into the house and it was covered in sand, he apologized saying that they had a sand storm 3 days ago and he hoped she didn’t mind then he left. The beds had no bedsheets, so she looked into the drawers and they were smelling very bad, so she texted him and he said it had new one somewhere else. Anyways he left all his toiletries in the toilet and all his dirty laundry too which we thought he will come back to pick it up. The beautiful hot tube he advertised and showed in the picture was the drain for the dirty water of the washing machine, when he took a picture he cut that part, so we couldn’t use it because it was disgusting, plus all his 12 pair of shoes were sitting in the area in our faces. Next morning the garden was a dump for construction stuff. The view was beautiful, we had two chicken barns in the garden and the smells would blow inside the house, he came to visit and was demanding that we feed the chickens and water the garden, and we had asked him before hand if there were animals around, he said no. He kept coming to the house unannounced and entering my girlfriend’s bedroom, the veranda was made of glass so one can see inside from the garden and she kept hearing people in the garden while she was still asleep, he even mention that he wanted to build a swimming pool so he would be working in the garden. We told him we rented the house to have privacy. Once the electricity was gone, we didn’t know what to do or where the electric box was located, and he replied in the text that he is not the electrical authority of Cyprus. He came over again and told us to keep the windows shut otherwise the wind can destroy them, he also advertised air conditioning and it only had a very weak one in the bedroom and boy Cyprus can be very hot and we asked him about it he just answered: open the window. Right so we had hot wind coming in. We didn’t know what to do as we had booked for all this time, by then we were feeding chickens and taking care of his garden, we felt sorry for the chickens, we even bought them food because he kept ignoring our messages. Then one day up he is again and we always turn of all lights in the night, that last night my girlfriend heard a noise so she asked me to leave one light out on, so I did, and because we were not used to we forgot it on, it was a saving bulb the ones that are very light and one can’t see in the day if its kitten or not, he saw it and started to be very rude, so this time we answered, he said he wanted to come inside the house because he wanted to see if we were keeping his house clean, I say of course we are and no, please we want privacy, so he grabbed me violently and I had a broken arm at the time, to come in and I told him I would call the police because he keeps trying to get in a house he rented for us and its illegal, plus he is only doing it because we are two girls. So he left, we were afraid of him as he hurt my arm. We called airbnb, they took us away from there and found us another place for 3 days, they said they would help to rehouse us, but they left the whole thing in our hands, to deal with people or find another place, they gave us a coupon only and we cancelled the whole thing. We found very nice house on booking.com where they are credit and checked, we had wonderful next 2 months in amazing house, clean and nice with a normal host, a very polite, nice man that was always asking if we needed anything, left us alone and happy, so we left there with inherit broken as we felt in love with the place, the house was spotless, and had all we needed also the silence and tidiness. AirBnB doesn’t check their hosts and doesn’t know what goes on. But at least they took us away from the Zen psycho of Paphos.

Terrible airbnb in Exeter, uk

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So, having booked 3 nights at a higher priced airbnb in Exeter, we arrive to find an old box in the bedroom, not enough towels for the expected guests, a dirty bathroom with no attempt to tidy up, a used old toilet roll in the loo and a stench of what smelt to me like cat piss throughout the property. Host suggested we don’t understand airebnb so it’s out fault! Short version is we didn’t stay, host got paid IN FULL! We got 1 night refunded and airbnb said they wouldn’t penalize the hosts.. the airbnb service is a joke.  Avoid at all costs !

Horrible Airbnb Review – Guest unable to check-in, and no refund – BEWARE and BE WARNED

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I booked a week long stay starting Monday night in Paris.  My flight arrived in Paris Tuesday early morning, but when I tried to check in I was told that even though we had booked and paid for the full week, we were unable to check in until that night. When I asked to be refunded for the day that the host was not allowing us to stay in the room I was told that they can’t refund us anything and that I would need to cancel the whole week – WHAT? I called the Airbnb customer service line and was told that they would call us back within 10 minutes.  Hours passed, HOURS!!! I had my sister call from the States to minimize international call rates and she was told they couldn’t hear her or speak to her, they could only speak to the person with the reservation EVEN though all she was calling for was to give them the reservation info and request that they call my cell phone with the update that they had said would happen after 10 min of my original call. One of the WORST staying experiences I’ve ever had in my life and I travel quite a bit. I will NOT use this company again – BEWARE and be careful – they just want to charge without good service.  It could be that others had better experiences, but something like this would have happened at a Paris hotel. HORRIBLE SERVICE!

Host Lied and Stole Deposit – Horrible Expierence

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I just used Airbnb for the first time. When I got home my Host asked me for my security deposit which was $1000, saying I had damaged a chair. I told her that I never sat in the chair, which I had not and told her I was not willing to hand over 1000 dollars for a chair I never sat in. She turned it over to the “resolution ” center and submitted some photos of a worn out chair. The photos clearly show wear on old leather chair. Its was to me laughable and yet AIRBNB sided with the host even though I denied even sitting in the chair and gave her my deposit. I am out the $1000 with no recourse and she gets a free chair at my expense. I am now blocked, they blocked my access to the photos and hide behind their user agreement. No one will talk to me as all decisions are final. Its is ridiculous.

Incorrect Airbnb Pricing

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I booked 9 days in Brooklyn NY. When I reserved the days, it said it was $78 for each night. I didn’t check my email, but saw the difference when I looked at my credit card bill. It stated two nights were $107, two were $89 a night, and the rest were $97 a night. I NEVER saw any price but the $78 a night. Airbnb says that couldn’t happen, but it did to me. They will do nothing for me, so my trip was about $200 more than I anticipated. On top of that, the host did not have all the amenities they listed, they slept during the day on the living room sofa, and wanted us to be extra quiet coming and going because their neighbors were unhappy they were doing Airbnb. I imagine they were not supposed to according to their lease. I would never do Airbnb again, and would NEVER suggest it to anyone else!

Ultra Terrible Airbnb Dublin experience – worst night ever and no refund

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My wife and I booked a 4 night stay at an apartment in Dublin with a host called Alan. The reviews looked good – all the facilities we wanted were listed. Alan was not there, we were met by a friend with a key. When led into the appt there were two students in residence – unexpected to us and the key owner as we were to them. The key holder beat a hasty retreat.The apartment smelled very bad – a bit like a cross between a gym and the dustbin. There was no electricity in the kitchen, no lights in the living room. One of the students was sleeping on the couch. There was no one to contact or ask – Alan was absent. We left after one night after having paid for 4. We tried to get a refund from Alan but no joy. Airbnb got involved – still no refund though airbnb gave us a token £27 refund ( we paid £217 in total). This was the worst night we have ever had anywhere and our advice is not to touch airbnb. Coppo

AIRBNB Loophole

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I have made three reservations on non consecutive dates on Airbnb… the credit card was pre-approved and the reservation completed… or was it? Apparently one of the reservations did not go through, as my creditcard had gone over the limit because of the two previous transactions. However, because of the pre approval, I was now liable to pay for this one reservation that wasn’t completed. The problem was that, because my card was already above the limits, I did not have how to pay. So, the policy of the website is to keep trying the payment until it works, regardless of how many times it would take. I was stuck with a payment to make and no certainty about the reservation outcomes (BUT OF COURSE HELLBNB will keep the fees if I get refund)… If that was not enough, a representative kept on stalking me with inumerous emails demanding me to pick up my phone because he wanted to call me… I called the 1.888 and of course the attendants were as useless as their company. NEVER AGAIN