Tag Archives: nightmare

Lying, Psychopathic Host – Total Nightmare!

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Here is a AirBNB Review for you. I made a reservation with a host in California through AIRBNB. When I arrived the place was a filthy mess. When I mean a mess, I mean, pubes on the bed, hair on the bathroom floors, pet hair on the couches, pee stains on the toilets and what appeared to be vomit on the sheets on the bed.

I obviously called the owner and told her the issue and she instantly became defensive. She said someone had gone to clean the house and she knew it was spotless. When speaking to her before this time she had stated she was out of town, but when I called her to tell her about what was going on she said she would drive over to see what was going on.

When she arrived she was in a bitchy mood to start off with. After showing her all the mess she stated that she knew everything was clean because she had cleaned it herself. I had taken pictures of the bed sheets and the mess before she arrived in case she was to get feisty with me and ask us to leave.

What happened next is truly disturbing….

First, she stated that we had too high expectations.
Then she states that we probably were the ones who made the mess.
We had not even been there 30 minutes before we called. (30 min. was about the time it took all 6 of us to get the luggage off of the car.)

She continued to try and argue with me that it was our fault and that she would not cancel the reservation, meaning if we were to leave that we were still going to have to pay for the whole stay.

I was pissed by this time. I told her I was not about to argue with her about it infront of my kids. I called Airbnb from there, she called on her phone. Then we starting to tell them our sides of the story. She started saying that we had turned her house upside down…lying right in front of us. I mean to say we were upset is an understatement. She said she didnt give a fu&* what we said we were going to have to pay.

So we took our pictures and left. I emailed them to Airbnb and they stated we were still going to have to pay for the weekend unless she was able to find someone to stay the other days. Are you kidding me?!

I am the only girl on my family and I have 4 brothers, so I’m used to defending myself, and this was not going to be a fight that I was going to lose. And I didn’t. I got my full refund back after I texted the owner that I had looked into her home zoning and she was not only in violation of renting her home but also in violation with her home owners association. You see many locations do not allow a home to rented under 30 days without a permit.

Moral of the story… Stay away from Airbnb.

P.S. I’m not usually rude but when people try to screw me over, I don’t take it lightly.

Drunk Guest Scares Female Host -No Support from Airbnb!

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The night before carnival, I was supposed to host a guest from New Zealand. On the photo he seemed friendly and well-traveled but he didn’t have any sense of direction and ended up in different parts of town even though I always give very precise directions from the airport and the main station to my guests. So he started sending me messages saying he’s upset, confused and lost, and that I should pick him up. By that time it was around 10 pm. As a solo-female host I did not consider this a serious option for security reasons and I told him to take a taxi. He also called me several times and spoke to me very unclearly and sounded a bit aggressive in his voice.
Luckily I was with an English friend who also listened to the guest’s tone of voice, his mumbling words and confirmed that the guest must have been drunk or on drugs to speak that way. When he made me talk to a German bartender, I told her that I felt uncomfortable hosting this guest and asked her if my reservations had any grounds or not. She confirmed and said she would not host him! So I cancelled the reservation on the airbnb site, on the phone with airbnb, and then as demanded by airbnb, in a descriptive email. This took several hours.

The next day I got an email from airbnb saying that they were not going to “punish” me this time and that they of course cannot pay me for this booking. To the second part, I can agree even if this guest caused quite a bit of trouble for me, to the first part, however, I don’t agree at all and would expect a different reaction than that!

So now I’m hesitant about future bookings through airbnb because I feel unsafe and abandoned if something bad happens!

​ Securty deposit means NOTHING + Resolution Center Lies

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I had an issue with the heaters/wall in my flat during a guest’s Airbnb booking…

On jan 15, i received a message from Lily : Add file 1 Then i sent everything, the before/after photos, invoice, the phone numbers of the previous Airbnb customers just before the arrival of guest who made the trouble with the heaters. On January 25, i received this message : Lily is out of the office so I (Aidan) will be your case manager moving forward. He told me that my invoice is not accepted even if it’s was same work needed to be done by the company because when i bought the apartment the heaters was not fixed correctly on the wall. Anyway, i understood the point as the invoice was dated two months earlier. Normally, Aidan should have told me to send an estimates as mentioned before in Lyli’s message and Airbnb terms. It was the only missing piece to proceed the checking of the case… What’s coming next is Aidan responsibility and lies. In few words, he told me to pay for the work myself then send the invoice and proof of the payment of the company. All of this before the case manager’s decision! Securty deposit means NOTHING then ? This is unbelievable, if i did the work myself it means all apartment owners using Airbnb doesn’t have any protection from the deposit. Can you imagine ? If something happen in the apartment, the owner should pay for everything himself (and of course resolve it in less than 72 hours!). Only after that action the case manager examined the case and decide what to do with the deposit. This is totally crazy… Add files 2 and 3 and 4.
On jan 26, Aidan clearly refused the estimate that i was waiting for. It was the only missing piece, remember this is important.

On feb 3 I decided to send an email in French (via https://www.airbnb.com/help/contact_us) about our discussion with Aiden that i found really weird as he did not accept the estimates.

On feb 4, I got a call from a french representative (Oceane B). I told her about the invoice/payment receipt before the case decision. She confirmed me that i don’t need to pay anything before Airbnb leave his decision and she is totally right and following the terms. Then she said she wasn’t sure if she could accept my new estimate because it was already few days after Aidan last message with his 72H thing. Then she asked to another person in the office, probably a case manager… someone responsible for sure. I was waiting for few minutes on the line. She finally got the answer to me : “That’s ok We’ll wait for your estimate, please send it as soon as possible”. I also receive a email as proof : Add this file : https://www.dropbox.com/s/c2mw4dxf74m9g2q/Screenshot2016-02-0521.54.38.png?dl=0 “N’hésitez pas à nous envoyer le devis dès que vous le recevez.” = “Feel free to send us an estimate as soon as you receive it”. So i was finally relaxed, my case will finally be examined, i just need to send the estimate as soon as i receive it from the company. Add this file : https://www.dropbox.com/s/73w5h007v0z3r1t/Photo05-02-2016135401.png?dl=0 Later on, Aidan told me that he and Oceane are in the same office in Berlin, and he spoke to Oceane in person regarding my phone call.

On feb 5 (the day after), I received : Add file 5 I was shocked, Even more shocked as i get notified the day before by email that Airbnb will wait for the estimates. Wait a minute, did you remember he refused the new estimate i was waiting for on jan 26 ? Now he says i didn’t follow up providing any receipts or estimates. With the issue in my apartment, i have now another issue coming from the guy at the Resolution Center. – Asking the owner to pay for the work before Airbnb deposit decision is totally forbidden, i can complain not only in courts but also in the media and blog by sharing the previous proofs. – Not accepting the estimates and later saying i didn’t follow the terms is a lie. – No apologies. Please spread the news around you.

Even Airbnb SUPERHOSTS are treated like tools!

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Over the past 2 years of hosting. We’ve had our share of horror stories. Each time, Airbnb ONLY cares about their service fees. As long as they can keep that, they let the guests do whatever they want and will even cancel a guest with a full refund when the guest had no proof that anything was wrong. We hosted over 500 people in our units and are Superhosts, but Airbnb will take the word of guests with no reviews over ours. If there are any damages, good luck getting your deposit back! Oh, and your commitment rate goes down when THEY cancel a guest for no good reason, so you have to call and email them over the next few weeks to get them to fix it and hopefully keep your Superhost stats.

This is only 1 example of how they treat you as just a money-making tool, they have no regard for honesty or integrity: Recently, the guests asked for a refund AFTER their stay, claiming that they had only stayed there for a portion of the time, since their plans changed. They have no way of proving this and the situation really is not our responsibility. We told them no, and afterwards they apparently called Airbnb and they received a 50% refund just like that. We don’t know what they told Airbnb, but Airbnb didn’t even bother to contact us before making a decision. Oh, and the guest was still allowed to write a review after this ordeal! Because we denied the refund in the first place, they decided to get back at us and slander us with a bunch of false claims in the review. I called Airbnb and told them that there clearly was no indication of our unit being in bad condition and that it was apparent the only time things got ugly was after we denied the refund. Airbnb said they value people’s opinions and that the great thing about this community is that the reviews are not censored. I just really wanted to spill all kinds of profanities when I heard that. The thing is, I had called them before responding to the guests asking for Airbnb’s advice. I said that I was worried about bad reviews so I feel pressured to give in to demands. The rep ASSURED me that Airbnb will not allow unfair reviews. That if there is reason to believe the bad review was only because we denied the refund and if the message thread had no indication of any problems stated in the review, they would remove it. Low and behold, now that the guest actually went out to write a false review, they did NOTHING. I would understand if the guest wrote they were angry because they wanted a discount, but they wrote things like the place was dirty and in a bad location and did not look like the photos and gave 1 star reviews! How can this be true when we have over 500 reviews and 5 stars on all units?! Also, the guest had told us they were having a great time all throughout the stay!! Still Airbnb did not help.

Similar situations have happened more than a handful of times now. Where Airbnb would give us lip service when we asked for advice and assure we will get reviews removed if ____ and ___ happened or we will get our deposit back if _____ and ____ happened. When shit actually goes down, they do absolutely NOTHING for us. What is the point of us paying these service fees when no services are provided when we need them! I understand if they claim this is just an advertising fee for us to expose our units, however, then why do they CONTROL all the payments and deposits. Those people who actually got their host guarantee/damage deposits on social media or the news are just their publicity ploys! They will only help when they know that it could damage their reputation, I’ve never heard of any fellow host friends who was able to get any compensation. Many have similar stories to mine. In sum: THEY ARE ALL TALK AND NO WALK. THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT GETTING THEIR SERVICE FEES. THEY OUTRIGHT LIE TO THEIR HOSTS. THEY HIDE BEHIND THE PRETENSE OF A SHARING ECONOMY WHEN THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN BLOOD SUCKING CORPORATIONS WHO EXPLOIT OTHERS FOR PROFIT. When will something better come along so that we honest hosts, who are just trying to make some side money, can actually choose to host for a company that actually provides the services that they advertise?!

Guest attacked by Host, Airbnb does nothing!

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I sensed something strange when I arrived. The hostess was a middle aged Italian woman called Floriana. She seemed nice at first, but immediately told me she has a cat that is very unfriendly and attacks people, so I need to shut the door wherever I go. Also, her son is staying there. None of these were mentioned in the airbnb description. Though I felt strange, I thought I could live with that. So I continued to smile brightly to her and tried to be nice to her.  At the first breakfast the following morning, she came into the kitchen, saw I was having coffee and tea in the same time. She told me I cannot have tea or coffee anytime after breakfast. Because only breakfast is included. Then she screamed at the little bit of water I just spilled on the table, not knowing how to work the kettle. She screamed to me with a very loud voice,”ah!!! Look at this! What you have done! You have to clean everything you use, ok?!” So I said I’m sorry, cleaned everything immediately. She then said “You are not allowed to be in the kitchen after 10:30am, because I have to cook for my son. You can only stay in the kitchen from 8am-10:30am, you understand?” Even though none of this was mentioned at the listing, and I would have never booked the stay if there were such restrictions, as a long term practitioner of Byron Katie’s Love and Peace belief and the philosophy of Taoism, I said to myself, it was all just me, in my own head, that I am projecting this. She is a nice person and I don’t need to pick a fight with her to ruin my stay. And so, I didn’t have more tea or coffee after breakfast, and didn’t set my foot into the kitchen after 10:30 am for the rest of my stay there.

Then on the day of my departure, my flight was at 3:30pm and I planned to leave the apt. at 1:30pm. Since she asked me about my arrival time, but never the departure time, I assumed it was quite flexible. I walked out of the apt. around 11:30, sitting at a cafe quite far from the apt. I texted her just to inform her and ask her if it’s OK that I check out at 1:30pm? She said “no, the check out time is at 11.” I wrote back, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see that earlier and normally, all the hosts on airbnb have asked me before I leave to arrange the departure.” She wrote, “It’s written on the side of your bed. How could you have not seen it? You need to come back and get your luggage.” I said, “OK, I’m sorry I didn’t see it. I’ll need 20 minutes to come back and pack my luggage. Or…I’ve already packed my luggage, you can take it out of my room and leave it in the living room. Please let me know what you prefer to do.” She wrote back. “I will move your luggage.”

When I went back, she immediately fired at me, screaming at me hysterically. Calling me blind, I don’t have eyes, i don’t say thank you, (which is really not true. I feel I’ve said the most thank you and I’m sorry in my life in these three days, also a few of them recorded on my sms exchanges with her.) She called me a bad person, and many ugly names, and did not seem to want to stop after more than 10 minutes of screaming at me. Meanwhile, her grownup son was at the apt., which added more to my fear. At first, I was stunned by the violence and anger coming from this woman, then I thought about an earlier news on NYTimes about an Airbnb user raped by his host. I realised how helpless I was in that situation. Being in a foreign country without speaking the language. Even if she doesn’t physically attack me, though it felt she could any moment, she could have called the police and accused me of some crime. And I would have no way to defend myself in a place most people didn’t speak English at all. Being a 5’3 tall, rather petite Asian-American woman, I never felt unsafe traveling the world. It is what my professional and life requires, and I was proud I didn’t have problems with it. But this time, for the first time, I was seriously scared. The best I could do was to take some short videos of her screaming at me. I think every time I raised my phone, she saw it and would quiet down a bit, walk away. You can view one of the videos here https://www.facebook.com/jenny.q.chai/posts/573688777541.   As soon as I put down my phone, she would come back and scream at me again. This went on for a few times for another while. At some point, I told her I have to use the bathroom before going on the long ride to the airport. She said “no, this is not your time anymore. You cannot use my bathroom.” I said, “I can’t even use your bathroom? I really need to go!” She then screamed to me with this abusive attitude, “say ‘thank you!’” I was too afraid that time, thought the best way would be to comply to her craziness. So I said “thank you.” She seemed to be pleased a little, so I used the bathroom. As soon as I came out of the bathroom, she started firing at me again. At a certain point she went into the kitchen, I thought I saw her coming out from there grabbing something in her hands. I grabbed my things and ran out of her apt.as fast as I could I got on a cab and was still worried that she could call the police to accuse me or harm me somehow. I called the Emergency help line of Airbnb on the cab. Broke down to tears as I was describing the situation to them. I told the representative I was so traumatised. The person was very nice. Said he will wait for me to upload my videos, meanwhile, he’ll cut the contact from that host, because for me, to hear or receive anything more from this person would add more to the trauma. Even though I appreciated the empathy I received from Airbnb, I now feel, what can they really do if terrible things happened to me in that apartment in Bari, Italy? If I were in U.S. or even China, where I speak the language, I could have called the police immediately. I would also like to take legal action to the abusiveness this person demonstrated on me. But in a foreign country, without speaking the language, and Airbnb being the official party, who operates all the way on the east coast in the U.S. while real trauma was happening to me, what could they have done?

Now Airbnb does nothing after even receiving the video.

Airbnb FRAUD cost me 1460 Euros, & it was preventable!

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Airbnb fraud cost me 1460 Euros! They aren’t doing enough to protect their community from fraudsters. I have had many happy trips with airbnb, but after this I will never use them again. They simply aren’t doing enough to protect their customers. I went to book accommodation in Amsterdam for new year, when I saw a message in the description of the listing offering 20% discount through ‘instant book’ (on the actual airbnb.co.uk site), I just had to email the host and they would enable instant booking to make the payment. ‘Fair enough’ I thought, they want to get people in quickly. Makes sense. So I emailed the host with the dates and a request to instant book. I then received an email from Herman (the host) with a link to instant book. The URL is still active https://www.airbnb.com.book.srl/instant/rooms/5913502?checkin=12292015&checkout=01022016&currency=&guests=8 You’ll notice the URL is airbnb.com.book.srl, which at the time i believed to be Airbnb, which it evidently is not. (these links are no longer active after I brought it to airbnbs attention!) So screenshots are attached. Once you click instant book and enter payment details the following page appears with a slightly confusing error message (images attached). https://www.airbnb.com.book.srl/instant/rooms/status?accepted=false&hosting_id=9652369 After a bit of back and forth with Herman (perfect English I might add) I requested the invoice to be sent. I then received the attached email (too long to put here) and stupidly made payment through transfer. I then received emails from a very a very convincing airbnb finance team representative (express@reply-airbnb.com). Emails written as though from one of Airbnb’s real employees, here’s the linked in profile… but i don’t think this poor guy has anything to do with it. At this moment, I started to realize I’d made a mistake! I called my bank who said you can’t stop a payment like this, also notified Barclays (where the money was being transferred to), seemingly to no avail. During this entire process Herman was continuing to email and reassure me that everything was OK and the payment hadn’t come through yet. I also contacted airbnb who said that they had removed his profile and very annoying then decided to tell me never to make a payment away from airbnb (which I didn’t think I had), until they specified bank transfer. I have now followed the link where the initial listing was and it’s still live, this is after airbnb said that Herman’s account has been blocked! It has the same reviews the same host, but different apartment pictures and is on the actual airbnb.co.uk site. So unfortunately it’s inevitable that this will happen again to someone else. https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/1125879?checkin=29-12-2015&checkout=02-01-2016&guests=3&s=R92_NDn9 I really feel Airbnb could have done so much more to protect me during this absolute nightmare. Not only have they allowed the fraudulent account to continue, but make a bigger play on the fact that no payments should be done offline rather than display instant booking everywhere. They say “At Airbnb, we do everything we can to create a safe and trusted marketplace.” I don’t think this is true. I’m now completely skint 2 days before Christmas with a cancelled trip for the New Year. Thanks Airbnb, but NEVER EVER again.

Disappointing and inconvenient

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Rented a place through Airbnb, the first night didn’t get a key. The second night was locked outside, and so-called “host” said that I should have texted/called before [showing up at the place I had paid money for]. After asking why can’t I get a key, the host became hostile and suggested to cancel reservation. I contacted Airbnb, cancelled, got full refund (thanks to Judy W. with Airbnb), and got offered a hotel room for free due to the inconvenience that was brought upon me from this psychopath, ungrateful, imbecile “host”. I hope nobody ever stays at Martha’s place in east Austin, and I hope Airbnb gets her place off the list.

DO NOT BECOME AN AIRBNB HOST!!! $1500 in damage and NO help!

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Hosts beware!!! I had over $1500 in damage done by guests, all documented via photos and witnesses, and I even submitted professional estimates to repair walls, replace damaged dressers, sheets, mattresses, pillows, rugs, and carpet cleaning (guest took red lipstick and used it on my off white carpet all over the entire house!).  I advised airbnb at the VERY beginning of this guest abuse (verbal) that my house was being destroyed while they were here, it started slow and they went crazy with it when they departed (I was at work at that time).   I was never given the option to evict them without penalties.  I did EVERYTHING airbnb asked of me from submitting the request to “guests” which was refused immediately by them along with NO denial that they did it, continued on with the representative who then told me I had to speak to a different team at airbnb (this was now my FOURTH “pass off”).  The new airbnb individual said they needed documentation.  I provided it and asked if he could access or if I needed to start from the beginning (I had A LOT of evidence so this was weeks worth of work), I also requested a number to call. The representative, Jake, said they have no number to contact them, that they would only offer “fair market value ” (items are new and only 4 months old), and asked for additional/actual proof of original costs of the destroyed items.   I searched emails and the web to find this after I told Jake I didn’t have this information readily accessible/available. No response. I email again 6 days later with everything ready and ask him if what I have is what airbnb needs, no response. Airbnb appears to have closed the claim…… Wow, just wow.

This is a huge hit for my family. I continue to receive no response or resolution from Airbnb on this. I am sad this happened, hurt because I adored hosting people (before this guest), and financial burdened during holiday with a young child who will not get the gift she deserves because I’m left on my own to clean up the mess and have been abandoned by airbnb. I could have put an ad on Craigslist and had a better result and fewer fees.

bed bug disaster

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My sister and her friend just got bed bugs from a dirty bed at the host´s apartment. they had evidence (doctor´s approval, photos), that they have not had them before. they were thrown on the street after the host told them THEY brought the bugs – also they had no more money left because the airbnb money they already paid in advance takes a while to get back to their accounts. after hours of exhausting phone calls they finally got 500$ from airbnb to stay at a hotel and a few options for new apartments (btw they were in treatment already and the bugs are gone). after booking another one after a week airbnb called the host to throw them out again because they´re too dangerous. funny thing is: the apartment where they got them from is available again!