Tag Archives: airbnb ripped off

Guest has to Cancel and I Shouldered the Cancellation Fee

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I am first time host and new to Airbnb, so I am still learning how to navigate the Airbnb system and their app. I accidentally posted two listings for one unit, which I thought would just promote my property. I received a booking from my first guest on August 22nd, which would have booked the guest from August 24th until September 8th.

I received another booking from a second guest. I was wondering why I received another booking, because the dates the first guest booked should already be blocked from my calendar. The second guest was still able to book my property. I called the second guest to explain that my place was already booked, and that I have no other property that I can offer her. The best way that I thought at that moment was for her to cancel the booking.

When she did, I received a message or email from the second guest requesting to cancel her booking. I thought I should click the cancel button which is displayed in the email from Airbnb because it said that I needed to respond to it within 24 hours. Not thinking that I would be charged the entire amount that the second guest booked, I cancelled her reservations, without knowing what would happen.

I just feel discourage from this incident. I feel that I have been ripped off by Airbnb. My second guest had to cancel her reservation five days before her arrival which I thought was more than ample time but I’m the one who is going to pay or be fined the entire amount she booked. Now tell me if that is fair.

I bought new towels and bed sheets, and cleaned and prepared my property for my guest. I provide the best service and amenities for my guest. However, with one mistake that I request my guest cancel her reservation and respond to it, I had to pay more than 60% of my total income this August. Is that fair?

Airbnb will get 60% of my total income from my property. What is left for me? I will pay my condo monthly dues, electric, and water. What is left of my pay out for august is not even enough to cover these bills. I just think it’s not fair for first timer hosts to be fine with losing such an amount. That is a lot more than my payout. If we give our clients a full refund as long as they cancel 24 hours or more before their check in, then why don’t we also do that and be considerate of hosts, especially first timer hosts?

It wasn’t my fault that I received a double booking. So why fine me? I don’t feel good about this. I’m afraid to continue listing my property here on Airbnb. I spent more money just to host and I’m getting less than what I’m supposed to earn. Airbnb gets more money.

Egregious Charges After Airbnb Stay in LA

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We booked a lovely looking house in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Upon arrival, it was very clear the house was not as advertised. Photos were very misleading but worse than this, the house was filthy.

I contacted the owner and we actually resolved the issue quickly. He agreed to refund us the days we did not stay and he did not charge us a cleaning fee (we ended up spending two nights there as we tried to resolve the issue). Airbnb was really responsive and my initial reaction was that their service was great.

That’s when it started to go wrong. I was charged over $600 for two nights in a house that I agreed to pay $152/night. I spent the next four days calling and emailing Airbnb, consistently told by customers service reps that they were going to call me back or get someone to call me back. I emailed them repeatedly asking for an itemized list of charges and asking why I was charged. I was ignored.

I finally got them back on the phone and was on hold for an hour and a half until the case manager and I spoke and she agreed to review the case. They refunded me $101, which still had me paying over $500 for a filthy house that was $152/night. The itemized list included a $191 VAT charge because I live in New Zealand. She also said I must have paid with an NZ card and that’s why I accured a VAT charge when I had not in the past.

I’m American and a California resident; I paid with my American bank card. Additionally, and more damning, Airbnb does not mention New Zealand in the list of countries that are charged VAT – the countries that do get charged VAT are on their website.

When I posted the words from the site directly and asked for the justification of the charges the case was closed on me without response. I’m now on hold as I write this review – it will probably be over an hour – insisting that I speak to someone who can help me and have them explain why I was charged VAT for NZ when its not listed on their site or get my $200 back. As it is, I’ll be using VRBO from now on.

Ripped Off After Last-Minute Cancellation in Milan

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Early in the day when we were due to leave for Italy, our host sent an email advising she could no longer host us. Whilst she offered five other accommodation options through her booking agent (I presume a group that handles a number of bed and breakfasts in the Milan area), we simply had no time to try and communicate with those hosts to get a booking confirmation and arrange a meeting before our departure as we simply would not have access to any communication tools whilst travelling. Because of this, we had to urgently try to find alternative accommodations, settling on a hotel in Milan so we knew we would have reliable accommodations upon arrival, in 24 hours’ time. Since our host cancelled, I have been unable to get a refund of the $418 we paid for our booking. The host’s email no longer works and she will not respond to SMS messages sent to her phone. She has also removed our booking from the Airbnb site so we cannot contact her via our “Trips and Reservations” area of the website. Airbnb has no way of offering help on their website, instead referring people to Q&As on their website, which are useless. As a first time user of Airbnb, this has been a really bad experience and I will never use it ever again. I will do all that I can to persuade others to stay away from Airbnb. I feel totally ripped off.