Stood up out in Arctic Sweden by Airbnb Host

Posted on July 21, 2019

Airbnb advertised availability for two nights lodging on its website for Kiruna, Sweden for June 8-10. I booked the lodging. Airbnb collected the money. It did not deliver the product, the lodging.

Airbnb’s advertised host did not give me good directions to the site. It took me 60 minutes walking to find it. When I found it, Airbnb’s advertised host did not answer the door. He told Airbnb customer service later that he did not hear me. Yet he knew I had a reservation, and that I was coming, and had received my money.

I purchased the accommodations and paid for them through Airbnb’s website on May 22nd and relied on the Airbnb advertisement on its site that its Airbnb host would provide lodging. He did not. I communicated with the Airbnb host ahead of time, telling him my flight would arrive in Kiruna at 8:20 PM.

I arrived at his front door at 10:30 PM, after asking three different people how to get to his address, as his directions were vague. I knocked on his door twice, loudly. No one answered. As I did not have a phone usable in Sweden, I knocked on his next door neighbor’s door after Airbnb’s host did not answer.

His next door neighbors confirmed that he lived where I knocked. They would not, though, call him to let him know I had arrived. I returned to his house and knocked loudly a third time. No answer. Then I walked to a convenience store a half mile away. The clerk there called him at his advertised number and handed me the phone. There was no answer.

I was stranded in a foreign city I had never visited, knowing no one, without lodging, at 10:45 PM. This was traumatic. Kiruna is in the Arctic; it was cold there. I had only arrived in Sweden that day. This was to be my first night ever in Sweden.

I had to hire a taxi to take me to two different hotels before finding one with availability, and then also find a hotel for June 10th. I had almost no wifi on June 9th as I was traveling on Arctic trains which had very spotty wifi en route to my June 9th stay in a small northern Arctic mountain community with no wifi.

I contacted Airbnb on June 10th and canceled the second night I was to stay with its host, requesting a refund of my fees paid to Airbnb as I could not rely on its host to answer the door for my planned stay there, reimbursement for the replacement lodging I had to find, money for the taxi, and compensation for my inconvenience, worry, stress, and time dealing with the problem.

After writing Airbnb customer service, on June 21st Airbnb refunded me $21 cash. They have refused to refund me or pay for my expenses beyond that, other than to offer Airbnb coupons, which I do not want. On July 1st, I wrote Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO, an overnight letter again requesting a refund. His office received my letter on July 2nd. On July 8th I called and left a message for Mr. Chesky with his staff; I also emailed him directly on July 10th. Neither he nor any of his Airbnb staff has responded to my July 1st letter in the past 18 days.

The problem caused me worry, stress, lack of sleep, sleep disruption, and inconvenience during the trip, with a loss of 5.5 hours of time in Sweden on my trip, and 7 hours spent trying to resolve this Airbnb problem after the trip, including emails, phone calls, the CEO letter, and complaints to the California A/G’s office and the Better Business Bureau. It should not take seven hours after a trip is done to resolve a lodging problem during the trip.

Airbnb’s competition is hotels. A hotel would have resolved this situation immediately. I have averaged five Airbnb lodgings per year for the past six years. This is how Airbnb treats its long-time customers. When you need help, they show their real interest (zero) in you and your problem. It is all about the money for them, and all about ignoring problems for them.

My research shows other Airbnb scams/fraudulent activity due to no-show Airbnb hosts. These other Airbnb hosts also stood up other people using Airbnb’s web site like me. These other victims of Airbnb no-show hosts, also making advance payment for lodging as required by Airbnb, were for lodgings in Barbados (2019), Portimao, Portugal (2018), Majorca (2018), and Florence, Italy (2017). In each of these other cases the scam/fraud victims similarly had trouble getting compensation from Airbnb.

This type of continued Airbnb scam/fraud is wrong. Their lack of resolution of this problem, especially for a long-time customer, is despicable and outrageous. It seems like a pattern of fraud/scams on Airbnb’s part, to improve their bottom line. I am willing to and prepared to take them to court if need be.

Moral of this saga: You often save some money with Airbnb vs. a hotel. But if there is a problem, and you booked with Airbnb, tough luck. You are often just plain out of luck. They do not care, unlike hotels. It apparently is Airbnb’s direction from the top, from the CEO on down. Once they have the money, they do not care about helping.

Stranded in Singapore After Customer Service Fiasco

Posted on July 20, 2019

We made a reservation over three months ago after doing careful research and reading reviews about a listing for a property in Singapore for a family vacation. We only travel together once a year; it’s important that we get this right so we took our time to do our research and booked the $1600 stay.

A day before our departure we were contacted by the host that because of an air conditioning problem he would substitute a similar property. Yesterday we arrived and this property was completely unusable. It didn’t even have a sofa; it could not accommodate one person and the host was a bait and switch master. Apparently, in Singapore this is a standard game.

We called Airbnb immediately and asked that we be moved to another property and pleaded with them not to do their stunt where a refund takes ten days to get, isn’t usable, and leaves us stranded. This would not have been the first time this has happened.

I spoke to a case manager who assured me this would be easily and quickly expedited. While I was on the phone with someone the host came to the door of our unit, started pounding, and screaming and physically threatening us. We were on the phone with Airbnb when this happened. We were assured the new case manager that Airbnb would pay for this and that we would be safe and our family would not be at risk. This of course is on the recording of the call.

We started looking for an alternate setting when the host without our permission cancelled the booking and continued to be abusive. Getting a refund in Singapore on the day that you need a reservation is insane.

For the next 24 hours we did nothing but speak to various buffoons, imbeciles, morons, and idiots. We’ve been abused, we’ve been disrespected, and most recently they blocked us. I don’t know what their training model is; it appears to be subterfuge and confidence. They were supposed to issue coupons; they didn’t. They were supposed have some college education; they didn’t. They were supposed to deescalate the situation; they didn’t.

We are stranded in Singapore with nowhere to go and now no money and no coupon. I’m in executive director of a nonprofit and a CEO. I was a psychotherapist and I can tell you Airbnb is doing nothing but harm with their greed. No one should do business with this company and of course I never will again.

They have ruined our vacation that’s been planned for over a year with countless amounts of money spent and time with activities reserved in advance that will now fly out the door. They are so incredibly disrespectful. It really sickens me to talk to Airbnb especially the most recent times where they literally kept us on hold for two hours with nothing to add to the conversation. I feel they are purposely doing so. They didn’t seem to understand that there was a time difference between Singapore in San Francisco. How is it possible that people like this exist?

Hotel Rooms will always be Preferable to Airbnb

Posted on July 17, 2019

I reserved an Airbnb a week in advance for a six-guest stay in an apartment. The host and I talked back and forth and she was very polite. We rolled up around 1:00 AM, drained after our 4.5-hour drive and just ready to get settled in and maybe hit a few bars to get our trip started.

We unlocked the door and walked in to see this very large man on the living room floor about ten feet away from the front door we opened. We all jump back, thinking: “Is this the wrong room? No, it can’t be because the code to unlock it is working.”

The guys went inside to find sections of the living room separated by sheets/curtains and three beds on the floor for us to sleep on. These beds were a curtain away from this random man on the floor. The guys went back in to take pics and videos of this place as proof to send to customer service for a refund. There were even two rooms in the back that had people in them.

I promptly cancelled our Airbnb and immediately called customer service. The customer service rep told me he had to contact the host to get her side of the story. They contacted the host who finally woke up and started freaking out, sending me crazy rude messages. At the point we were all just so done; we just needed somewhere to sleep.

After calling around and driving around until after 5:00 AM we finally found something to accommodate all six of us (thanks to the nice front desk lady at the Comfort Inn). The crazy host kept messaging me until 4:30 AM.

Now, looking at the reservation, it does say a shared room up to eight people. This was my first Airbnb experience to I thought shared meant shared with our guests (since there were six of us). However, we were never informed people would be there at the same time as us a sheet away – scary.

In the end, the host was just as rude to my customer service guy as she was to me which, isn’t going to help her. Hopefully, she is removed from Airbnb. She refused us a full refund but we called and filed a claim with Chase.

P.S: it looked nothing like the pictures. I’m attaching the photos from the website, the guy on the floor, our “room”, and screen shots of this crazy lady going off on me. The door auto locks so we didn’t leave anyone in any type of danger/harm. You can’t break and enter if you were given the gate and door code to get in.

Horrible Airbnb Hostel, Horrible Service

Posted on July 17, 2019

I suffer from middle ear issues which causes imbalance/vertigo, especially after long flights. I contacted a host prior to booking and asked if I could check-in early so I could lie down. She said that was fine. I booked at her place, but on arrival, she told me that someone was in my room and I couldn’t check-in. She wouldn’t even let me lie down in her house. Link to her room.

I was so dizzy I could barely walk. I had to leave my suitcase at her place and walk down and lie in an oval for six hours. While there, I had no water, food, and I was nearly mugged (I had my laptop out and a guy on a bicycle kept circling; I had to finally lie in the full sun because it was near a couple of other guys; I ended up sunburnt).

Airbnb contacted me and promised they would help me find other accommodation. I needed somewhere close by because I would be catching up with friends in that area in a couple of days. I couldn’t find any nice cheap accommodation in that area, so I sent a link for something just a little more expensive (not much considering what I’d gone through).

Airbnb stopped getting back to me and wouldn’t confirm if I could book. My phone was nearly flat and I didn’t know what to do, so I found another, cheaper, place in London and quickly booked (I didn’t have time to Google the address because I had 2% battery).

When I went back to get my suitcase, the host had locked me out of her house (I had a key, but she’d locked both locks). I then had to sit on her doorstep for long time. When she arrived she laughed in my face and said, “Because you asked me to cancel the booking, you can’t write a bad review.”

I began to cry. It got worse.

My phone went flat and then I had to walk my suitcase up a steep road to a cafe, charge it, and then call a taxi from there. It was then that I found out that my new accommodation was three hours on public transport from where my friends live (also a one-hour taxi ride which cost me 100 AUD; I sent Airbnb the receipt asking for refund and they have manually removed the receipt from the conversation).

I rang Airbnb and they told me that they would help. The gentleman said he would personally fix this terrible thing that happened to me and move me closer to my friends. He promised me that Airbnb would make up any financial losses. He promised me he would take on my case personally until it was resolved. Then I received a message through Airbnb, where he stated that he wouldn’t take on my case, and that it was being passed back to the person who didn’t fix things last time and who left me stranded in an oval, spinning like a top.

It has been hours and I still haven’t received any contact from Airbnb. Now I’m stuck on the other side of London, three hours on public transport from where my friends are. The first week of my holiday is ruined; and worse still, Airbnb is no longer answering my calls. I just want to cry. I wish I had booked a hotel room.

Tranquil Nature Reserve Actually Shanty Town

Posted on July 16, 2019

Disastrous holiday with appalling customer service. Never will I use Airbnb again.

Over two months ago we found out my partner was pregnant. We decided that before the baby arrived we wanted a relaxing and peaceful break where we could quietly celebrate the news with her parents. We set about searching for somewhere suitable. We are both experienced travellers all over the world and happy hiking and camping but obviously this time with my partner being pregnant and her elderly parents coming along we didn’t want anything too basic.

We settled on the idea of a nearby island of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands which is owned by Spain. It is frequented by millions of European tourists per year and well developed so it should have been a very easy trip.

After much research I finally found the perfect place on Airbnb located in a nature reserve in the north of the island. The description said “ideal for those who choose tranquility” and “for those who want to live in contact with nature while enjoying the sport and what seas of tranquility offer.”

Again, as my partner is pregnant, we didn’t want anything too basic and this was the perfect fit: TV, iron, laptop-friendly workspace, etc. We even got an extra reminder that this was one of a “few places in the area where breakfast would be included!”

It was advertised at 50 euros a night but slightly less on the nights we were looking for. I naively was only slightly wary when I saw it just had one review but it was a new place that had very recently opened and it was absolutely glowing: “The garden gives great spaces for the eyes. A feeling of great freedom, openness, connection with the authentic nature of Fuerteventura… great pleasure staying in the house… contemplate the beauty of what surrounds you.”

It went on and on with absolute rave reviews. This guest clearly thought this was the best, most beautiful place she had ever stayed so surely we in the very worst case weren’t going to dislike it. We booked four nights and were very excited about it. How wrong we were.

The trip started out well with good communication from the host who by a strange coincidence turned out to be Italian just like the solitary reviewer. Polite, quick to respond and would be meeting us at the property at the check in time. After a long day of travelling, by late evening we drove into the nature reserve; the reviews were correct, it was beautiful.

I continued to follow my GPS across a dirt track towards our peaceful isolated house. Upon the horizon a group of buildings started to appear. As we got closer we realised that these buildings were in fact made of pallets and various other discarded materials and were surrounded by rubbish. This was a medium sized chabola illegal house, called slums or favela in other parts of the world.

We have seen many of these on our travels through Asia and Africa. Essential and unavoidable in many developing countries but unusual to find in the middle of a nature reserve. It was with absolute disbelief when I saw the GPS was taking me right into the middle of it.

However, there was no GPS mistake when I pulled up outside a somewhat recognisable house and was met by a smiling host and a stray pit bull. We were quickly ushered into the house which in fairness wasn’t too different from what we were expecting; the interior matches the photos that were displayed. We had studied the photos on the website so we knew the basic style and layout.

What wasn’t apparent from the pictures was the horrible smell and that it was that it was an entirely open plan including the bathroom and toilet which was adjoining the living room. My partner started to panic about having to ask everyone to leave the house any time she needed the toilet (which is often during pregnancy).

It was then the other conditions started to be explained. First, there was no water main; it came from an outside container which is very limited so ‘use the toilet at least four times before flushing it’ as it will run out. Second, no electricity. We were taken back outside through a broken rusted door that was falling down and needed to be tied on by rope. There we found an old generator and a couple of jerrycans.

Our host politely explained the quirks of how to start this particular old generator. He also explained that it would last about five hours, then I needed to drive to a nearby petrol station (about 30 minutes), buy enough petrol to fill a jerrycan, and then refill the generator with a half water bottle scattered around the floor that could be used as a funnel.

While I was trying to work out why I was having to pay for the petrol or the logistics having to refill something every five hours night and day just to have a fridge working or the lights on I became aware that it wouldn’t really be a problem as there was no way we were going to be able to stand the ridiculous noise of the generator for longer than five minutes, let alone five hours. Once started we couldn’t be heard over the top of it and even in the house it was loud enough to feel like you were in the middle of a construction site. Tranquil it most certainly was not.

The tour of the outside didn’t get any better. Past the pizza oven – which was being used as a bin – around to the side of the house which wasn’t shown in the pictures we discovered a pile of broken furniture leaning up against the house (sofa, plastic table and a bathroom sink, indoor dining room chairs) and then just beyond that a dumpsite. All manner of broken things and building rubble which I imagine was the previous interior of the house had been piled up and left.

Was this the “authentic nature of Fuerteventura”? It was certainly true that in stunned silence we were ‘contemplating’ the ‘beauty’ that surrounded us. In truth at this moment the host looked so embarrassed by the place and eager to move us away from the rubbish that we didn’t really question it much, he just kept repeating that he wasn’t the owner, just the host.

Once the host had left and the pit bull had chased his car out through the chabola we had time to reflect upon what we were about to stay in. Luckily my partner’s parents weren’t due to arrive until the next day. I sat down on the sofa and rechecked the advert on Airbnb to see I had made no mistake. I had not.

It was clear that the accommodation no way matched what they were advertising from the important things like clean and with electricity and water to the less vital things like the breakfast that was most certainly not going to be provided. While contemplating how to explain the situation to her parents I looked down to find my shoes and legs cover in flees, and I do mean covered.

At that point my partner decided she would do the rest of her contemplating in the car. She rushed outside to find a local resident and extremely suspicious looking character peering into the back of car which was still loaded with all our holiday gear. When I asked who he was he merely commented that he was the cousin of the owner and continued to walk around the property at his own leisurely pace.

This was now a step too far, it had gone from being a somewhat comical, farcical situation to actually feeling quite unsafe. While the nature reserve is certainly ‘isolated’, the house being in the centre of the chabola most certainly was not. It may be the area is quite safe and the ‘cousin’ was just coming to be friendly but this certainly wasn’t the type of holiday that had been sold to us and we weren’t willing to stay and find out.

I stayed just long enough to take some photos and then drove away to try and work out what to do next. I called the host to tell him we wouldn’t be staying even a night and by his tone he had been waiting for that phone call. He said not a problem at all and even avoided an embarrassing situation by not asking us for the reasons. He just reminded us again that he was not the owner which I understood to imply that even he wouldn’t want to stay there. I asked about a refund and he said he hadn’t received any money and it would all be returned by Airbnb.

At this point it was 8:00 PM and with very little mobile battery left we were trying to navigate the nightmare Airbnb customer support site and look for somewhere to stay. I eventually found the support contact and emailed explaining the situation. On that evening I received absolutely no reply at all and we were in a desperate sprint to find something, anything safe that we could stay in that night.

By 10:00 PM we were lucky enough to find a very accommodating host who replied pretty much immediately to our messages and let us stay. Before I could book the new place my only option was to ‘cancel the reservation’ of the old which seemed to imply it was in some way our fault and therefore we were penalized in that they kept most of the money. Only 66 euros were returned to us.

While the new accommodation was excellent, a great host who had provided an honest and truthful advert, it was a more expensive flat, only for two people and in a crowded tourist resort. Not at all the holiday we were looking for. It also meant that there was no space for my in laws and with all the uncertainty they decided to cancel their flight and not come at all.

I have attached a link to show just how poor the support was when they eventually replied as my words couldn’t really do it justice. Needless to say we ended up paying for two accommodations (minus 66 euros). I wrote at length and sent plenty of pictures as evidence but Airbnb seemed entirely uninterested, delivering superficial responses.

It was only after five days with one day left in our holiday that I was passed to a specialist who asked if he could help book us into accommodation. I guess he imagined we had been sleeping on the streets for the previous four nights. When it was apparent that he wasn’t properly reading my replies or trying to understand the situation his response of ‘I have a lot of cases needed to be assisted as well’ was infuriating. A particular favourite phrase that he wrote after admitting it was a host violation was ‘just to set your expectation we will do our best in order to meet the proper standard but we cannot guarantee this hundred percent to provide the expected outcome’ (sic).

It has now been nearly a week and Airbnb has just stopped replying to my messages. Last I heard I was eligible for a refund but that has never arrived and they are simply ignoring all my attempts at communication. While we are both safely home and we can look back on a spoilt holiday somewhat fatalistically as I explained to customer support it is the safety of others that is most concerning. People book with them expecting a certain level of security, their whole brand is based around that. If not we might as well just arrive in a place and knock on any old door and ask to stay.

A current look on their site shows that this accommodation is still being advertised in exactly the same way. My lengthy review has not been published, still only the original poster, so they will have people booking it expecting what we expected. I find it worryingly immoral that Airbnb is continuing to advertise it in the same way. At best they will be spoiling people’s holidays and costing them money. At worst… well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Here is the link to the place. Check it out in full here.

Airbnb Helps Scammers Rob Unaware Guests

Posted on July 15, 2019

After hearing about Airbnb for years, we decided to try it. We were visiting family and were too many to fit comfortably, so we decided to get an Airbnb nearby since hotels were 30-40 minutes away. The idea was to minimize the travel time. The price of the Airbnb was more than the hotel, but again, we wanted to be nearby.

We arrived to find the Airbnb was in a crime-ridden area of the city, with lots of people talking loudly on the stoops at 10:00 PM, drinking and smoking. Absolutely no parking around, even double parked cars. Police and emergency activity in the surroundings. We did not feel safe staying in this place, that by the way, was a tenement.

The listing made it sound like you would have a private apartment for your family, but what they have done is divide a house into rooms, each with a lock. Even the former living room was converted into a bedroom. There were four individually rented rooms in what used to be a three-bedroom house. That was not what we signed up for and paid $99/night. For comparison you could get a 2-3 star hotel room for $80.

We decided to squeeze with family and cancel this awful place. Then we discovered that even though we canceled the host was entitled to keep our money since most of what we paid was non-refundable. We only got 10% back.

I thought Airbnb protected the guest, but unfortunately they only protect the hosts. There is absolutely no reason that the host can rent this dump and when just arrive and decide not to stay, they get to keep all your money even though they can re-rent the place. Maybe they should keep the money for the first night, but all of it? Needless to say we would never, ever try Airbnb again.

PS: We Googled the address after seeing it and found that there was a murder next door in 2016, drug arrests, shootings and more in the recent past. How Airbnb thinks this is a place to offer to unaware guests is beyond me.

New Orleans Airbnb Host Lies About Capacity

Posted on July 14, 2019

My family has been planing a trip down to New Orleans for a year now and part of that was finding accommodations. We have a large group of people (25) coming on this trip and could not an Airbnb that would accommodate us. We decided to speak to a host who presented us with links of what we assumed were to places that would hold all of us.

We inquired about a villa that was close to the French Quarter and noticed it said it could hold 9 people. So we asked him if we could still have 25 and he said “Yes, it is perfect.”

Once again, we assumed that this would work for our group. Upon payment we once again noticed that it still said 9 instead of the 25 we discussed so once again we asked the host why it didn’t say 25. He did not reply until five days before our reservation and now said “You can only have 9 people.”

We told the host that was not what was discussed and never once did he try to fix it. Instead he said here are some more places you can book for more money. We feel scammed and do not believe this host has our best interests at heart.

When we called customer service they took his side over ours even though we have a paper trail of conversations that are clearly misleading us, the customer. We are beyond frustrated. This is our very first family reunion as adults and aside from the hurricane trying to ruin it we now have Airbnb keeping us apart. I would give this company a zero if it was an option.

Breaking into Paris Airbnb… for Laundry Soap?

Posted on July 13, 2019

What I’m about to describe is a horrible experience with Airbnb (both on the guest end and maybe even worse on the customer service end) that has since unfortunately led me to decide that I will never use Airbnb again. I wish this wasn’t the case because it is such a unique and affordable option for travel, but their company really showed me how little they care about their customers.

I was originally just planning to simply write a review about the safety issue directly on my guest’s profile and be done with it, however as I will explain after I tell about my experience as a guest at the Airbnb in question, they removed/censored my review (obviously this was done because my host was a Superhost that brings their company in money). I decided that I was not about to let the public not know about the safety concern that this host presents and Airbnb’s customer service and censorship/control over its guests. Without further ado, here is what the review was originally going to be.

Our trip to this host’s apartment started off well. He was in good communication with us, and the place looked clean and had tons of amenities like it promised. He was out of the country, so he had his friend staying in the apartment to check us in and show us around. His friend was super helpful. It was going great, until five days into our two-week stay.

The fifth night there I was taking a shower, and when I got out I heard a knock on the door (I was not fully dressed at the time as a result of having just taken a shower). My girlfriend and I also did not want to answer the door because we were in a foreign country and did not know anybody, so we stayed silent.

The man on the other side of the door started getting his keys out and tried opening the door. At this point we were terrified about this because we had not received any contact from our host since the day we checked in. I told the man trying to open the door that this was a private Airbnb and he was not allowed to enter. He responded saying that he was a friend of the host’s friend, and that he needed to get the laundry soap in our room (which we found very suspicious, since laundry soap is certainly not too expensive to just go down to the store to get some new soap).

We told him it was not okay, since we hadn’t heard anything about this from our host so who knows if he was who he says he is. At this point the man on the other side continued trying to force his way to open the door with his keys (all the while I was also still not fully dressed). Finally, after we yelled at him that he needed to leave, he did, saying on the way out that he would be coming back after he called his boss.

After this I messaged the host, and his response is (quoted): “Sorry for the inconvenience. Don’t worry I’m out of France. He was supposed to call you.”

I do not have the original review, and the part at the end that I didn’t include above was when I explained what Airbnb’s customer service did after I contacted them. When I submitted the review I got a message stating “The reviews are only to state your experience at the listing, and with the host. You can not disclose any information regarding the case with Airbnb.”

The review was removed. I asked if I could submit a review without the part where I said what Airbnb’s customer service did, but they said once a review has been removed, it can not be re-submitted (how convenient for them). Anyway, the last part I wanted to talk about was the customer service experience that followed the safety concern… on with the story.

After the incident occurred in the apartment my girlfriend was understandably shaken. She had never been in a foreign country before and just had some weird man she never even knew existed try to break into our apartment (all for some laundry soap?).

I immediately contacted Airbnb’s customer support. The customer service person whom I got a hold of asked me what happened; I told her, and asked what our options were. She said that she needed to get in contact with her supervisors and that she would call me back (which is another thing I hated… why not just put me on hold? I had no idea what was happening and was totally in the dark about how long it would take for her to call me back, all the while my girlfriend and I had no idea if that random dude was going to come back and try to break in again).

While we were waiting for her to call back, my girlfriend told me that she didn’t feel safe here. I asked her if she would be okay with another Airbnb but she understandably said that because it’s her first time in a foreign country she would prefer to stay in a hotel if possible.

Airbnb finally called me back and said she can refund us and try to help us find a new Airbnb. I told her that my girlfriend feeling safe is my top priority so we would need to be moved to a hotel. She told me she has to check with her supervisors again if that’s something that they can help us with and hung up. She called back and said that they never offer any help finding a hotel or giving any money to cover the costs. She then told me that we will be refunded within a few days and once she hangs up we will be trespassing and need to pack and leave immediately because we will be considered “trespassing”. She hung up and we started packing frantically.

With the scary incident we just had with the guy trying to break in, we had no desire to see our host or any more of his “friends” in person again, so it was extremely stressful trying to pack all of our things in around twenty minutes. After we finished packing, we did a quick search for a hotel nearby.

In our haste we made a huge mistake: we didn’t make sure they had air conditioning (Paris was experiencing a heat wave at the time). The place that we ended up finding was about a sixth the size of our Airbnb, had no AC, no kitchen (or any of the appliances we were expecting to have like a fridge), and no washer.

Since we had to book the day of, it ended up costing $600 more than the amount we were refunded. We planned our trip a year in advance, only to lose all of the amenities we planned to have and had to pay a large amount of extra money.

What I wanted to emphasize is the fact that what scares me most about all of this, and should scare the rest of the public too, is how my host was a Superhost with 183 reviews averaging five stars… this shouldn’t have happened. If we were staying at a non-Superhost’s place that only averaged like three-star reviews then okay, fair enough; we took the risk, and we got burnt. This was not that. This was supposed to showcase the best Airbnb has to offer, and instead we got a horrible situation.

It makes me wonder, how many reviews like mine have been removed/censored from Superhost profiles? How many people had even scarier/more dangerous experiences, but got their review removed, and just didn’t care/didn’t know how to get their message out to the public about their situation?

For those looking for an Airbnb in Paris, this is the listing in question. This is the other listing the host owns. This is the profile of the host.

Airbnb Still Doesn’t Understand Local Tax

Posted on July 10, 2019

I collect hotel occupancy tax for the City of Galveston, Texas. We have a state tax rate of 6% and a local rate of 9% for a total of 15%. Without notice, in May of 2017, Airbnb began collecting and remitting only the state tax (6%). Additionally, Airbnb did not give owners a way to collect the local tax as part of the guest’s transaction. Owners would contact the guests and explain they would be charged an additional 9% upon arrival. Not only did the Airbnb reps lie to owners that Airbnb was collecting and remitting all taxes, but their reps lied to guests that there was no local tax to be paid. VRBO did the same thing in April 2019. We need to make this nightmare go away.

Airbnb: Pathetic Service and Fraudulent Hosts

Posted on July 10, 2019

It’s very painful to think that I booked this Airbnb after reading what services we can get here. Kitchen service was not there as it was written but I thought there must have been at least basic amenities like a kettle, milk pouches, tea bags, etc. I checked in at 12:00 PM but the caretaker was not present; he said he would come in the evening at 6:00 PM.

When he came, he provided me a fridge which was so dirty and unhygienic. Upon asking about basic amenities like a lawn chair and table to sit outside the host rudely said he couldn’t provide anything as this hotel was about to shut down.

My first day’s stay was gone to waste due to the caretaker and basic amenities being unavailable. We could not go anywhere else because this was a hill station and after 8:00 PM we couldn’t go for food outside. If I wanted to cook in the kitchen there were nothing like a pressure cooker, etc. What could we eat in just a pan and bowl?

I don’t want stay here tomorrow and today’s stay was forced on us. I’m requesting a full refund from Airbnb because my holidays are ruined now and I am going back to Delhi again tomorrow morning.