Real Airbnb Hell with Snowstorm Approaching

We’re having an unacceptable Airbnb day today. Let me explain what happened. We were not happy with the room at our first reservation, as it was so small that there was no place for our luggage. We have taken pictures of the room (and the rest of the house); the pictures in the listing are not false advertisement but not fair either. There’s no full disclosure of this.

We called customer service at 5:00 PM, after a long trip, to know our options. We spoke to a case manager who did his best. We were told we would get called within the hour but they were “experiencing system issues”. It eventually took hours to find a solution. The first hour we waited at a restaurant and customer service was kind enough to offer a $25 coupon for our dinner.

When it closed, we waited outside. It was freezing in NYC at that time. It was impossible to reach them because the system was down. We eventually went back to the flat, where our stuff was, and called again. In the meantime, the host told us he didn’t feel comfortable having us in the flat and that we should get the refund on his terms and find another solution, like going to a hotel. The situation started escalating.

Three hours after our first call, we received a call back. His best solution was to rebook us but by the time he called us back all the listings that we had looked at and throughly read were already gone. We looked at some other listings together and found a listing that was online. This was already between 8:00 and 9:00 PM and we had no luck booking it. As the situation at the host’s place escalated and we were tired and stressed, we just wanted to get out of there and as customer service found a listing in a different neighbourhood, we had no better choice but to take it.

Customer service sent us a coupon for that listing and we had to add 4 euros and take an Uber to the next place because there was no public transportation at that late hour. As we were not able to thoroughly read the listing because of the said conditions, we asked if it was okay to book the next place just for one night – a reasonable thing to ask after the earlier experience – and Airbnb said that we had to book all three nights. We had no choice and we were happy to get out of a situation where we felt compromised and unsafe.

We got to the place where we are now at 10:30 PM, 5.5 hours after placing the first call. This is a different neighbourhood than the one we wanted, and it seemed sketchy. The house is run down and we found out that this listing is a dorm type of situation with seven rooms rented out and who knows how many people; this was not stated in the listing. So many people are coming and going, the shared rooms including the kitchen and bathrooms are busy and it’s noisy. It’s a hostel here, not an Airbnb. Also the window is broken and wind is coming in with a snow storm coming tonight. We took pictures of it.

We feel like the solution we got was worse than the original problem. We were pushed to take just any solution. We are very upset with the way this was handled. Airbnb could have at least provided us with a hotel room, instead of making this situation worse. We don’t want to stay here and we also don’t want another bad situation with the host just like what happened earlier today. We have been using Airbnb for six years now and this has never happened to us. This is really bad. We feel very upset.

It is almost midnight and we are still chatting with Airbnb customer service, who is still trying to find a solution. The host is asleep of course, but the guests are still running around in this “hostel”. It’s been seven hours and our nerves are wrecked. This is not fair. Tomorrow the weather conditions are going to be terrible, with a snow storm. A comfortable and safe environment is essential. This is what we expect Airbnb to provide, especially after all we’ve been through.

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3 Comments

  1. You can tell a company like airbnb is desperate when they send out people to troll airbnbhell. It also shows that the negative reports are having an impact.

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