Tag Archives: airbnb credit card

Problem Paying? Accommodation Cancelled

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I booked a place in Nottinghill Gate in the UK for three different dates in December 2019 earlier on in the year. Obviously they take off a certain amount of money when you book and the rest closer to the time of the stay. As the time came closer to my travels, they took off money twice for the first two accommodation dates. The third would be taken off during my holiday. As a responsible traveler, I had international roaming for WhatsApp messaging only. I just before I left, I changed my credit card in order to get a bigger overdraft line. That was the start of my nightmare.

The first attempt to take funds failed. Knowing that my accommodation would be cancelled, I attempted to contact them via the email that they sent the failure to collect funds to explain to them that the card they are trying to take funds from doesn’t exist. I tried several times to add an alternative payment card on the Airbnb app, it took days as it kept saying there was an error and I couldn’t. I

contacted the hosts via messenger to tell them I was having an issue, and to please not allow Airbnb to cancel my accommodation. Eventually, I managed to add the new credit card number and set it as the default. I felt relieved as I’d covered all my bases.

To my horror on December 19th, I got an email to say my accommodation has been cancelled and a refund of R4.01 was being deposited into my credit card (the card that I changed to the default one). So Airbnb can’t take approximately R1800 from the account, but they can give me R4?

It has become a nightmare since then. I’ve emailed screenshots of evidence of emails, messages, etc to both Airbnb and the hosts and each party says that it is not their responsibility to make a decision. Airbnb says that it is up to the hosts to give the authorization to refund me and they say I have to get Airbnb to refund me.

I’ve had to make alternative arrangements for my last three and a half days in the UK which was stressful enough. I have no words of wisdom here as things haven’t been resolved. All I can say is don’t change your credit card details; it causes a nightmare. You would think a mere £90 is not too much of a dent in their accounts. It is for me, a South African.

Airbnb Helped My Ex Steal $1700 From Me

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Airbnb assisted my ex-girlfriend in stealing $1700 from me, effectively involved themselves in my breakup, and sided with my ex-girlfriend. My ex-girlfriend and I shared an account with Airbnb, during which time I was the primary account holder. The email address on file was my email address. My ex and I also shared a credit card account, from which we each had our own cards. I was the cardholder of the credit card on file, and my name was the name on that credit card.

On June 24, while still together, my girlfriend and I confirmed a two-month reservation in France, as we were to relocate. Accompanying me to France was my six-year-old daughter. A charge of $1700 was made to my card, and the reservation was confirmed. Shortly after making the reservations, the relationship ended, and as part of our separation, my ex took sole control of the credit card account. I turned my card over and had myself removed from the shared credit card account on or around July 6th.

During the account separation, I provided my ex with $1700 to cover the expense of the Airbnb on our card; she of course was not coming to France. On or around July 8th, I updated the Airbnb account information to reflect only my name, and removed my ex’s contact information from the account. During this update, I also provided Airbnb with a new credit card number to charge the remaining balance of approximately $800. This new credit card was also in my name.

On July 18, my ex contacted Airbnb and claimed that she was the cardholder of the card that had been on the account. This was false. She further claimed that the charge of $1700 made was unauthorized. This too was false. She apparently went on to claim that she was being restricted from staying in the Airbnb, and again this was false as she chose not to travel to France (not that it’s relevant or even remotely appropriate for Airbnb to have asked this – keep reading).

I received an email from Airbnb stating that I had 48 hours to reply to a dispute by the authorized cardholder. I replied promptly stating that the dispute was not valid, and that I needed to be contacted via phone to discuss it further. About one hour later, I received notification that the refund had been issued to the card, and that I now had a balance of $1700 with Airbnb.

As I stated above, I no longer had access to this card. I made several attempts via email and phone to dispute this, including speaking with a man at Airbnb, who explained to me that my ex was the authorized cardholder, which was not true. Regardless, he apparently had no interest in understanding what I was trying to explain to him. He went so far as to tell me that the money was refunded to my ex because she was not allowed to stay in the Airbnb. At this point I began to wonder if I was dreaming, or in the twilight zone, or both.

I called back and got another agent on the phone. That agent quickly transferred me to someone in the experience department. He seemed to understand the gravity of the situation and stated that he would work on it and call me back in the morning. When I heard back from him, he explained that his supervisor was not letting him work on the case and that it had to be deferred to Trust and Safety. He legitimately wanted to help, however it is my opinion that was he prevented from doing so.

I am now waiting to hear from someone at Airbnb to resolve this. In summary, I have been cheated out of $1700, Airbnb inappropriately refunded the wrong person for a charge that was in fact authorized, Airbnb did not provide a forum to me to discuss and explain, and the result is that I am now without a place to live in France when I move there on August 20th.

Issue with Getting Refunds from Airbnb Japan

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I am looking for advice. In January I booked three Airbnbs in Japan. Recently a new bill was issued by the government and a lot of Airbnbs got cancelled, including the three I booked. In this particular case I got a full refund from Airbnb and on top of that 100% of the refund in coupons. This was like a 200% refund which was awesome.

Here comes the problem. In March I changed my bank; I moved from TSB to RBS. Everything went smoothly and without any issues until the refunds were processed. Airbnb stated over the phone that their policy is to only refund the card that was used for the purchase and they can’t change that.

A month later (now) I still do not have any refund. I asked RBS; they say no transactions have happened according to the switch contract so they don’t know anything. I asked Airbnb who said the refund has been processed and there is no bounce back from the bank. They gave me a trace number to track the payment. I asked TSB, who said that they can’t see that transaction and they have no idea what a tracing number is. I asked Visa (the issuer of my card) and they said they cannot help me with this and I should contact TSB.

I have a bunch of tickets raised at Airbnb. I have a bunch of tickets raised at TSB. I have an investigation ongoing by the account SwitchService. I have an investigation ongoing by RBS. I am at a loss and have no idea how to proceed. If you have any ideas or suggestions please help.

Customer Service Nightmare Could Have Ruined My Trip

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I am currently in the middle of a sabbatical trip that I have been planning for over a year. I am a musician and small business owner from Knoxville, Tennessee, and I have been severely burnt out in recent years from the rigors of running a small business. Six months ago I started planning a four-month trip to the Dominican Republic. This past May I booked an apartment with Airbnb in Punta Cana and made an initial payment of $1,711 using my debit card. Shortly before leaving for my trip I had to replace my debit card. I called Airbnb the day before I left to give them the new card number for the future months’ rent. Unfortunately they made a mistake and cancelled the original payment (which had been made six months earlier) and charged my new card for the same amount. I did not authorize them to do this.

As soon as I saw that money had been taken out of my account I called them back and asked what was going on. They said there was nothing they could do to cancel the new charge but said the original payment would be refunded and the two amounts would even out. However it has now been over two weeks and the refund has not been credited to my account. I have communicated with Airbnb customer support at least five times over the past two weeks to resolve the situation, and they have been unresponsive and unhelpful.

Airbnb has left me alone in a foreign country with nearly $2,000 less in my bank account than I am supposed to have for over two weeks. I am fortunate that I still have enough money in my account to get by for the time being, but the consequences of this situation could have been disastrous if I had been on a tighter budget. Since Airbnb has been totally unresponsive, I have found other accommodations and am initiating the dispute process with my bank for the fraudulent charge. I am completely shocked that a reputable company would do this to a (repeat) customer and leave me in potentially perilous circumstances. I will never do business with Airbnb again, and I suggest than anyone reading this think long and hard before booking lodging through this awful company.

Airbnb is Soulless Organization During Hurricanes

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During Hurricane Irma, I wanted a nearby safe house to go to if needed. I found one within three miles and was willing to pay for three nights whether I used it or not. The owner wanted to rent it to me. Airbnb has a credit card verification process that was not working. They charged two different cards six minimal charges, under $2, to verify the card worked. All six charges hit my cards but Airbnb said they could not verify them for 24 hours. They then asked for a copy of my credit card Statement. After uploading the first one, they asked me to upload a second statement. This took over seven hours. After this I told them what they could do with their verification process. This was all for a $174 charge. I talked to three people at Airbnb in California and they were worthless. Please let this company die with their greedy hearts in place.

Airbnb Left me Pregnant and Homeless After False Charges

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I have yet to read about a case as unique and long as mine. Instead of explaining my story, since it would take me hours, I’ll copy and paste the email I sent to Airbnb about my experience. Long story short: I’m pregnant, homeless, no food, no gas, no shelter. Airbnb evicted me from an illegal sublet due to the host renting out his home illegally. I had to borrow $1200 from my family while I waited for the refund. Ten whole days went by when I was contacted via email saying the money had been put into my account. Not 15 minutes later, Airbnb double charged me and took every penny out of my bank account: $1500, $1100 for rent and $400 for living expenses.

This left me homeless because I couldn’t pay the rent. I’m two months pregnant and living out of my car. No gas. No food. No job since I haven’t had gas to get there. I couldn’t pay my family back from the refund I got that was taken back 15 minutes later. Now let me say what Airbnb has done seven days later: nothing. There has been promise after promise to help and call back. I have two days until my phone bill needs to be paid, which means no more contact with Airbnb unless I find wifi to email them. The only thing I have been asked to do is write an email for the investigation; this is what I wrote seven days ago and there has still been no call back (I call every day for hours just to be told “it’s not my department and I cannot help you but someone will call you”).

To whom this may concern: about eight months ago my fiancé and myself decided we would use Airbnb to save up to buy an apartment. We decided we would use Airbnb for one year to avoid moving costs. We knew this would be a hard year due to the fact we would need to divide our trip up; no host would allow us to stay more than a month or a couple months. Every single Airbnb has been a nightmare. I feel as though I’m getting into the wrong field (psychology) because I thought every host would be different so that it would work out better than the last. Instead, it got worse.

It was my first host who convinced me, brand new to Airbnb, that it was okay to pay cash the day we came to view the home. I now know why. The second day I called Airbnb due to health hazards. He began doing major illegal construction in the home. I called and showed all types of pictures. He did construction on the only shower in the home, knocking walls down while I was doing homework and hammering at 3:00 AM. He had no permits, and got saw dust all over my belongings; by this I mean ruined clothes, shoes, bedding, etc. and that was the day we left.

We took all our belongings and went to another Airbnb. We were promised a parking space and he didn’t even have street parking. We dealt with walking a half mile every day after work. My fiancé is a longshoreman that works 40-hour shifts and gets home all hours of the night. Every day he had to walk that when he parked after work. If you look at my messages with the host they say it all.

Then we stayed at an Airbnb which was absolutely disgusting. It started to get really bad when we went with another host. He began smoking crack cocaine in the house. I called Airbnb and opened another case. He was committing domestic violence. There were roaches, mice, and a lot of screaming between him and his wife. You can look at messages with the host as well; they will say it all and I opened a new case. We were supposed to stay with him for two months but I couldn’t do schoolwork once again due to an Airbnb host.

We left and went to a host who was the worst of them all. I was put in a completely occupied room. I was convinced he got confused and put us in the wrong room because it wasn’t the room in the pictures. We were promised a TV, AC, and fridge and we were put in a tiny 90-degree room with no fan. There were also bedbugs so Airbnb’s emergency department placed me with someone else. The money was transferred from one host to another. I got an email with a receipt stating I paid as well. The host, at the beginning of our month-long stay, said he received a $1200 payout. I sent Airbnb both the receipt stating I paid and messages from the host saying that I paid.

The new host’s house was disgusting too but we said we would stick it out. It was gross but at least the people were nice and had a newborn. I cleaned their home and was a very nice guest. Everything was fine until the host began going into our room when we weren’t home, and he would walk around half naked; he was rude. That’s all in our messages. I didn’t call the host on it since I decided I was going to leave him a review instead – stating the facts – so Airbnb and others could look at his reviews.

Why in the world would the host not reach out to Airbnb about $1200 if he didn’t receive that? That’s crazy. I even have him saying he received the payment. I got an email one day saying there was trouble receiving my payment so I called right away and the Airbnb agent said it took a little while for the money to be transferred and that I should completely ignore the mail. He proceeded to give me $20 for the inconveniences of the emails and I should not worry at all about the money. That phone call was obviously recorded so please listen to the man tell me to ignore the emails, state the host got the money, and offer twenty dollars for the inconveniences from the email scare. We stayed there for a month and it was the worst experience ever.

An hour after we arrived at our next host my fiancé dropped the keys down the elevator shaft so we called the host. He said it was no problem and he would get one from the landlord. Not 15 minutes later, I had his landlord and a police officer telling me I was living in an illegal house, that our host was not allowed to sublet, and we had to leave. Then I got an email from Airbnb saying to leave by 8:00 PM and that Airbnb was evicting me. At that point we took all our belongings and sat in the car for hours talking to Airbnb about a second emergency placement.

After hours and hours and hours on the phone of me saying I don’t trust Airbnb anymore I was convinced by an agent she would find me a “super host” with great reviews. Still sitting in the car with all our belongings, I listened to Airbnb telling me about our next host. She accepted all my money and then said that she couldn’t host us until the next day. I told her we couldn’t sleep in our car and she said it wasn’t her fault, that she doesn’t live there. My fiancé then told me to call Airbnb to get our money. He didn’t have it in him to work 70 hours a week to pay for us to continue to get screwed.

We made the scariest decision of our lives which was to take our money and move into a hotel. Like I said, we were using Airbnb to find an apartment so we decided that we would stay at a hotel for a couple weeks while we looked for an apartment and wait for our money to be put back into our bank account from the last host. Airbnb wouldn’t even pay for two full nights at the hotel for us. They gave us $200 and that was it. We were supposed to wait 7 to 10 days for a refund with literally no money. I had to borrow the money from my best friend to pay for the hotel and promised her Airbnb was going to give me a refund; we just needed a loan.

While living in the hotel I found an apartment for us. We just needed the refund and we could afford it. I waited those days and finally got the refund. I called the landlord and said I would meet him the next day to get the keys and pay. I told him I would meet him at 10:00 AM. Not 15 minutes after the money was put into the account Airbnb took it out and sent me a second receipt for a payment. I felt like I was in a dream; there is no way Airbnb could still be ruining our lives.

I immediately called Airbnb and had an agent tell me immediately that it was a double charge and that this would be fixed. I then called back after no word from getting the double charge back after 13 hours. At this point I had six hours to meet the landlord for the apartment so I called again and had someone tell me to call the landlord. My money would be put into my account.

Needless to say I lost the apartment we were supposed to move into today. Now I’m over a month pregnant and had to give the rest of my bank account to the hotel so we wouldn’t be homeless. We have a few days here then we are officially homeless because of Airbnb. I had three agents promise me the money within 24 hours. I was promised phone calls. I was promised this would all be fixed and nothing has happened. I have received not a dime, not a phone call, not even empathy. At 26 years old, my future, first apartment, and shelter was taken.

I start school on the 6th of September and I’m going to be homeless sleeping in our car most likely. I never thought something like this could even happen. I don’t even feel like I was compensated properly from all my troubles. This is the most stressed out I’ve ever been in my life. We are such hard working good people. Anyways hopefully I gave Airbnb enough evidence to prove my future was just pulled out from underneath me. I’m begging for our money back ASAP. I haven’t slept for two full nights waiting and waiting for our money. Please listen to the agents promising me this money and telling me I was double charged.

Nightmare Customer Service, Cancelled without Explanation

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I am honestly shocked at how terrible my experience with Airbnb was. It really seems like they just don’t care. I signed up for an account on a Friday afternoon and booked a $3900 one-month stay. Two hours later, Airbnb cancelled my booking with absolutely no explanation. Saturday I called customer service, and they couldn’t explain why they cancelled the reservation. They said the $3900 refund would take 10-15 business days to clear my credit card. The problem is, their “hold” on my funds created a situation where I couldn’t rebook the reservation, because it would have put my credit card over the limit. After a nightmare of five phone calls on Saturday, they finally agreed to ask the host to block out the dates, until my credit card refund hit the account and I could rebook. They also promised to waive the $200 service fee as an apology for the mistake. Luckily the host was very nice, and agreed to hold the property until I was able to rebook.

On Sunday the refund on my credit card cleared the account, so I tried to rebook the house on Airbnb. However, Airbnb was blocking my credit card payment for some reason. My credit card company said that it was fine on their end; this was an Airbnb problem. I literally spent all day Sunday calling Airbnb to resolve the situation. They never responded as promised, and would never let me speak to a supervisor. The customer service was totally horrendous. Then Airbnb asked me to “confirm” my credit card by uploading a copy of my most recent card statement.

Why am I having to do this? They already charged my card and refunded it; why the extra hassle now? I had already given them my name, address, phone, email, photo of my face, copies of my driver’s license, and all my credit card details. I need more crap to deal with now? I uploaded the card statement.

By late Sunday night they finally emailed and said “you can rebook now, and your credit card is approved.” Of course when I tried to rebook, Airbnb still had a hold on my credit card. Here we are four days later and I still can’t book the reservation. They are now asking me to upload a photo of my credit card itself, as well as other documentation that my credit card is associated to my email address. At this point I just gave up. Seriously Airbnb, you make it this hard to do business with you? The service was awful, the people were rude, and it is absolutely impossible to speak to a manager that can make anything happen. Stay away from Airbnb. This company obviously doesn’t care about service at all.

Incompetent Response to a Question on Transaction

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I noticed from my credit card statement there was an unrecognized transaction about Airbnb. I reported to them, saying I first wished to dispute this transaction. They said I should first contact Airbnb. This was the start of a hour’s merry-go-round on the Airbnb website trying to locate their telephone number. If someone found it they deserve a prize. Finally I found this website who displayed their customer service number. I called them. They took down some information about myself to verify I am who I said I was. When I told them the item I was disputing they said I should take a screenshot of what the transaction was. The transaction was not in my itinerary (that’s why I queried it in the first place). Anyway, then she said she was not the appropriate “department” to investigate this matter. She said she would send me an email to gather more information so that the investigative team could look at. Wish me luck.

Unauthorized Credit Charge Out of Nowhere from Airbnb

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Never leave your credit card saved on the Airbnb app or website. My card was fraudulently charged for over $200 but promptly credited back, as shown on my statement. I did not even log in to the website or app for more than eight months. I lost out on more than $10 due to currency exchange differences. Airbnb refused to credit me back, and refused to say why my card was charged without authorization. It took them more than two weeks to even reply to me. My bank can’t do anything because Airbnb returned the amount they scammed from me. My big question is how can Airbnb charge a credit card without approval or authorization? This amounts to a scam and should be considered criminal. I thought my case was isolated, but a quick search on Google turned up similar stories.

Airbnb Will Leave You Stranded With Incompetent Customer Service

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I started my Airbnb account with problems. Their “jimeo” scanner for verification has so many bugs it’s useless. I provided my credit card number and information. In the middle of my stay I decided to extend and was asked to send them a copy of my bill. I had already made the reservation and paid for it ten days prior to this request.

Who brings a paper copy of their credit card statement to the beach on vacation? Who would trust these incompetent idiots with such personal information, only to have them send a “mystery” temporary authorization hold to my account which took 2-3 days to post. I don’t do online banking for security purposes.

I tried to contact Airbnb – no response – and had to look up their phone number on a different company’s website (filled prompts on the Airbnb app make you run in circles with no help). I spent 15- 30 minutes on both the San Francisco number and general customer service line multiple times. No one picked up. There is no customer service in my opinion, only PR lies to deceive people.

Then they claimed I cancelled my stay the day before with no refund. I stayed there; the host was great. It was if they didn’t even read the email and just lied. I had to spend $50 for an uber home instead of another night’s stay. Luckily I was close to home. I would never use Airbnb again. This was just local for a weekend in California. I feel sorry for the poor souls who would trust this garbage lying incompetent company with a trip in Europe with expensive airfare. I hope another company comes along and puts them out of business. In a word, these people are asinine.