Tag Archives: airbnb disaster

Airbnb Host Slammed Door in my Face, No Help Offered

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My host “cancelled” by saying something about not speaking English in German and then slamming the door in my face. When I arrived late after walking for over an hour, I could see the lit-up house. I knocked and shouted hello, but the host refused to open the door. I set up my tent in their front yard in subzero temperatures. In the morning they came out to tell me I couldn’t camp on their yard. I tried to say that I paid for the entire house already, but they basically said something in German about not speaking English, then they just slammed the door in my face. For hours upon hours I tried to reach Airbnb to get my service fee refunded. I am also completely screwed by having my vacation ruined since the dates and locations were planned according to my reservation. I still had to attend a conference in the area, but with no place to stay.

Now I am homeless, in a half-broken tent in sub-zero temperatures because Airbnb took five days to refund my money. The service fee and currency conversion fee will probably never be paid back and I have tried many many times to file claims with all kinds of subjects in the header, including “EMERGENCY”. Five days after filing a claim (which took hours – it is close to impossible to email, chat or get in contact with a human being) I was contacted by an agent. He offered no help at all, apart from booking a new place for my two remaining days (unclear if this would be free of charge). However, I had already made arrangements at that point, and couldn’t risk having to pay for those two days either way. All in all, there was no help, no compensation offered, and the host is still up for business. Airbnb cares more about making cents on the dollar than people running the risk of losing fingers in the cold. Airbnb may be cheap and lucrative, but do you want to risk freezing to death? If there is any problem, what will you do? It is impossible to get in contact with a human being. The only support available (as far as I could tell) is totally worthless enough it makes me wonder if people created it as a bad joke to those stranded.

Lost Over $7,000 Due to Airbnb Check In Policies

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My experience with Airbnb has been unfavorable to say the least. For starters, I had helped some work associates book a property as they had to be in Los Angeles to work on a construction project. Since these are close personal associates, I offered to book through my account since the guys had never used Airbnb before. These men are also aware that I am a licensed realtor, so they trusted that I was more than capable to set us up with something that was safe and secure. Since I hadn’t been there at the time the guys showed up, and the owner decided to drop in, the situation turned ugly. Frank Grande, who is by far the biggest scammer I’ve come across, kicked everyone out, and reported the incident to Airbnb. Considering that I was going to be joining the men during the duration of their trip, it should have been noted and considered when it came to Airbnb’s terms and conditions, which clearly indicate that you must be present at the booking. However since I wasn’t there at the very same moment, I was penalized and lost over $7,000 due to Airbnb’s “judgement” on the situation.

The entire situation was ridiculous. I lost thousands to the owner who kept all of the money, and Airbnb who pocketed their share. Considering this, how can Airbnb be considered a neutral party to pass judgement on the situation? Isn’t it fair to say that since they stand to profit off my loss it would have been an easy decision for them in spite of my reasoning? Wouldn’t it be fair so say that a licensed realtor would never want to compromise their license over a booking for strangers? Considering the fact that I explained the entire situation to them and received no remorse and no compromise, I’d say their scales are highly tipped toward everyone’s pockets being filled versus moral ethics and compromise considered by a neutral party that doesn’t profit.

I have recently come to discover that someone had recently placed a listing on my account, allowing people to request and book through my account. I received no verification, emails, or any kind of authorization for the creation of this listing, the acceptance of bookings, and any notice until after the fact. How is this even possible? When I called Airbnb, I had to wait 25 minutes to speak to someone who merely apologized and told me they would have someone contact me. Here was their response: Change your password (in a nutshell) and then close the report. What kind of service is this? I will forever discourage people from using the site and being very careful about any bookings they place and payment sent considering this was easily done and Airbnb has done nothing about it… what a pitiful company.

Airbnb Construction Holiday in Palm Springs

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My daughter and I have taken a yearly road trip to Palm Springs during Spring Break for the last four years. Last March, we rented a 3-bedroom and 2.5-bath townhouse in a small gated development just a block off Palm Canyon Drive. It was a two-story building, so I took the master bedroom upstairs and my daughter took the bedroom on the main floor so she wouldn’t keep me up all night watching TV. I was awoken on the first morning by what I sleepily dreamed was a cleaning crew giving someone maid service. I wondered why they were cleaning a room at 7:00 AM and realized I wasn’t in a hotel and the noise was above my head on the roof. Workers were redoing the asphalt. We had rented this condo for seven days and four mornings were ruined by the workers. We even woke on the third morning of work to find plastic sheeting was covering the entire patio. Because our access to the carport was through the patio gate, we couldn’t drive away.

I’m easy going, but after being awakened three mornings in a row before 7:00 AM, my daughter asked if we could go elsewhere. I did not want to move everything (clothes, food, liquor, a 42″ flat screen to replace the analog TV shown in the pictures, and an Apple TV), so I rented a room for her at the Hard Rock, while I stayed in the condo. I was going there to use the pool and to go out with my daughter. After renting the hotel room, I texted the property manager to tell her I would like a partial refund of the $1800 I had paid for six nights, and to tell her the wifi had been out since the previous night, meaning I had no TV or Internet. She immediately got an attitude with me. She asked why I had waited “so long” to tell her about the workers. I told her it was because I was a property owner and knew that things can happen, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and hoped it was short-lived. However, by the third day I was getting really annoyed and knew the owners knew about it, because the Homeowners Association had sent letters to each owner several months earlier, as required by law (I spoke to some neighboring owners). She said the owners lived in another state and she would get back to me after she talked to them.

By the fifth day I had a large amount of video evidence regarding the level of noise. Pounding, dragging, pressure washing, etc. at 6:30-7:00 AM lasting until 5:00 PM. I had video of the back door covered in plastic, the back patio still blocked, and the grill and patio furniture, which was unusable. She finally responded, but only after we arrived home, to inform me the owners felt they could have stopped the workers if I had made an immediate complaint (right… the entire complex was being roofed, but one owner could have stopped it). She said because I waited until halfway through my stay I left them unable to do anything to assist me.

At that point my daughter told me to send a complaint with the attachment videos to Airbnb, which I did. After two weeks I received their response. “There was insufficient evidence for even a partial refund due to the timing of my complaint, but the property manager offered a 10% goodwill discount if I booked with them the following year.” As if it’s somewhere I would ever stay again. I think there are only two big property management agencies in Palm Springs and the property managers are all well known in the city. They all protect themselves and their paychecks by discouraging reporting with rude behavior. They delay complaints and give ridiculous explanations for why they can’t help you. Airbnb only makes money if it protects the hosts. Without hosts there are no travelers, therefore they will protect them before us. Especially the more expensive postings in popular destinations.

Disgusted Beyond Belief: Dirty Airbnb

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Since Airbnb does not allow reviews on places if we leave I’m posting my story here. People may wonder why I tried so hard to make this work after reading my email. It was because I was exhausted and the thought of hauling our stuff down three flights of stairs and finding a hotel seemed like too much. I was a fool to try so hard. Here is the link to the property. Due to Airbnb policies not everyone gets to write a review which is why I was fooled.

Here is what happened. Prior to arrival, I called the host, and within 45 seconds of the conversation he said, “you can’t judge me.” I asked him why I would judge him and he said he was going through a breakup with a girlfriend and had lost his BMW. He said he had people judging him of late. If he means judging him based on what I’ve written below, then I guess I’m also judging him.

We arrived and texted Ryan, the host. He told us to come to a bar close by to get the key. My husband, Hanny, and I do not drink. It was 8:00 PM, and we were both tired. By the time we got the text we had already unloaded all of our luggage. We were not going to put it back into the car to find a bar, which Ryan told us to Google. I texted him back and informed him of this. After waiting some minutes without a reply from him, I called. He said he got the text and was on his way.

The complex he lives in does not know he is renting out space. I suspect this is not that unusual. We didn’t have a problem with that, but we also didn’t want to have to worry about what to say if approached. It was apparent the apartment had not been cleaned in some time. While not cluttered it was dirty. When we walked in, the table that should have been used for eating was not only dirty it had a dirty shirt in the middle of it. Ryan got us some towels, chatted for a few minutes and headed back to the bar and his date. We were tired and wanted to go to bed, so that was okay.

The bed was a whole issue within itself. It was missing a top sheet, and the bottom sheet showed clear signs of being dirty: nail clippings, popcorn kernels, and discharge. The pillow cases smelled of perfume. Hanny called Ryan to ask where we could find clean sheets. Ryan offered to come back, but we didn’t want to wait for him. He told Hanny where he could find the linens. He found one top sheet and a couple of pillow cases in a linen closet. I found another top sheet in our room. We were so tired we just wanted to make this work. So we stripped the bed and put on the two top sheets. Then we noticed the top sheet from the linen closet had something on it. Soap, hand lotion, who knows. At that point, I said screw this and pulled the sheets off and took them over to washer/dryer area. He had a huge mound of clothes on the machines that we had to move over to get the lid open. Inside was other clothes that I think might have been dirty. So I had to remove a stranger’s dirty clothes to wash our dirty sheets. There were also clothes in the dryer.

After starting the laundry, I went back to the room to unpack. Nothing had been dusted. The desk and the chest of drawers had a layer of dirt. I’m not picky here. I have a picture of a wet paper towel that shows the dirt I was wiping off so I could set our clean belongings on them. I went to use the toilet and found just a few squares that I could use. No other toilet paper was in that bathroom. Later, I took the roll from Ryan’s bathroom. After flushing the toilet with very little toilet paper in it, it went down and then came back up. When washing my hands, I could see the bathroom sink was not clean and the mirror was dirty. I went and got more paper towels to try to make things at least look clean. At this point very few paper towels were left. I used about ten squares in total, so there was not much on the roll. I went to put my fruit in the fridge. It was dirty. The stove top was dirty. The sink was full of dirty dishes.

I went to shower and found a dirty wash cloth hanging in there and a box that had used soap stuffed inside it. I chose not to shower. I went back into the bedroom and stepped on a dead worm. I put the dead worm on the kitchen table. I figured it wouldn’t matter since it was already filthy. I sent Ryan a text listing some of the conditions above and started packing. Hanny was about to call Ryan and tell him we were leaving when he came in due to the texts. Ryan’s unit is probably fine for young people who don’t care about basic cleanliness and want to hang out and party. For adults that are there for business, it was not so good.

Ryan kept trying to blame his cleaning lady, but I don’t think that room or unit had cleaned within the past two weeks. He could have stayed out of the bar and cleaned the unit knowing he had guests arriving. I tried to speak to him about taking responsibility and not playing the victim role. It was a waste of breath, and I was too exhausted to spend time having this conversation with him. He is too young and immature to be offering an Airbnb to anyone except his peers. He needs to change his post and stop claiming he is two blocks from the beach. While it is two intersections, it would take about 15 minutes. If you read his reviews, you will see to what I’m referring. He also has people going up three flights of stairs with their luggage. He doesn’t tell them about the elevator at the end of the hall. I think this is due to him not wanting people to notice what he is doing. He puts the onus on to his guests to ask these basic questions.

Listings on Airbnb Can be Deceptive. Whom can you Trust?

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Airbnb’s concept is fair, but you always take a chance. How do you know that the host is a decent, law abiding person? How do you know that the host believes in keeping his place clean and as advertised? I recently spent four nights in the Bay Area, and I can tell you that I used every ounce of patience and kindness towards my host. The host was an older person who had health problems. Compound that with an extended stay in the hospital and the inability to adequately clean their home, and I was bitten by fleas for numerous nights. The stench from not being properly cleaned didn’t help either. What’s more, even after speaking to the Airbnb personnel, I didn’t get the response I expected. I asked immediately to be placed in another unit at their expense. Their response was that I had to document the host’s offenses. I was doing some important work and told them that it wasn’t fair that I had to spend my time, not to mention the possibility of humiliating the host, with the conditions forced upon me. I didn’t get a refund except for the last night, and this was due to the fact that I left two days early and actually booked with a very nice lady in another part of town. I asked them to remove this host from their listing, but I haven’t checked and seriously doubt that they will do so.

Airbnb Health Concern: Scabies in Savannah

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My daughter and her boyfriend stayed at this Airbnb on June 19, 2016. This is the message I sent to the owner today:

My daughter and her boyfriend stayed there on Sunday June 19th and contracted scabies. My daughter was in the emergency room this past Saturday and finally got a firm diagnosis after many days of being miserable and itchy and not getting properly diagnosed by an allergist or dermatologist. Your facility was the only foreign place that they have slept aside from home. With that, I would like to know if you’ve received any other complaints regarding scabies at your facility. I have not written to Airbnb corporate as of yet, but I will if I do not get a reply from you. I am also requesting a full refund for their stay, along with approximately $400.00 in medical bills. Waiting on your reply. I have photos of the unmade bedroom upon their arrival and I will indeed post this all over the internet. This has affected their health and quality of life.

With that, I made three phone calls to the Airbnb Customer Service line today. First, they hung up on me. Then I found somebody willing to let me email them the details, and my phone got disconnected. I called again and was told I am not allowed to email or speak to a corporate manager regarding such a health issue at a place that you are advertising and selling. When my daughter arrived, the bed wasn’t even made. They then opted to take the other open room. Scabies is a very serious health issue that should not be taken lightly. The owner did not reply to me or my daughter as of yet. After being treated rather rudely three times today, I am prepared to write to the BBB, as well as the local news with my story. I would hope that you would review this case and be prepared to reimburse the stay as well as healthcare expenses; I do have receipts. I anxiously await your comments and reply.

Airbnb: Business Based on Trust, but Where is it?

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I recently brought a party of seven to a ‘luxury beach villa’ in Boracay in the Philippines. The listing looked fabulous and perfect for our two-night stay. I booked it on the day and arrived with my party three hours later. Then the fun started. We were greeted by armed guards. Talk about putting us on edge. The house was uncomfortably hot. There was no way to freshen the house and the two air-con units in two of the bedrooms were useless. It must have been 40 degrees C inside. There were smelly animals everywhere. When I wrote to Airbnb about this they told me the animals were mentioned in the listing. I argued that the smell was not.

Once they have your money they don’t care. There was a pond inside – part of the listing. It smelled really bad. Again, not something you can discern from a photograph. But Airbnb didn’t care. When we tried to leave the host sent her unstable husband to the villa. The husband shouted at us and acted in a most aggressive manner. He threatened us with the armed security guards. When I brought all this up with Airbnb they were useless. It was extremely difficult to get through to them. When I did and asked for a full refund as per their guest refund policy they refused. No matter what argument I gave them they took a blanket line. I will never use Airbnb again. You simply cannot trust their site and how they vet their hosts. You also cannot trust they will act in the guest’s interests in any way. In a business where trusting with whom you will stay with is key, Airbnb is extremely exposed. I suspect one death or a serious problem will see the end of this company.

Kansas City: Unsafe Airbnb for Single Young Woman

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My niece flew to a large city to surprise me for my birthday weekend. My wife had agreed that she could stay in an Airbnb instead of our hotel. I would not have allowed that if I had known. When we went to take my niece to her Airbnb destination I became quite anxious as we passed two streets which my uncle who lived in the city had informed me never to be on or in that neighborhood. The Airbnb room was up a separate stairway on the third floor. The host had to remove a cat from the room with a vacuum cleaner. I begged my niece to bail. She is a 20-something professional and refused.

I asked the host if this was a safe neighborhood and he said yes. I told him my uncle who lives in the City told me to never travel on Troost Avenue as it is not safe. The host admitted Troost a block away was not safe. We started driving to our hotel as it was close to being dark and noticed the gangs coming out on Troost. This location was in the middle of the ghetto. The hotel clerk told me that it would be unsafe for me to drive on Troost or be in that area at night. My wife texted my niece and told her I was upset and quite concerned about her safety and she agreed to come to our hotel in the morning.

After we left the host told her there was no TV as a previous guest had gotten drunk and broken it. The same with the lock that did not work on her door. My niece later revealed that other guests showed up at 2:00 AM on her floor and were quite loud. She obviously was quite frightened since there was no lock on her door. My niece was lucky she did not get raped or murdered.

Parents: please warn your children – especially your daughters – DO NOT stay with Airbnb. Also I did a quick Google search of that address and learned it had a rating of D- and F for crime. That there was an aggravated assault, armed robbery, another assault, car theft, and burglary all in one night near this house. I also learned there were 75 registered offenders within a mile of the address. All the reviews for this address on Airbnb were extremely positive. This would give credence to the theory that Airbnb deletes negative reviews. I find it hard to believe that not one person commented about the clearly apparent, dangerous area where this house was located. Is one’s life not worth more than the $50 a night?

Horrendous Experience with Airbnb Customer Service

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Update: Still accurate but this very minute they have come up with the refund they promised.

My experience with Airbnb was atrocious. I tried to book a holiday cottage and the host tried to send me an offer. According to the host, the button on the website did not work and she then asked me to book the cottage from my end. When I tried to do that the listing had disappeared. Later our dates appeared as unavailable. I then panicked and put in a request for another place which was accepted immediately. In between, the original host mailed me saying that the dates are still free for us and would we still want to go ahead. We then tried to cancel the second transaction, because we wanted to stay with the original host. After a day of frantic email exchanges between Airbnb and the two hosts and myself, I rang Airbnb (cost: £17) and they agreed to refund the money they had taken from me for the second host (minus their service charge), so I could proceed with the first host. I agreed to that. They confirmed everything in an email. A day later nothing was cancelled or refunded and the whole email process started again.Eventually they refunded me £98 out of £223 for a double booking that was not supposed to have happened, as their website did not allow us to stick with our original host. Talking to hosts is not possible, as Airbnb deletes all phone numbers and email addresses until they have taken the money. I am unlikely to be able to claim my money back through my credit card company because they retracted their refund confirmation email a day after they had sent it and I was stupid enough not to have printed it. All in all, a truly horrendous experience.

Horrendous Airbnb Stay at Hong Kong Brothel

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What a nightmare! First of all, I’m the kind of person who rarely complaints and would just let things be in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, but my experience with Airbnb at this particular “inn” was so bad I had to share so others can take precautions or maybe think twice before booking. We arrived at the place early and the host told us beforehand that if we did come early and if there was an empty room we could either leave our luggage there or rest in an available room first. We arrived early and found the building where the room was located very dodgy, but at that point we didn’t suspect anything. Then we went up to Level 7 which is where the so called inn is, and we saw several lots with pink neon lights and immediately thought that this looked somehow familiar – like where people look for prostitutes in dramas; we couldn’t confirm this as we never thought it would be that bad.

So we called up the host, Grace, and told her that we have arrived, and she just gave us the pin to the main door (mind you we hadn’t seen her until now). We then entered the “inn” and this is where the adventure begins. She told us to look for the keys under the tissue box and some other items that I can’t remember in the common area. We have two key cards and she told us to enter Room 1. So we entered Room 1. It was a very narrow room but we already expected that. The air conditioning did not work and we called the host again. She gave us instructions on how to use the air conditioning but it did not really work. So she told us to go to another room and said that we could switch if we preferred the other room (still communicating over the phone at this point). So we went to Room 5; the space and toilet there looked better than those in the first room so we switched rooms. Then we decided to freshen up and then head out but – guess what – we could not get the toilet bowl to flush! So we called the host AGAIN, and she instructed us over the phone again. We still could not get the toilet to work. She sent the cleaner in to check and the cleaner said that we should not dispose of toilet paper in the toilet bowl, as it causes it to clog (I mean, what kind of toilet bowl can’t flush toilet paper?).

Fast forward to the second day. As we were waiting for the lift outside, we saw advertisements providing sex services stuck all around the “pink houses”. We felt a little bit weird and disgusted but didn’t put much thought into it. We went down and then I remembered I left something in the room. So we went back up to the room. This time, a man entered the lift with us and gave us the weirdest look which made us so uncomfortable. He exited the same floor as us but didn’t enter any of the units and instead used the stairs, which was so weird. Whenever we returned, we would see different men leaving or entering the same floor as us. That’s when we realized something was really wrong: we were literally living on the same floor where people were seeking SEX SERVICES! I’m not going to talk in circles saying “special massage services” because it was literally a building of prostitution!

We couldn’t take it and left after two nights to go to a proper hotel as it gave us so much anxiety entering and leaving the building. I didn’t even bother telling the host and didn’t even ask for any refund because, as I said, I don’t like trouble. She didn’t even call and ask what happened but I’m actually glad she didn’t because I was so mad I don’t think any good words would have come out of my mouth. I definitely do not recommend staying here if you are a female or with a bunch of female friends for obvious reasons. In fact, just stay in a proper hotel even if it costs a bit more; there’s no point saving some money and risking your own safety.