Tag Archives: airbnb doesn’t care

Airbnb Doesn’t Care About Mice, Apparently

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My child and I were supposed to stay June 21-22 at this Airbnb property for  a bit over $1100, the price of a 5-star hotel. The first night we woke up at 4:00 AM from mice crawling on us. My child screamed and threw a mouse on the floor from his bedsheets. Mice in Colorado carry the deadly Hantavirus.

We packed immediately and left. While I was putting the luggage in the car a mouse jumped out of my suitcase and landed on the ground. I was able to take a picture of it. When we  got to an area where there was cell phone coverage I contacted the owner. She started screaming at me that I was crazy and that there were no mice. She expressed no concern about our safety and well being.

I cancelled our reservation online and sent an email to Airbnb. I called them immediately and stayed on hold for several hours without them answering. I tried to call them for the next several days as well to no avail. We slept in a hotel. The host refused to give me any kind of refund.

After a month I complained to the Better Business Bureau and finally Airbnb replied. They pretended to the take the matter seriously and looked at the mouse picture and the receipt from the hotel . They said that the host did not want to issue a refund and there was nothing they could do. They sent me $50 back out of the $1500 that I paid, a “refund of the cleaning fee.”

I asked them if this meant I had to stay with my child at the Airbnb property with mice crawling on us and they said we had to leave but they would not issue any refund.

Airbnb not Paying Hosts, Even for Normal Reservations

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In the last two months Airbnb raised $2 Billion to survive on the coronavirus outbreak. It seems they are running out of cash. I have a group with several Airbnb hosts who are reporting the same problem: Airbnb is not paying the guests’ reservations to the hosts. The guests are paying, but the hosts are not receiving this money, because Airbnb is holding the money without a reason.

Their customer service is evasive, and they can’t explain why the payments are not being made. After ten days and several phone calls and DM’s, they said the problem was “with my bank”, but they refuse to give the transaction ID to the bank. I called my bank and Airbnb hasn’t sent anything there.

It’s a unfair lie. It’s a scandal. They used exactly this same narrative in 2015, as this Forbes article explains. This is a police case. They are running out of cash and holding the hosts’ money hostage. I know several hosts who are facing the same situation, and would like to collect more stories to publish an article to explain this cash flow scandal.

Airbnb Illogically Refunded the Cancellation Fees

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I had a booking from a couple of guests from China back in mid-January. On January 30, they decided to cancel the booking saying: “Sorry, my friend wants to stay at another place. We shall meet next time!” Hence a partial refund was returned.

Then a few weeks later, Airbnb took that partial refund away saying the guest couldn’t travel and qualifies for the full refund because of extenuating circumstances. I do understand that it is unfortunate that the two couldn’t make the trip. However, the point is that the guests cancelled the booking because they chose to stay in another place.

Had they decide to stay in my place and cancel, I would fully respect that. Logically, I should get to keep the cancellation fees.

Am I being irrational? I had months of long messages with Airbnb support and their supervisor, who then abruptly said the decision is final and closed the case without allowing me to ask for the reasoning for their decision. The responses were expectedly slow because of the situation.

What’s interesting is that in the conversation, I asked for the contact for someone beyond the support supervisor level and the supervisor said that there is no one above him/her and closed my case. I went on Twitter about it. They asked me to DM my case.

Within five minutes, I got a response saying that he “thoroughly reviewed” my case and that the decision is final. How can you thoroughly review a case in five minutes including coming up with a response? At this point, I am tempted to just send the CEO a tweet since he stresses that he love feedback.

Anti-Social Behaviour from Guests Escaping Pandemic

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We had a family move into our village Poulton Gloucestershire Airbnb. They have been here since Friday before the lockdown and are still here. Their anti-social behaviour is getting worse.

Their rubbish piled high at the property will be too much for the district council to remove. They are loud, unruly, and acting as if they are on holiday and not compliant with a pandemic and lockdown. They are flouting every social rule that we are all trying to respect as this unprecedented time. They are raucous and have no respect for social distancing.

I am sure they believe that now that they are in Gloucesterhire, they are immune to COVID-19. We have an elderly community and I feel that Airbnb has been irresponsible to allow people to circumnavigate the government guidelines. My next step is to lodge a complaint with Cotswold District Council and then my MP.

Airbnb vs VRBO: Host on Both Platforms Offers Thoughts

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As a host with properties on both platforms, my policy is simple: I offer a lower rate with non-refundable options. I suggest that the guest obtain travel insurance if they are concerned about unforeseen events. If a guest does not get insurance and can’t travel, it’s like someone buying a car and not having insurance. When an accident happens, and I don’t have coverage, I want someone else to pay. This is what insurance is for to offer coverage and benefits in unforeseen situations.

I am a host on both platforms and agreed to the initial terms. Airbnb unilaterally changed the terms on me as a host, and offered full refunds against my policy and suggestion to obtain travel insurance coverage.

VRBO gives us the discretion to make the decision for refunds and suggests we do, but it’s at our suggestion and the reason why I stay with VRBO. I have worked with guests to provide win-win solution and am happy. I will change all my listings to VRBO while avoiding Airbnb at all costs as they screwed us by going back on our agreement on strict refund policy with the guest to obtain travel insurance.

What’s next? A regular flu, or there’s a accident that the guest gets into to fully refund them because of an unforeseen tragedy? Or should they encourage travel insurance vs unilaterally changing terms on a host?

If hosts don’t list on Airbnb because they screwed them, then guests wont be able to rent a good place… or not the better places at least. I won’t list my upgraded properties at low prices on Airbnb ever again.

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$3000/week “Green Home” Rental Came with Head Lice

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In mid-February 2020, a friend and I flew in from opposite coasts to rent a $3000/week Airbnb house in Scottsdale. The house was recently renovated and seemed clean; however, 7-10 days later, we each discovered we had contracted head lice.

We each live alone and for several months prior to this trip, we had been only in our own houses. Neither of us has ever had head lice before; we are 60+ years of age with no history of lodging complaints (baseless or otherwise) against companies or Airbnb.

I contacted the property management company and Airbnb, and was told: the house was clean; we could not prove we’d contracted lice from this rental; and we needed to file a complaint within 24 hours of the stay. Obviously, this is hard to do with a pest infestation for which it takes 7-10 days to show symptoms.

Other than responding to my email, Airbnb has put zero effort into investigating this complaint. Why is the burden of proof on us when two people who live on opposite sides of the country contract head lice within two weeks of staying together at the same property?

Seriously, other people are at risk of head lice infestations and Airbnb has an obligation to do more.

Thought I was the only one going through Airbnb Hell

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I had booked an entire large house on Airbnb for a family reunion and a wedding in Orlando for one week. We have five kids, six grandkids and a few newfound siblings (through Ancestry.com) that were all going to stay under one roof. At my age I do not know how many more times I will get to be together with all of them, so I cherish each one immensely.

The day before the trip, I went to contact the host for the information to get into the house and that is when I saw a big red cancellation notice on my reservation. My heart dropped. My son and his family were in the air on the way. They were going to be the first to check in, and now that he was in the air on his way from Fairbanks, Alaska to Orlando, Airbnb had cancelled our reservation.

This was my first message to Airbnb after I saw they cancelled our reservation:

Help! Our entire family and a group of friends are flying from Alaska to Florida for our daughter’s wedding. I went to our reservation to see the check-in procedure and saw that Airbnb has cancelled our entire reservation, without contacting us via email or phone or other.

We have had this reservation for a month and are leaving today to meet up with the others. We had no idea they cancelled us.

As it turns out, our credit card was compromised last month so they sent us a new one. We had no idea this was happening until we received a new card. Airbnb must have tried to run the old number and when it did not go though they just cancelled us without any contact with me letting me know.

This is terrible. What can we do now? Why would they not contact us? Help!

All of our contacts with Airbnb and the host were cordial, but in no way helpful. At least if you have an issue with a hotel, they help secure new rooms. We ended up having to find hotels so none of us got to stay together.

Here is the full story as I told it to Airbnb and still they will not refund my deposit, even though I never cancelled it.

As we grow older we realize there are only so many times left in our life that we get to be surrounded by our whole family: our kids, their spouses, our grandkids. Every single one of them. People grow up and move away.

For our family, Florida was to be that time. And to have a wedding in the midst of this. I could hardly believe I was fortunate enough, dare I say blessed enough, for this family reunion and wedding to be upon us.

The last time we visited Florida, Hurricane Irma chased us away, but now we were back. Imagine my shock when on the night before we were to leave Alaska to begin our amazing family reunion, to see that our reservation had been cancelled. I was in disbelief. Denial. Shock.

How would I tell my kids who were already in the air and were to be the first to arrive with their new baby, my grandson? In my heart I felt somehow someone would be able to work this out, to make it right. It was not to be. I am writing this from my hotel on the other side of town from where our eldest son’s family is staying.

Our daughter who is getting married is at another hotel, and our daughter’s family from Atlanta is arriving tonight to be in yet another hotel. It turned out this was a holiday (Valentine’s Day, which is also the 37th anniversary of my proposal to my lovely bride) so getting hotels together did not work out.

I am telling you this so you will know that you are renting these amazing properties to real people, with real stories, not just numbers on paper. People who work hard so that when it’s time, they can also play hard and love even harder. Real families who cherish their time together.

As we now learned, unknown to us, our credit card was compromised. Between the time I paid my deposit and the time you were to charge the remainder. As someone who has done many hotel reservations, but never an Airbnb reservation, I always assumed if there was an issue I would be contacted. I was not.

My Airbnb profile has my phone, email, address and even a photo of my driver’s license: many ways to contact me. My hope in writing this is to prevent this from happening to anyone else. Ever. What should have been a glorious trip, has been so difficult for me (I was in charge of securing our place to all stay together).

The kids have been great though and are making the best of our situation. The wedding tomorrow will still be amazing, I am still blessed to see see the kids and grands. Florida is about 100 degrees warmer than Alaska. Life is good. But please remember that your guests are real families counting on you to help make their dream vacation destination a reality.

Your job is so important, as most families do not get enough time to play together. To just hang out together. In our situation, a phone called would have resolved this immediately. Immediately.

Because I was not contacted to remedy this situation, which I knew nothing about, I am expecting a full refund of my first deposit. I only hope if this ever happens again, you will contact the guest for a quick solution.

Tomorrow I am contacting the credit card company to demand they cancel this charge as we never received a notice of cancellation. They also hold some responsibility for cancelling my card.

It was really the perfect storm; they cancelled it right at the same time Airbnb tried charging the remainder. My problem is Airbnb never contacted me, even though they said they emailed. They also had my phone number and could have easily called or texted.

This was a really important week for us, and it has caused so much stress. What should have been an amazing week turned into another episode of Airbnb Hell.