I saw one that looked reasonable and I took it. What I immediately noticed that this person was already fully booked for three months and he had recently registered. I didn’t get a direct message right away, which was already a bad sign: usually hosts send a welcoming message or a thanks. As the days passed I noticed that the host rarely said anything. He was evasive, concise and slow.

Then after a week I started to worry, if this guy was fully booked then why does he only have a few reviews? The given address was also difficult to find in Google Maps and he refused to provide step by step directions. The numbers were oddly numbered and a jumbled mess. You would assume 58 comes after 57, but not in this area. Then I arrived at the exact time at the exact door, but the neighbourhood seemed very out of place and the antithesis of something that resembles U.K. architecture, reminding me more of a commie block in the former Soviet Union. It was full of Slavic immigrants and the place looked so poor that the price I paid was probably way more than the weekly rent, I am not exaggerating.

I checked the address, but it didn’t have a name tag, a buzzer and it looked more like a shed than an apartment. When no one answered the door, not only did I realize I’ve been had, but I didn’t want to stay here even if it was a real listing. I know Edinburgh quite well, only you have to keep in mind it was Easter Sunday and most hotels had no availability. Hotels that had any availability were not in the position to quote any rates they wanted. Even one that I am a regular guest with told me they were full, on which they offered me to go around to one a few streets back that had only one left for $180, saying “you want it or not?”

This is a common trick they will always play, because you are desperate and will make quick decisions. So what was left to do than to stay in the Edinburgh streets, with all your luggage, all the shops shut and without any tap water? Sit and wait as the hours pass slowly…. Happy Easter.

Fortunately it was a very great trip in Scotland with splendid stays at several great hotels — only this particular Airbnb booking was a hiccup. When I finally returned home, I found it strange that the host never emailed me. He never tried to call me either, nor were there any new messages in the chat box. No “where were you”s, or “were you alright”s.

When I asked for a refund he immediately responded and blamed me for everything. He apparently left work early and spent fuel to drive home to answer the door. Which to me, gives it all away because at first he refused to say anything, but now that I am far away at home he can after all respond within ten minutes and very detailed? Typical.

This also may seem like I went to the wrong address, but I can assure you that I’ve asked around several times where it was, and people said “Oh, that is over there.” There can be only one, and it was the address he claimed it was. It doesn’t matter if I get my money back from Airbnb or by credit card chargeback; what is important to me is that you can get scammed at any time. It will not be safe even if you look before you leap. Hosts can always claim that you didn’t show up and provide a fake address, that way they can always get away with it and Airbnb will probably side with them.

Who is going to compensate me for the lonely night in the streets without a toilet and water? Needless to say I won’t do this ever again. Have you ever heard of a hotel canceling your reservation for no reason? Have you ever heard of any hotel not opening the doors or not existing at all when you arrive?

The post One of the Worst Things that can Happen when Traveling appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

There were pictures attached to the Airbnb posting from Zillow as well as cell phone pictures taken from outside our home looking through windows and glass doors to the inside as well as pictures taken from inside of our home. The renters showed the police their rental confirmation. The police were relatively uninterested because they said this happens all the time, that fake listings are put up and people show up and can’t get in. In this case, these people had been given instructions to access our home.

We have contacted Airbnb through several methods and been told that this will be addressed by the appropriate team. We’ve asked the call center operator to speak with a supervisor and she hung up. There is clearly no sense of urgency on the part of Airbnb in assisting us with finding the person who is still out there who knows how to access our home.

The post Airbnb Host Fraud Lets Strangers into our Home appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

At first I was a bit mad. Am I a scribe? What century is this? But did it anyway. Then the operator told me: “Didn’t I tell you? You need to address it to the host.”

I was a bit madder. I told them to just take down the listing and I’d be happy. I can prove it’s my place; it’s easy. Airbnb said they do not validate any document, and the host declared he has full rights on the property by marking a checkbox. For real: two different operators told me this with the same copy and pasted text, so it’s procedural. If only I knew, I would not have bothered to buy a house.

So there I am standing, a bit mad, and I tell them to at least protect the customers. Whoever reserves this place is basically being scammed and, in the best case, losing time. Then they got mad. Two different operators on two different days were very rude and said that I was not collaborating and the case was closed.

There’s currently a listing on Airbnb for a property of mine, and I’m not renting it out. I’m about to call the police, but at this point I’m not sure who is to blame.

The post Someone is Renting my Home on Airbnb and it Does Nothing appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

This is not my listing. I have had two parties drive by my house and ask me if they could see my house. Then one party asked me if I’m the host. I have contacted Airbnb at least thirty times to have them take down the listing and they simply will not do it. I have spent at least forty hours on the phone with them. They have never called back. I have contacted filed complaints with the Attorney General of Colorado.

This listing has pictures of the inside and outside of my house. The location, on the ad, is easy to find by potential renters because the area has only a few homes within it. I feel like I’m being harassed. My next step is to get in touch with the County Attorney and law enforcement. I’m very exhausted.

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I’m sure most of the time Airbnb hosts are genuine and the property listings are real. But unfortunately for me – first time user – I booked what looked like a fantastic apartment in London through a host and paid a 50% deposit. The next morning, I received an email from Airbnb stating that my reservation was cancelled and my deposit would be refunded.

Airbnb took my money and there’s no refund as of yet. When I spoke to Airbnb, they admitted that the host was a fake but did not give a crap that I would be out of pocket $1,7436 until they processed my refund. Yes, I appreciate that they picked up that host was a fake within 12 hours but it’s a pity it’s going to take more than a week for the refund.

They’ve scared off this potential customer forever, and I will tell everyone not to trust Airbnb. They should have done their checks before letting a fake host post a listing. To top it off, the fake host is still active and is still marked as a SuperHost.

The post Fake Airbnb Superhost, No Refund Coming appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

Alarmed, I called Airbnb immediately. I was told this was an urgent matter and I would hear back as soon as possible. On Monday, still having heard nothing, I called again. I was told that I would hear back within 48 hours, that the case manager assigned to my case is only available via email. I asked if the post of my apartment had been taken down. He said he couldn’t tell me.

It’s now Wednesday. I called again. I just spent 34 minutes on the phone. I was now told that the case was originally sent to the safety division, when it should have gone to legal, but now it’s in legal and they should be emailing me. There was no one for me to talk to. Is the post of my apartment still up?

As of now, I do not know if the post has been taken down. The fact that there’s no number for me to call or I can’t be transferred to someone to discuss this matter is beyond alarming to me. How do they verify the legitimacy of a host? I have no idea but something here clearly slipped through the cracks. I am shocked that a company who invites strangers into other strangers homes seems unfazed when a stranger shows up at an uninvited doorstep.

The post Guests Showed Up At My Door… I’m not an Airbnb Host appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

“Sorry, we don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He then showed us photos of our house. Surprise, surprise… we had all been scammed. Whoever had set up the fictitious Airbnb account had swiped photos of our home off of VRBO and populated them into the made-up account. Fortunately, the potential lodger had a daughter in town and was going to flop on her couch.

He did call “Richard” on the supplied phone number but the person on the other line hung up abruptly. We obviously encouraged him to call Airbnb to straighten things out. We also notified Airbnb. Unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears.

We thankfully got some of the information from the poor guy who was left stranded: his confirmation number, etc. We decided to research the information we saw online. The host’s photo had been swiped off a site for cochlear implants, and the cell number belonged to a guy in upstate Wisconsin.

We blocked our caller ID and spoke with him. He said he had been getting calls for the last couple of days and stopped answering the phone. I was sort of surprised that he picked up our call. My wife still thinks he may have been the perpetrator but he sounded somewhat surprised.

Meanwhile, the associates at Airbnb kept telling us someone would call us back… crickets, nada, zip. We called again the next day and the next day after that. No returned calls. All we ever heard was that they would mark our ticket as “URGENT” and call us back… yeah, right.

We also tried contacting Airbnb via their website. There was some back and forth which ended up as a short thread that was eventually moved to email. Once it got moved, the Airbnb contact names would change with every explanation.

A couple of days went by and lo and behold what do you think happened? That’s right, we got another visitor, a couple actually. They too had been bamboozled by this scam but did they get a call from Airbnb with a heads-up? Apparently not.

We continued our calls for the next several days. I also CC’d two Airbnb executives in my emails along with the various associates they assigned to us. Still, no courtesy call or explanation. They’re up for an IPO I hear. I wish them luck. With this type of non-customer service, I will not be indulging in any of their stock. I also canceled my Airbnb account. Has this happened to any other poor souls out there?

The post When an Airbnb Host is not an Airbnb Host appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

While she was wondering what was up, someone drove into a neighboring property and told her that building was not an Airbnb and that he’d had to tell many people that. My daughter did find another place (albeit expensive) to stay for the next two nights. She did reach Airbnb.

The alleged hostess had somehow gotten a clue she’d been twigged and ‘canceled’ my daughter’s reservation several hours after she stated the check-in time, so all that was refunded. Airbnb gave her an additional voucher for a significant fraction of the reservation amount as damages, which she applied to a valid Airbnb for the rest of her stay, and made her feel a lot better.

I did a google search on that address. An New Zealand realty site listed it as zoned commercial. I located a doctor, a dentist, and a travel company, all having that address. The exterior is a house, but at least that block, if not several or the whole street, is commercial now, and it’s been remodeled into offices.

Our major beef with Airbnb at this point is: why on earth did they not do at least this simple Google search on that address when it was first listed? If they did, why did the stuff I found so easily not raise huge red flags for them? The listing now seems to have been taken off Airbnb, and it ended reasonably well, but a lot of midnight stress could have been avoided. It’s certainly colored our whole family’s perception of New Zealand. The reason she went through Airbnb is she knows so many people for whom it’s worked well.

The post Fake Airbnb in Auckland, New Zealand appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

As described in the listing, we contacted the host and after some back and forth on details, the host generated an Airbnb-like booking confirmation email. Very professionally, the email was sent from an Airbnb-like email address and contained a link to customer service. Before carrying out the wire transfer, we unfortunately checked with what we believed was Airbnb’s customer service and got assurance about the legitimacy of the listing/booking.

I discovered this was a fraud a couple of weeks after carrying out the payment, as the booking did not appear in my Airbnb app. I then reported this to Airbnb complaining about the fact that they had hosts verified through their on-boarding process that led me to a scam and requesting some form of help or compensation.

Airbnb has been handling the issue in an extremely unfair way through their (outsourced) fraud department, fundamentally saying that they are not in any way responsible for anything that happened to me and that they can’t control what’s going on their platform. They closed my case a couple of times and no one, whether they’re in the fraud department or customer service, has been helpful in any way.

Not only that, but a few days after I reported my fraud case to Airbnb, I could find very similar fraudulent listings on the platform and I reported them – clearly they didn’t act upon them. My question is the following: is there any consumer protection for this issue? What do you suggest doing? The amount here is considerable (a few thousands euros). Any help would be very much appreciated.

The post Airbnb Fraud Not Addressed by Company appeared first on Airbnb Hell.

After some while awaiting a call back from the host to no avail, we contacted Airbnb, and were shown no consideration, only insultingly being advised of the terms and conditions, shedding any responsibility. Only upon insisting on speaking to a superior staff member were we offered any semblance of an apology, and a list of properties apparently vacant, but they were all booked.

To cut a long arduous story short, we returned home on our six-hour journey to Kent. This all took place on August 9th and there has still been no apology, and no compensation has been received. I posted a complaint letter to a London Airbnb address, and that got returned, stating “addressee gone away”. It’s so frustrating, so customer unfriendly and inconsiderate. Maddening.

The post Six-Hour Drive to Airbnb Revealed Nothing appeared first on Airbnb Hell.