I am one of the oldest users on the Airbnb platform. I have been using it since it started. I am not going to lie, it helped me a lot. It changed my life in many ways. I used the referral program and sent many invitations to my friends and managed to earn around $500 in referral credit.
Yesterday while in Paris, at the end of my Eurotrip, I lost access to my account. I received an email saying I was probably hacked. I was like “okay, just fix it as soon as you can.”
They kept me locked until 3:00 AM the next day and sent me a message in Chinese saying that I can now book… at fricking 3:00 AM. The next day, I tried to contact hosts to book something; the messages could not be sent. I talked to seven support agents on the phone. No one gave me an answer or had a clue what was going on. They said “wait an hour – our system is jammed.”
I waited the whole day. I started tweeting about it. They responded to my tweets with their automatic replies. At 9:00 PM I received an email from the security team saying that I was removed from the platform and that Airbnb doesn’t need to tell me why.
In other words, I can go f&%k myself because I’m not owed an explanation. I counted on that referral credit because I am a student, still broke. I ended up spending two nights at the bus station. I will not let this slide, Airbnb. I am posting this in all of my social media platforms: Reddit, YouTube, Facebook… you name it. Airbnb, shame on you.