Charges for booking I have never made.

Charges for booking I have never made.

I have discovered Airbnb * Hman3Xq8D2 Surry Hil charge for$351 on my bank statement. There are no bookings on my airbnb account. 

 

Here is the reply from their security department:

I am a real person but unfortunately we don't make calls from my department.

We understand your concerns, but please rest assured that a full and thorough investigation has been carried out on the disputed charge. As outlined in the previous message, a refund cannot be issued in cases in which we believe a friend or family member who has access to your payment method has used it unintentionally.

Unfortunately, we're unable to release any information regarding the reservation or the user accounts involved without a formal request, such as a subpoena, from a government agency or law enforcement. If a government agency or law enforcement contact us regarding this issue, Airbnb will fully cooperate with their requests.

We again recommend getting in touch with anyone you may have given your credit card details to in the past. Additionally, we would suggest contacting any friends or relatives who have an Airbnb account that you have traveled with on Airbnb previously—if you added your payment credentials on another account and decided to save these credentials for future use, this could be what caused the unexpected charge."

 

I asked if they can tell me more then "we believe "

 

Followed by:

 

As I previously mentioned I will not be able to disclose this information.

From this point forward, the case will be considered as closed, and as further communication will not change the outcome of this case, we must respectfully disengage from further discussion.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter."

 

Is this crazy or what?

3 Replies 3
Colleen253
Level 10
Alberta, Canada

@Felix303  None of what they told you makes sense. Maybe start fresh and try to speak to someone else, although I don't hold out much hope for you, sorry...it IS Airbnb after all. I think you just got one of the many, many untrained service reps who tried to brush you off with whatever made up answer they could come up with. Press the issue. Bring up the FACT that there are no bookings on your ABB account that match the charge. How are they going to argue against that? If you get nowhere again, take it up with you bank maybe. Was it a credit card charge?

@Colleen253 

Thank you, I will have to handle it via my bank. Amazing there were 4 transactions on my bank statement, Both charges, and refunds, none of which are on my account. Airbnb response makes me think that their customer service are just bots.

Tom2511
Level 1
Saanichton, CA

I booked a place for 5 months and was immediately billed for 1 month. The daily rate included a daily service fee. Then 2 weeks before taking the accommodation I cancelled it. About 3 hours after I cancelled Airbnb debited my credit card for an amount equal to about 2.5 months.  The cancellation policy for long term rentals says that you can no be refunded an amount of 1 month rent if you cancel.  I was ready to not get back the first payment covering 1 month of accommodation and service fee. But an additional charge of 2.5 months was highway robbery. I complained and the case manager told me there was a computer problem which translates to mean that it Airbnb's accounting software is faulty. I phoned Airbnb and two of the people I spoke to said I'd get a refund but neither of them would put it in writing to me in an email. I told myself that if they knew it was a mistake, why wouldn't they put it in writing?  During the next 2 months, the case manager remained fully vague about whether I would get a refund.  Her emails were composed of phrases she probably learned at a course on dealing with angry clients and which only served to escalate a bad situation into a worse situation, were aimed at silencing me and minimizing the severity of my issue.  Whenever I pressed her she said the issue was under investigation and the people investigating could not be contacted. In the end, I had to get VISA involved and they did a 3-way phone call. From that point, Airbnb started to act. However, they then said that they would have to contact the owner of the accommodation to see if he agreed to refund me some money. It was not for the owner to say if I got a refund, since he was already getting 1 month of payment for the cancellation as per Airbnb policy.  Why was the case manager unwilling to process the refund of the 2.5 months debited from my card? I had to keep pressing her and she finally said I would get a refund, less the service fee. She intended to charge me a service fee for the months that I had cancelled. I complained and again said I'd go back to VISA. Finally I got the 2.5 months of charge refunded in 3 payments. I was told by VISA that if I was to trigger them to act officially, then there was a possibility that I might not win. This is because my VISA company in Canada would have to go through VISA International to process the claim. If VISA international were then convinced by Airbnb that they were processing the refund, then the issue would be dropped by VISA International. Once dropped by VISA, the case can't be re-opened. Not a fair system. But the best support is your credit card company, but have them advise you on the best approach so you don't lose the one and only chance to get your refund.