How to escalate airbnb support which is nonexistent

[Petr842]

Hi,

I am only using airbnb for the second time and this second one was a terrible experience so far.

Firstly the host took picture of an "apartment" when it was freshly renovated - the actual state is of course much worse.

The building itself is absolutely terrible with paper thin walls and creaky floors.

But ok, it is a dump but the construction quality cannot be relayed by a picture.

The problem is that owner/host described the the apartment with bunch of appliances which are simply not there and my biggest issue was a missing washing machine.

I searched for an apartment where I will stay for a month and where I can live and home-office including cooking, showering and washing my clothes.

The first day I confronted the host with the false information about appliances especially the missing washing machine and I wanted to cancel and refund the stay.

She refused.

She "argued" that there is a shared laundry in the complex for extra fee....yeah, great, this is big city there is a shared laundry on every street - I could have go to any other place which I find better - the reason I picked this one was the included washing machine.

Anyway, she told me to disagree with me and that I should turn to airbnb support - that I did.

The same moment she also changed the description of the place and switched washing machine to shared laundry....

I took the screensot of the website - but if airbnb is good for at least something they should at least have an audit and logs of changes...

But the support was basically giving me copy-paste text (Mary C is probably not even from Europe and from the english level I would say that it is from India) and repeated twice the same message over the course of three days.

I provided them with every info they could need but on the third day I got again the copy-paste reply and....note that Mary is going away for few days....

Like seriously? There is only one Indian woman doing airbnb customer support ??

What the hell is this company.

They just cashed my money and care for no standards, quality control or customer support....

I am absolutely appalled with this "service".

On top of all of this - the area where this place is located is basically a ghetto and unfortunately the same problematic people on the street are also in this "secure" apartment complex...

I am here for three nights already and did not sleep - next to my paper thin walls are people who smoke, stomp, scream, loudly talk and play "music" till the early morning hours...

I am desperate - but I refuse to just leave my money behind and rent something else - it was not cheap at all - and for this nonetheless...

Airbnb is utterly terrible company (https://www.asherfergusson.com/airbnb-customer-service-is-horrible/) and I frankly have no idea why people are keep using it.

It is customer unfriendly and they only care about their cut for the rent - no standards. Just cash in and play blind and deaf.

Can I do anything about this or just wait till my time is up and leave a nasty review?

[Emiel1]

@Petr842 

What you describe is a "travel issue", which must be reported and managed this way:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/3028/travel-issues-eligible-for-refunds

[Petr842]

Thank you, but when I follow the link it just tells me that I already have open issue - anyway I already provided all the info, but the problem is that there is next to none response from airbnb. I can open a new support thread but I don't want them to cancel me because I am "spamming" or something.

[Brian2036]

@Petr842 

I’m sorry you have encountered this horrible situation and have received no help from CS.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident.

When you try to deal with CS you need to make it very easy for them. Their jobs are difficult, stressful, and they are poorly compensated.

They get paid for closing cases so you should make it easy for them to close in your favor.

You can make it very simple:

You feel unsafe because there are people who are rowdy, noisy and apparently engaged in illicit behavior outside and inside the building.

You regret that you cannot complete your stay and you want to leave immediately. You request a refund for unused days and assistance in relocating to a safer place.

You deeply appreciate their assistance with this urgent matter.

[Petr842]

That was good reply - sadly I already wrote mine under the influence of mistrust and disbelief and anger 😕

If there would be at least some back and forth with them but there is just silence - this is a billion dollar company ffs... Can't they really afford 24/7 customer support? Especially since they operate globally...

There must be gazillions of shady hosts and complaining guests to warrant a need for robust support...

Like I said - my impression is that after they receive the money they simply don't care.

I gave this company chance because booking dot com was full and the free apartments were too much costly but now I regret that I ventured for this snake oil.

I absolutely don't believe in their almost five-star reviews - this place got 4,48 stars.... That is absolute bollocks...

This would barely get two stars on booking...