Nightmare experience with Airbnb. Please help

[Lee4089]

Hi,

I'm desperate, can anyone please help?

I booked and paid for accommodation and arrived at my holiday desternation(Ibague). I messaged the host(who wasn't really the host) and I was informed that the property was unavailable but he would look into other options for me. Frustrated I decided to book a hotel for the stay.

Later that night the host messaged me that he had other properties for me to rent. I sent a laughing emoji because the thought of renting a property from him was absurd. He sent me a threatening emoji as a response. Not a good experience.

Here is my issue with Airbnb.

I'm trying to organise a refund for the money paid to the host. I reached out to AirBnb help for assistance however they said I need to get a partial refund from the host. AirBnb would still collect a fee. When I complained they closed the discussion. I think it's unacceptable Airbnb gets paid when the platform failed me and I needed to pay for a hotel.

I'm also annoyed because I saw the host had no reviews but I thought we need to start from somewhere. Airbnb stated they had verified his identity but it turns out the contact number belonged to the hosts son.

Can anyone please advise me how to get my money back? I keep accidentally opening support tickets trying to find other ways to reach Airbnb..

[Sarah977]

@Lee4089  The chronology of your situation is rather unclear. You booked a place with no reviews (yes, you are right, everyone starts out with no reviews, both hosts and guests), but never communicated at all with the host before just showing up? 

Then when it turned out to be either a scam or a host who is totally clueless, you got a hotel, but you didn't bother to contact Airbnb at the time to say the host scammed you? 

I'm just trying to understand what exactly happened here and when. If you don't follow Airbnb policy in these situations, it becomes more difficult to get refunded.

What really should happen is that Airbnb registers this as a host cancellation, as he was unable to host you ( trying to fob off another place on you isn't accceptable) in which case you would get a full refund.

Unfortunately Airbnb's customer service staff is by and large clueless, and you pretty much have to spoon feed them the appropriate policies.

[Lee4089]

@Sarah977 thanks for your reply. 

Maybe it sounds foolish and naïve but I assumed if I paid actual money for accommodation the platform(Airbnb) would make sure it would be available.

It was a five hour bus trip to the destination I was staying. At around 12 the same day I reached out to the host asking if accommodation would be ready by 4 PM(arrival time).

I didn't get a reply from the host(the host's son) until 4:30pm telling me to contact father because he didn't know if the property was available.

I contacted father and the property wasn't available. It was 5 PM on Christmas Eve and I just wanted to lie down after the bus trip, and so checked into a hotel.

As mentioned maybe I was foolish taking a chance on a unvetted host. Still I think it's a slap in the face that AirBnb wants to be paid a service fee for not providing a service.

[Colleen253]

@Lee4089 Here is the guest refund policy and the various steps one is to take when experiencing a travel issue. Did you follow these guidelines? 

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/2868/airbnb-guest-refund-policy

It appears you didn’t, which has contributed to your difficulties getting this resolved. Regardless, it sounds like you should be entitled to a refund. Try taking your issue to Airbnb’s Twitter or Facebook and see if that gets someone’s attention. Or dispute with your CC. 
 

[Sarah977]

@Lee4089  "I assumed if I paid actual money for accommodation the platform (Airbnb) would make sure it would be available"

How would Airbnb make sure it was available? Airbnb is just a listing platform- there are millions of listings around the world- how would they monitor each and every listing, or any, to make sure the host had a place ready for you?

There isn't anything wrong with booking a new listing with no reviews, but to book something, even if it isn't a new listing, and then only communicate with the host a few hours before you are going to check in isn't very smart travel practice. 

When you first book a place, you should message the host, or they should message you, then the host should send you check-in info a day before check-in, and any other necessary info. If the host is non-responsive to messages, or you get a weird feeling that something is off, then you would contact Airbnb to try to contact the host for you or to cancel.

Leaving communication til the last minute is leaving a lot up to chance. 

If you read the policy Colleen posted, it tells you what to do if you arrive to find a place unacceptable in some way, or non-existent, or the host has forgotten about your booking, etc. 

I do hope you can get your money back. It takes persistence and patience to deal with Airbnb.

[Lee4089]

Thanks for the responses. I'm Australian and we have pretty good consumer protection laws. Typically in this situation a call to a company would be made and the refund would be issued. I'm surprised how difficult is it considering the resources of this site.

When I read through the conditions it says I need to issue the request in writing but it keeps directing me to the same chat bot which in turn keeps closing the case.

Does anyone know if there is a phone number I can call?

I really appreciate the help, Airbnb should be paying you for the free customer service 👌🥂

[Sarah977]

@Lee4089  You could try them on their Twitter account. There are phone numbers. Look at the first post- Contacting Airbnb, on this Help forum. It directs you to how to contact Airbnb.

[Lee4089]

Thanks for your help people. I've engaged with my bank to charge back the fee. Hopefully the issue will be resolved. 🥂

[Lee4089]

Hi, quick update. AirBnb reached out to me. I'm guessing after reading this thread. They doubled down that they are entitled to the service charge because I didn't reachout within 24 hours of the incident as per the T's&C's. I don't think this is acceptable especially considering this happened on Christmas eve. 

I've requesting my credit card company to do a clawback as Australian law trumps T's&C's.