**Scammer Alert**

[Levavbrius0]

We are being scammed by **. The same date we applied was the same date we cancelled and they refuse to offer any of our money back! We never been to their property. They proceeded to ask us for more money on cash app.. We lost $654 to these horrible people and they want even negotiate with the customer service rep. This is ridiculous. Has anyone else ever been in a situation like this? If so how do we get our money back or at least some of it. Im disheartened by this entire situation. Her name is Carla lincoln.

**[Personal information removed in line with - Community Center Guidelines]

[Levavbrius0]

@Helen3 Thank you. I understand now! And that lady wants more money from me lol that's why she asks me to cash app her $200. She is greedy in my opinion. I thank everyone for the help but I will never use air bnb services again they are cheaper than hotels but worse than hotels in a certain aspect. I just want to say I have no problem with host I just had a bad experience and wish not to do this again

[Sarah977]

@Levavbrius0  Can you explain what you are talking about when you say "cash app?". Airbnb hosts don't ask for guests to send them money privately. All payments are through the Airbnb site, using whatever payment method you have on file, and hosts don't even get paid for bookings until 24 hours after a guest checks in. Until then, Airbnb has your money, not the host. 

You can report the host for her communication about sending $200 cash in order to refund you. That is wrong behavior.

I'm sorry you had these problems, but your problems were not caused by Airbnb, they were caused by you not understanding or not wanting to accept that guests are bound by the cancellation policy in place. Just because it seems unfair that you'd be charged when there was only a brief period of time between when you booked and when you cancelled, and that many hosts would refund you in those circumstances, that doesn't change the fact that there was a cancellation policy in place which you were bound by the moment you pressed that "book" button. 

When I was young and we kids said to our parents "That's not fair!" the answer was always "And who told you life was fair?"  That is still true. It's not always fair, but you can avoid a lot of grief by making sure something is really what you want to do before committing to it.

[Levavbrius0]

@Sarah977  cash app is a place outside of Airbnb where two people exchange cash. I flagged the messages after I told her No I would not and your are absolutely right I had a poor understanding of the cancellation policy. I do feel the wording could be simple if that makes sense. It should be concise "No Refunds allowed" and I bet alot of people that find themselves in my shoes would not be... Life is not fair and karma is definitely a circle of life. The host wanted more money from and she declined any type of negotiation I tried to make. I just didnt understand why do a customer like that! Why be so hard up for money unless you a scammer! I read everyone comment about how they would have negotiated or warned the customer before proceeding..she had plenty of time to warm us because we asked her for a military discount!  Anyways, it's 100%  a done deal now and there is no turning back. 

[Sarah977]

@Levavbrius0  I definitely do understand what you mean by the wording could be simpler. The wording for a lot of things Airbnb puts out seems to be convoluted, ambiguous, incomplete, and therefore open to misinterpretation or confusion. I don't know whether that is due to the people who write this stuff simply not knowing how to state something clearly, so that the average person can easily understand it, or whether it is by design, but I can tell you that hosts have a lot of complaints about this, too. 

Many times a host or guest will post here, having had an issue they have been talking to an Airbnb rep about, only to get more confused than they were to start with. Then someone here explains it in straightforward terms and the person who asked the question says, "Well, that was easy. I get it now. I don't know why the CS rep couldn't have explained it like that".