WAITING FOR REFUND

[Ruth1160]

I was at an Airbnb in Texas and had to be admitted to the hospital Airbnb instructed the host to throw away everything I own. I call them everyday and they tell me an agent is working on my case, it’s been a month and they threw out $10,000+ of belongings 

I have nothing right now and they don’t seem to see the urgency of the matter. My host was illegally running the Airbnb and left a nasty review and I asked for it to be taken down and that hasn’t been done either.

[Kate867]

@Ruth1160     Clearly there were issues with your stay and your Host is no longer on the Airbnb platform, most likely because of this.  It is unlikely that Airbnb would instruct the host to throw away your possessions, but if you did not collect them within a reasonable amount of time then the host will have had no choice but to remove them from her property.  

In the first instance you should have contacted your host to arrange a time to collect your items, or arranged for them to be shipped to you and covered all the associated costs.

$10,000 seems an awful lot of money, and IF you can prove that Airbnb did indeed tell your host to dispose of the items then you will need to provide receipts and evidence that the items were actually there.

I hope you have now recovered.

[Ruth1160]

I have provided all the evidence, and thank you I did recover:)

[Anonymous]

@Ruth1160   The only review that appears on your profile dates back to April and merely says the word "Good." Is that the one you're referring to as "nasty," or has it maybe been removed since you posted?

Whether the host's listing was legal or not would only be relevant if you took this to court. But that would still be an uphill battle, because hosts are not liable for items left behind by guests after their checkout date. However, if your belongings went missing while the booking was still active, what you can do is initiate a claim on Airbnb's liability insurance with this link:  https://www.airbnb.com/insurance/create-claim/liability

When the claim reaches an adjustor, you'll need to be prepared to show those receipts, because they're going to have a lot of questions. Anyone who travels with $10,000 worth of belongings in their baggage would take out private insurance on them, so right away this raises a red flag as a potential fraud case. 

[Ruth1160]

It has been removed. Thank you, I’ll do that