On June 28 my Airbnb reservation was cancelled by the host. Airbnb informed me that a refund of $1,350.24 was sent to the Chase Visa credit card that I used to pay for the reservation. I called Airbnb and informed them that I had cancelled the card 6 months earlier in January, but Airbnb told me that there was a standard process through which the bank would receive the money in 3-5 business days and send me a check.
On July 3, I called the Chase Bank. The bank informed me that they rejected the refund because I didn't have an account with them and there were no longer any profiles associated with me in their system. They strongly suggested that I reach out to the "Merchant Services" department at Airbnb because they were able to confirm that the bank had declined to receive the refund sent by Airbnb.
I submitted a help ticket on airbnb.com. When I didn't receive any response from them, I called their customer service and after speaking to their customer service for 1.5 hours, I was told that they confirmed with their team that the bank received the funds and gave me an ARN number to provide to the bank to claim my refund.
When I called Chase, because I didn't have a profile with them, their customer service could not submit a ticket for me or provide any further assistance. After several follow ups and spending many hours talking to many different customer service representatives (this process took weeks), I was instructed to send a fax to the Correspondence team and Executive team at Chase Bank which I did.
After weeks, I received the following response in mail from Chase:
"We were unable to locate an account for you, and the funds were returned to the merchant bank on July 17, 2020. This is done whenever we receive a credit and no matching account is found. We ask that you please contact the merchant to resolve the matter. The merchant will need to contact their bank to locate the funds and then issue a refund check to you. Here's the contact information for the merchant and the reference number associated with the credit:
AIRBNB**
..."
On Aug 12, I submitted a help ticket on airbnb.com and let them know about the response I received from the bank. I haven't received a response from Airbnb. I have submitted two more tickets since then but I haven't received any responses, except the following message from their Helpbot:
"It looks like you already wrote to us about this issue, so we've combined this message with your other message.
This message thread is now closed, but you can continue the conversation here: ..."
When I call Airbnb customer service, a recorded message says that they can only provide assistance for trips that are less than 72 hours away. I have drained many hours in the past few months to receive my refund, but Airbnb hasn't provided any answers, updates, or assistance.
**[Sensitive information removed in line with - Community Center Guidelines]
