Airbnb not giving support to guest who have been scammed

[Gregory363]

A couple of weeks ago I arrived in Haiti, which was my first time going there.  I booked a house with Mario at Villa Te Soley in Jacmel.  Once we arrived at the road leading up to the house, we found the road in extremely horrible conditions.  It was a steep dirt road covered in large rocks and lots of bumps and crevices and very curvy.  The owner Mario, did say we need a 4x4 or SUV to access the house so we had a Toyota 4Runner but even with that this house was not accessible.  We had such a difficult time getting up to this house, that as soon as we were able to turn around, which took some time, we did so.  There was no way we could spend a week in this house and be able to go back and forth on this driveway.  On the way back down the road a large rock hit our car, causing a large dent over the wheel, which I sent Airbnb a picture of.  I even sent a video of us coming down the road to show the difficulty of accessing this house.  We never even got to the house because of how treacherous this road was.  We called the contact person which was Nadia, not Mario and told her we would not be able to stay here because of the condition of the road and she stated there was a hurricane 2 weeks prior and no one has been to the house since the hurricane so I don't understand how you can list your home on Airbnb and not know the condition of your home and the accessibility of the home after a natural disaster.  So our first night there we had no where to stay, our car was damaged and we are starting off our vacation trying to figure out where to go.  That is not a situation you want to put yourself in unless its really serious.  We tried our best to move on enjoy the rest of our vacation.  We found another rental, which of course I had to pay for.  As soon as we got back to the states, I tried contacting Mario directly since I had only spoken to Nadia, his contact person in Haiti.  I was demanding our full refund for the week of $1469.82, since we never made it to the house because of the road and I still have to take care of the damage of the car.  At that time Airbnb informed me I would still have to pay a $200 fee.  I was ok with that at the time.  I just wanted a full refund.  Mario never responded so after a couple of days Conchita from Airbnb contacted me about my refund.  At the end of it all, I only got around $900 back because that is what Mario agreed on so I'm out of $500 and it really pisses me off that Airbnb supports this.  I felt like I've been scammed.  I'm paying for a house and didn't even see the front door.  I asked Conchita for the contact of her supervisor because I wasn't satisfied with this decision and she ignored my request.  If anything Mario should give me a full refund and pay for the damages to my car since it was damaged on his property and pay for my inconvenience of not having no where to stay at the beginning of my trip but wasn't trying to take it that far,  just wanted my money back and move on but instead I'm paying him $500 for nothing.  Very disappointed in Airbnb for allowing this to happen.  I'll be using Vrbo for now on if this is how Airbnb will be treating their people.  

[Emiel1]

@Gregory363 

IMO it is what Aitrbnb calls a "travel issue" (Host fails to provide the Guest with the reasonable ability to access the Accommodation)

https://www.airbnb.com/terms/guest_refund_policy

[Anonymous]

@Gregory363  It definitely sounds like a situation that would have entitled you to a full refund, had you called Airbnb to cancel the booking on the day of your (attempted) arrival.

But as you can see in the policy @Emiel1  linked above, Airbnb has a procedure for refunds - you would have had to report the problem within 24 hours of it occurring, not wait until you get back home. If you didn't manually cancel the booking, it was still blocked from receiving other guests. 

I'm not sure you'd have had different results with VRBO - whichever service you use, it's still important to read the instructions and follow the correct procedures if you expect favorable results. 

[Gregory363]

I understand that.  I did contact the contact person, Nadia provided by the home owner and told her the situation as we reached the main road because I was able to call her but internet access in Haiti is very limited so that is why I waited until I got back to the states to contact Airbnb.  I'm just looking at VRBO now because I'm so frustrated with Airbnb.  

[Gregory363]

Also if I ask for the contact information for a supervisor, I should get it.  

[Sarah977]

What you think "should" happen, isn't the same thing as what does happen. You can ask an Airbnb agent to escalate your case to a supervisor, but you won't be given contact information for the supervisor (just like you won't be given a way to communicate directly with a member of the Tech team, Trust and Safety dept, etc.)

If a supervisor does then message you back after it gets escalated to them, you can answer them directly and continue to communicate with them.

@Gregory363

[Anonymous]

@Gregory363  Airbnb's customer support operation is not run by Airbnb. It's outsourced to other companies staffed by freelancers who work from home. It's understandable that you aren't given the contact for a supervisor, because there isn't one. 

The 24-hour time window mentioned above is for contacting Airbnb, not for contacting the host or co-host. It's understandable that internet limitations can make that difficult, but that's a predictable downside of using a web-based booking service.

[Linda108]

I see that you are a relatively new host with a private room listing.  As a host, I don't believe VRBO is an option, but as a guest, it certainly would be.

As to Air BNB procedures, I agree with @Anonymous  that what you experienced was very unfortunate for everyone given the hurricane damage.  It is a complicating factor that you were not able to reach Air BNB to cancel in a timely way due to lack of internet access.  I suppose if you had a guest that did not cancel until after the fact for reasons outside his control, blocking your ability to rebook, you would be more generous and provide a full refund.  Right?  In your case, perhaps your travel insurance would cover the rest of your loss, or if you did not have travel insurance, you could dispute the charge on your credit card.  Good luck!

[Jose4881]

Its true, i pay yesterday 2100 euros because they call me and tell me its secure. Now i dont have house money and they dont care

[Sarah977]

Airbnb doesn't call guests to tell them it's secure. You were called by someone posing as a Airbnb rep.

I'm sorry this happened to you, but you sent money to a online scammer without reading about how Airbnb actually works on the Airbnb website. It has nothing to do with Airbnb.

@Jose4881