Gotta hate Airbnb support

[Pat168]

So my wife and I have been Airbnb travelers for a few years and we were looking for a host in the Encinitas area.  At 6 a.m. with my grandchild asleep in the bed with us (just a few months old) the phone rings and it is Maicah from Airbnb who wants to talk to my wife....My wife listens for a few seconds and then asks if she knows what time it is in California.... then my wife hangs up.  Today we get an email from airbnb "support" as follows:

Airbnb Support

Hi, Theresa. 

This is Maicah from Airbnb. I called you earlier and I am sorry the call was not...

Reply

 Sent with ♥ from Airbnb‌A‌i‌r‌b‌n‌b‌,‌ ‌I‌n‌c‌.‌,‌ ‌8‌8‌8‌ ‌B‌r‌a‌n‌n‌a‌n‌ ‌S‌t‌,‌ ‌S‌a‌n‌ ‌F‌r‌a‌n‌c‌i‌s‌c‌o‌,‌ ‌C‌A‌ ‌9‌4‌1‌0‌3‌Please note that you cannot reply to this email. Any replies to this email will not go to the Airbnb Support team. Please click the button above to view the full message and reply from your Airbnb inbox. Of course, when you hit the reply button to see the entire message.... the response is "we cannot load the message" and you can't hit reply because the adress of the sender is a "no-reply" mailbox.   Unbelievable.....  Isn't Airbnb in the modern computer age?  Customer service appears to be a joke.  I get that the call probably came from a call center in southeast asia....but is it too much to expect that the call center would have some clocks on the wall that suggest you don't really want to call California at 6 a.m.?  Or that the email would actually display the message and provide some opportunity to actually reply?

[Pat168]

Oh sorry...if Airbnb wants to respond to this rant... my email address is [personal information hidden for safety reasons]

[Lizzie]

Hello @Pat168,

Lovely to meet you. OOo that is a rather early call, I am sorry to hear you received this. I do hope you were able to get back to sleep again after.

It does appear to be a bit of a mystery why you were called, I would suggest contacting our Support Team directly as they will be able to check why they were trying to contact you. I'm afraid we don't have access your account here, otherwise I would be pleased to solve the mystery. For safety reasons, as you post is public, I have removed your email address from your post above, I hope this is fine with you.

Here is a useful Community Center Guide which outlines the range of ways to reach our team. 

I really hope you get this sorted.

Thanks,

Lizzie

[Rene-and-Zac0]

@Lizzie How would @Pat168 contact the “Support Team” directly, exactly? 

What phone number should they call? 

Thanks, 

[Lizzie]

Hello @Rene-and-Zac0,

I hope you are good.

Here is the specific phone number to call from the US: +1-415-800-5959 or +1-855-424-7262 (toll free). This is also outlined in the Community Guide I mentioned in my previous post. 

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Lizzie

[Sarah977]

@Lizzie  I regularly get text notifications of inquiries and booking requests at around 3 AM. I am on Central Time and all of my guests so far have been from my time zone, or 1 or 2 hour difference max. The guests are not sending inquiries at this time of the night, but it seems like there is a lag of several hours til airbnb sends the texts. This of course, means I have less than 24 hours to respond, since they don't let me know I have guest message until about 4-6 hours after the guest has sent the message, and then I'm not gonna get up at 3AM to message back, so it ends up being at least 12 hours until I can respond.

I turn off my ringers when I go to sleep though, cause no way do I want to get woken up by these crazy messaging times.

[David126]

@Sarah977

Interesting, I am going to ask next time I get weird timed messages when time sent them. Very odd.

I can think of no reason why there should be a delay.

[Villaeora0]

Contacted Airbnb support with a problem on the app and was advised to use google chrome or Mozilla ....whaaaaast???

[Dustin42]

Literally spend last hour simply trying to email them directly. This site has the worst help options ever. i see that many people have this issue. Even the replies to the complaints above are not clear. I live in sf. what do i have to do drive down there. 

[Sandra126]

I have only ever phoned them, have had very fast response (immediate) but that is because I am a superhost. I have tried as a non-superhost as well (for timing check) and gave up after 30 mins wait on phone. So, when a guest of mine has had a payment issue or whatever I have phoned Airbnb on guest's behalf and asked them to ring guest to save frustration. Has been very fast and smooth.

So it's not all bad!

And yes, sometimes there is a lag in messages, no idea why. I don't keep my phone in the bedroom so I can sleep, but bookings come at all hours regardless of any lag. The earth is round.