Nightmare Situation Gone Worse

[Karen457]

I started a thread Long term Rental Experiencing Many Problems under this same category recently which can be read for an overview of this long, horrible situation that's gone on for way too long.

A bad situation got worse after we noticed water seeping through the bedroom wall of the house we've been in through Airbnb - it turned out there is a broken pipe that is leaking in the walls, with wiring... going through the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. The repair person said it was dangerous (obviously, and we couldn't use electricity there). We couldn't leave immediately, it was dark and you can't drive in the dark here in Baja due to the bad roads and other problems but we did leave the next morning, yesterday. Our case manager was, this time, on an extended weekend (he went on his weekend at the time the other issues were occuring and left no backup). The owner who is in the U.S. realized finally how bad it was - a repair person is there now, he has to take out the whole wall and this is going to take a lot of time. The owner sent a couple of different payments to help with the hotel, and also for other expenses as we had to buy cleaning supplies. We received the payment he sent yesterday through Airbnb back in our bank account today, however, earlier payments were still not received, they're missing somewhere with Airbnb so we're covering most of the expenses on our own.

Airbnb has been totally unhelpful - they don't care at all that we had to leave the place and get a hotel - in fact, with the case manager gone when I finally got someone else, he didn't even read the message I sent asking about the missing payment, but instead called the owner and then messaged me that the owner was getting it repaired and had sent the payments. Well, duh. That had all been documented in several places, but the Airbnb case manager didn't bother to read it and just made things worse for me with the owner. I am extremely disappointed with Airbnb - what would happen if I didn't have the extra cash or credit cards to cover the hotel, when our house through Airbnb was already paid for? This is still not resolved. I am way behind on work because of all of this, I work online and extremely stressed out. We don't know how long the repairs will take at this point so this may cost us a lot more than we can afford right now.  Tried Twitter, got the response, "the team will look at it when they can," the last case manager said he is looking into seeing where the money has gone but had initially said it can take 15 business days because of our bank - not the case since the other went through in a day. Plus, they should not be leaving us in this situation to deal with ourselves, it's insanity!

Any suggestions? Is there a way to get to someone at the top? This is seriously a nightmare.

[Lisa723]

@Karen457 ugh, so sorry this is happening to you. I don't really have any suggestions except to keep after them on twitter and maybe facebook. Glad you are out of there, hope your new place is available soon.

[Karen457]

Thanks @Lisa-I0'm hoping so too. They're useless on Twitter but tried FB just a little while ago just in case.  I'm really shocked at how bad it's being handled. I've always highly recomended Airbnb but definitely won't after this. There is a chance the house will be ready as soon as early next week, they know what our situation is and are doing everything they can so I'm really appreciative of that. 

[Karen457]

@Lisa723 I found the email addresses for the CEO, head of housing and global customer service, emailed them all - I finally got a message in the middle of the night from a supervisor that they were going to refund the part of the hotel nights that weren't paid for by the owner.

The last case manager just outright lied - the owner's payment to me was never sent to me until over a week later. He was the same one that called the owner after not even bothering to read the question or review the case. After all this, I'll be unlikely to use Airbnb again. At the same time I am very relieved it's finally been taken care of, but feels like I had to go through a marathon to do it! The new place will be ready on the 15th, 10 more days.

[Lisa723]

@Karen457 so sorry you had such a horrible experience, also that it has put you off Airbnb.

[Letti0]

@Karen457  It is horrible this was allowed to go on so long. This host needs to be removed from the AirBnB platform. He makes all us hosts look bad and is turning guests off of AirBnB permanetly. 

[Karen457]

I agree,  but I'm also pretty upset with how it was handled at AirBnb. If it was one host, out of the many times I've used AirBnb, that wouldn't be enough to turn me off, it was really how Airbnb treated me that made it so much worse. 

[Karen457]

It just keeps getting worse - I'm noting this here too try try and keep track of it all. 

The owner knew we were booked at the hotel through today, checking out today. Yesterday I was told by the repair guy/maintenance person that the repair of the leaking wall was done and just needed to dry, it would be ready today at noon, so I said we'd give it a few extra hours just in case and be there at 3. I updated the owner to let him know what the repair guy says. He responds, "Great, very good!" Checked out of the hotel today and we were on our way when I rec'd a message from the owner that it wouldn't be ready until tomorrow.  Pulled over and responded that I was really confused. Waited 30 minutes or so on the side of the road waiting to hear back and trying to reach the repair guy to see what was going on as I didn't know what to do. He calls back and says the friends of the hosts co-owner (his brother) told him to do the roof and all this other stuff, and that they're painting tonight, probably not a good idea to come back yet. But no one bothered to tell us. The host messages me that it's livable - this is a small place, they're going to be painting, the repair guy is doing the roof and when he does that the power is also going to be off, no a/c in 90 degree, high humid weather (with the paint fumes too). Plus we have the dogs and it's a small place. Not livable at all. 

Thankfully the hotel still had a room. There's a convention going on and weekends are busier which is why I'd told the owner we really needed to know by Thursday if there were any issues and we needed to extend our stay. It's all in the message thread but he acts like he isn't even aware I mentioned it (several times). He's not apologized. I heard back from Airbnb an hour later basically saying "Oh my gosh, what do you want to do?" I said we drove back to the hotel. They are helping to cover part of our previous stay but 3-4 hours later no word on what's going to happen now or any response to my concerns about this host. @Letti0 @Lisa723

[Lisa723]

@Karen457 in your place I would be done with this host, period. As @Letti0 said he needs to be OFF the platform. I don't understand why Airbnb isn't supporting you better here. I hope you are able to stand firm and get all of your hotel expenses reimbursed. 

[Karen457]

I should have, you're right we just don't have a lot of options in the area and it seemed like it was getting better. We get to move into our house on the 15th so I've kept thinking we can get through it but after today I just want to be done - Airbnb has mostly been sending me in circles, every time it's a different person I have to talk to and the situation is so lengthy now it all starts over.  I did end up finally getting the missing payments the owner had sent quite a while back now for the supplies after the case manager had blamed it on my "payment method" -  but Airbnb had actually never sent them to me in the first place. I'm frankly exhausted from it all but keeping at them to get all my expenses reimbursed and figure out what to do for the next 10 days or so in the meantime. I can't afford to keep paying for the hotel and we have no kitchen of course so we have to eat out, blah blah blah. @Lisa723

[Karen457]

After still no Airbnb response this morning or message from the host, I messaged Airbnb again and told them I needed to find out when my expenses would be reimbursed and be re-housed immediately. They've not responded to the expenses part only to say they will "start processing" - I found an Airbnb here in La Paz where we're at now in the hotel and they suggested I book and then they will refund the difference. I am really hoping I'm reimbursed for all this soon as it's getting to be way too much - next step is the Better Business Bureau and media/news stations. 

@Letti0 @Lisa723

[Karen457]

Ha! They sent the expense payment, great! But, they sent it as a payout as if I was a host, which requires me to fill out a 1099 as if I am a host and pay taxes on it. I told the person I'm dealing with this doesn't make sense - I actually got a message from Airbnb that said, "now that you are taking reservations you need to add a 1099." 

The person at Airbnb said she has never heard of this. Head bang. She said she'll look into it, that was a couple hours ago. I need to get the money back but don't know if I should just go ahead and fill out the 1099 but worried in case it might cause other problems with the IRS in addition to having to pay taxes on it since I'm not a host? Eahhh... 

[Letti0]

@Karen457  AirBnB does not issue an actual 1099 unless a host makes over $20,000 and has over 200+ reservations, the only exception is VT and MA where the states require them to be issued at the $600 and over mark. They sent the funds through the Resolution center this is my guess why that happened, it's an automated robo computer generated thing I am sure. I would not worry about this as it's going to be a non-issue for you in the long run. 

[Karen457]

Thank you!!

[Karen457]

Just an update @Letti0 @Lisa723

Airbnb ultimately took care of all the expenses and we seem to be in a very good place now with a caring, very communicative local host. Unfortunately the previous host still doesn't really get what the problem was and I don't know if Airbnb will do anything about it, but I did leave a very lengthy review (still not nearly long enough to explain it all and it gets cut off, but hopefully people will be weary of booking there at least).