After 61 days, 4 support interactions on the phone and email, and now a fifth, and 2 bank overdrafts later, I still am being charged $223+++ for a Room I was unable to check into because the Host violated our agreement!
The verdict regarding this was already made and the case was closed on the 4th of January, around 3 A.M. after spending quite a while on hold and on standby waiting for the final decision. AIRBNB DECIDED IN MY FAVOR AND AWARDED ME THE REFUND IN ADDITION TO A COURTESY COUPON of $50 and rightfully so as I had to stand outside this guy's listing in January at 1 in the morning while police cars and sketchy people walked by my girlfriend and I, adding to our fear as we prayed this guy would honor the listing and open his door or tell us the key code. It was a nightmare and I wish I could have received a larger coupon credit as this has been so unfair to my girlfriend and I who were trying to celebrate our anniversary after going to Dinner and a Nightclub that night.
However, the fine print on this refund was it could take up to 15 whole business days to award my payment (in other words just refund for the service I paid for and received nothing from) rather than just simply cancelling the transaction. Why this is longer th an anybody else in any indsutry I"ve ever dealt with is a curious avenue... but I will focus on the matter at hand. After 25 days, I still hadn't received the refund, and so I issued a chargeback through wells fargo. They conducted an investigation and required information from me but I did not get the information in till the day it was due. However, I talked in length to wells fargo and gave them the information including the copy pasting of our records. They had already charged me the $223 you guys put through, and when I reported the non-refund, they gave me a $223 temporary credit as I was clearly in the right and was not receiving payment from you guys in time.
I then went to airbnbn and made sure that you guys were on the same page as me via email FEB 8th, 2019. My account waas restored to service and airbnb told me they saw the measures had been taken to cancel payment on wells fargo's end. Therefore, they would no longer issue the refund.
All of a sudden, today, Wells Fargo temporarily has made a new ruling - because of their red tape and different employees/departments not being on the same page, the intiail judgment they made which was to seek airbnb and talk to AirBNB about the situation, and prior to talking to me about the situation and receiving all of my records/evidence, has taken effect and reversed my $223 credit. Now my account has been overdrawn and I'm in a world of inconvenience once again because the refund simply was not made by AirBNB within 15 or even 25 days as promised, and I'm the one who is paying the price.
At some point in time, Wells Fargo may realize that they have made a mistake and try to straighten it out, but it would be much simpler if AirBNB would just issue the refund and stick to their guns so we can end th is nightmare. How hard is it, really? Please just re-issue the refund, and please issue account credits to compensate for the ridiculous amount of time I've poured into this FIASCO because of the Airbnb Host's incompetence and inability to properly advertise his property and its checkin times..
And here's a refresher about the night in question:
Let's refresh the details of this night I booked the Airbnb: The room showed as vacant, with check-in options allowed for both 11 P.M. to 1 A.M., and 12 Midnight to 2:00 A.M.... In fine print on the listing, it now says (you have to click "+read more" to get this info) that you can rent from Noon to 11 PM; however, if you simply book the room, the actual airbnb webapp software itself offers 11 PM - 1 AM as a check-in time, as well as 12-2 AM even later than the prior time. I chose the available option of 11 P.M. to 1 A.M. as it was a LEGITIMATE suggeted check-in time from the Host. I booked the reservation around 11:35 PM and planned to head straight over as the room was listed as being self-checkin, however, did not receive the normal instructions via email from the host. I started calling and texting him around 11:45 and did not recieve a response until 1 AM, at which point, he answered the ph one yelling at me that I cannot check in at 1 AM. My girlfirend and I , standing out freezing in the cold, were shocked and appalled and called airbnb customer service. They did not have any way to give us a room this late at night as it was now close to 1 30 AM, so they agreed that they would ask the host if they could give a full refund otherwise they would decide on it.
The host said in his words to ISSUE FULL REFUND but to never let me rent from him as a customer in the future; I have no desire to rent from him after what happened, but I did wish to receive this full refund. I don't know why the host was so upset, but I think he was claiming i was disrupting him for calling at 1 A.M. however, he did not take into account the fact that I had been calling since 1145 and he has up until 2 AM LISTED AS AN OKAY CHECKIN TIME under teh options within the airbnb web application. It took until 3 AM by which time i had already spent another couple hundred dollars to check in to a hotel last second, for which I have my receipt for still.
So now I am back $560 or so, with receipts, and nothing to show for it but a $50 credit, so please, issue $100 credit, refund the money, and expedite as much as y ou can on your end please, i have been a faithful and loyal airbnb customer for quite some time now, Please make this right.
