Two people I know have had the experience of arriving and the listing being not at the address that they were given. The first a middle aged woman like me travelling alone in France. My friend (Claire we will call her) told me she booked the listing and was told that the host would be away when she got there. The host kept trying to get a friend to pick her up at the airport. For some reason (I didnt understand) Claire declined and made her own way to the house. She got to the street and to the given address - no house as promised. She rang the host. The listing was a new build round the corner in the middle of a building site; the host claimed her house had no address (unlikely) as all the houses were not built yet and that she gave the nearest street. My friend had a nice stay, the house was fine but she said it was in the middle of a building site with no other lived in houses around it. She was very indignant about this deception and told me the story several times. I asked her why she minded. She said she had checked out the location with google streetview to see if she would feel safe walking around before she booked but that was not where she was staying. She didn't complain . She didn't note this in a review. I think she was wrong on two counts. 1. Her host was in violation of airbnb terms and she should have told airbnb. 2. This could happen to another guest if the host got away with it once.
The second was far more dramatic. A friend of mine has an active elderly mother in law to whom has been recommending airbnb . The mother in law in her 80s lives in Germany and had to go to a big city like Frankfurt Marie (we will call her) decided to try airbnb and booked her own accommodation on her own. She decided to treat herself to a central place and went on price as an indicator of quality. She paid a lot for a listing with no pictures, a 4 * hotel price. She arranged with the host to drop her bag off when she got in off an early train. The host offered to meet her at the station but wasnt there as arranged (at 6.30 am) so she went off to find her place with the address. It wasnt there. there was no such house or listing at that address, although the address existed. She went staight to the police. They took this seriously (I am unclear at what point she told airbnb). She booked into a hotel for the night. The police asked her to take calls from the host if they came and to go to meet her but not whatever she did to go into the place. They arranged for four armed plainclothes detectives to accompany her (at a distance) and for a sequence of hand signals to alert them if anything went wrong. Marie pluckily went along with this plan.
The host rang her and said sorry mixup on time thought it was 6.30 pm. Marie told her she had already booked a hotel and requested a refund but she insisted she come to see the place. As in Central Europe they use the 24 hour time clock this time mistake was unlikely. The host insisted that the listing was at the address she was given and that this was all a mistake.
Along goes Marie to meet the host. When she got to the address there was no listing there; the host took her on a ten or 15 minute walk to a much dodgier area. Her expensive room was a pull out sofa bed in someones sitting room. I don't know at what point the police revealed themselves but they did. Marie got her money back from airbnb and has a story to dine out on... I think the German police treated this as fraud.
I dont have any moral to these stories except to say inform airbnb if something like this happens to you and the local police if appropriate.
