If only the boot could be on the other foot

[Robin4]

You know there is a funny side to all these little ‘glitches’ because we can always imagine if the boot was on the other foot.

A Mr Brian Chesky has an important finance meeting in New York! His airline ticket just comes out of the payment pool for these sort of things so he gets a staff member to drop him at the Airport drop-off. Mr Chesky fronts up to the check-in counter and flashes his drivers licence.

The counter staff says…..

“I am sorry Mr Chesky, you don’t have a reservation on this flight” ….shock, gasp, horror!!

Chesky.....“What do you mean you imbecile, here is my boarding pass”!!

Counter staff….”Yes I can see that Mr Chesky but your payment method was rejected by your bank”

Chesky….”I want to see someone in authority”

Counter staff….”I am sorry there is nobody here in authority you will just have to produce some other method of payment, and I can’t guarantee that will get you on this flight, you know how much time these big institutions take to process these things……Why it could be weeks”!

Chesky….”Get    me    a    supervisor    now?”

Counter staff…..”Alright, would you just have a seat over there and I will page a supervisor”!

Ten minutes go by and Mr Chesky is starting to mull things over in his mind….’how come my payment method didn’t work my bank knows who the hell I am…. I probably bloody own them! How come I got a boarding pass if the bank rejected my payment?

A supervisor glides over…..”Hello Mr Chesky, I believe there is some sort of problem here”!

Chesky…..”You bet there’s a bloody problem, they won’t let me on this plane”!

Supervisor to counter staff…..”Are you aware of any problem with Mr Chesky’s booking”?

Counter staff…..”His bank won’t release his payment to us, something about ‘Up in the Clouds Payment Services', all their computers have crashed. They say they are working on it with all haste and hopefully it will be all back up and running in the foreseeable future”!

Another counter staff chimes in…..”Hang on I am seeing here on my screen that Mr Chesky’s account is OK, they just need to reboot the system and he will be all good to go”!

Supervisor….”Aaaah brilliant, there that wasn’t so bad was it Mr Chesky?”

Chesky…..”How long before this system of 'Up in the Clouds payment service' computers re-boots”?

Counter staff……Oh, I am sorry they haven’t given us a timeline…I think it might be best if you go back to the office and wait for our call”!

 A seething, ropeable, fire-breathing Mr Chesky storms out to the taxi rank.

Taxi Driver…..”Where to mate”

Chesky ….’888 Brannan St San Francisco CA 914…oh I don’t know I forgot the last part!”

Taxi Driver….”Card please sir!”……………………………………………………….”I am sorry sir, this card has been rejected, can you step out of the cab please sir”!!

This folks is precisely what we have had to go through!

If the boot was on the other foot…..how do you think it would be received?

Cheers…..Rob

[Sarah977]

@Robin4  Brilliant!

[Robin4]

@Sarah977

It's not my first effort Sarah!

About a decade ago as well as a disk of piano music, I wrote and published a book.....

I sold over 3,000 copies but it is hard when you self publish,  the recognised publishing houses will not take you on unless you already have a name. I still have it sitting here on the computer and I am thinking about re-releasing it again in electronic form.

Just something else I need to get around too!

I thought you would like that Sarah.

Cheers........Rob

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

LOL 😄

But Mr. Chesky probably has his own private plane and will miss this exciting experience 🙂

[Robin4]

@Branka-and-Silvia0

Branka, stop being a spoil-sport!!!!:-))

I want him to suffer!! get some of his own medicine!

You do have a great mind though Branka!!

Cheers......Rob

[Ute42]

.

@Branka-and-Silvia0,

but the private plane will have to purchase aviationgas to take off. If the pilot has a credit card maybe with the same bank as mr. Chesky has, they again will be in trouble. Our modern world relies on relyable payments.

[Robin4]

@Ute42

You are losing the impact of the thread....Airbnb offered us no lifelines, no solutions, no private work arounds (learjets in the wings) just frustrations every day and conflicting advice. I did think before I wrote that Ute....how can I put Brian Chesky in my position, and that of every other Australian hosts over that week or so....we don't own private jets....and that is what I came up with. Of course it won't happen....but it is a scenario I would just love to see played out.

Get a taste of the medicine they so thoughtlessly dished out to us!

Cheers.....Rob

[Ute42]

.

@Robin4

I agree, airbnb not offering You a lear jet is a real let down. How disappointing.

[Neli5]

@Robin4, great boot :).

It just occured to me that we rate guests and guests rate hosts but somehow nobody rates airbnb. 

I wonder if they would make SuperbookingCo? 🙂

There are the surveys but i havn' t seen the results disclosed. 

Neli

[Robin4]

@Neli5

There is no way Airbnb would want be rated......they would fail with both hosts and guests, their satisfaction rate would seriously struggle to top 50% and their account would be closed!!

Neli...... we are at the grass roots level, we deal with people and we bring them into our lives, we look them in the eye and shake their hands. Brain and Nate and those guys, they don't do that any more! They are business men who don't know what it is like to host any more.....

I think we have a lot better grasp on what we are doing than they do.

Cheers......Rob

[Robin4]

@Neli5 @Branka-and-Silvia0 @Sarah977

Oh Neli they certainly are rated. I don't know if you can pull this site up outside of Australia but if you can I am sure you will find it interesting....I am active on this site but something of a lone wolf where Airbnb is concerned....

https://www.productreview.com.au/p/airbnb.html

If you can pull it up...there is not a lot of 5 star in there, is there, in fact Airbnb struggles to get a 1.8 out of 5 stars...and I think I was responsible for a fair percentage of that 1.8!!!

Cheers.....Rob

[Cheryle3]

There are places to rate this and other compnaies. Type in reviews and thename of the company.  YOu will be amazed!

[Ute42]

.

@Neli5, @Robin4 , @Branka-and-Silvia0 , @Sarah977

I think the most popular site to rate airbnb is this one:

https://de.trustpilot.com/review/www.airbnb.com?languages=all

There are 3342 reviews to choose from. They achieve 1.4 points out of 10.

With this average rating, they couldn't list themselves on their own page.

[Robin4]

@Ute42

Yeah that fairly much paralels the 'Productreview' website I posted.

It seems their level of acceptance is fairly universal!

If you can access that Pruduct Review site I posted, the reveiws there are truly heartbreaking...much worse than what we see here!

These people just have to lift their game....it's no good continuing to stick their head in their a*rse and penalise their hosts for their mistakes

Cheers.....Rob

[Neli5]

@Robin4, @Ute, @Branka-and-Silvia0

Wow, that is worryingly low.

To be fair those are ratings for hosts, guests and Airbnb all mixed together. Lots of complaints about double booking, calcellation, cleanliness...and CS.

Still it's disturbing.

I checked some others. Booking com is right down there as well on ProductReview with 1.7 and 2.7/10 on Trustpilot and they don't even do payments. Homeaway is 8.2/10 on Trustpilot, but still wouldn't make the "SuperbookingCo". Amazingly Homeaway has only 1.4 on Productreview. How is that possible? Product review dosn't review VRBO or it's included in Homeaway?

Thing is, I was quite happy with Airbnb and loved the guests.

Then I stopped getting paid......

"Thank you for your patience, we will fix it.....7 days....maybe sooner."

I am patient. I AM patient!!!! I am. I AM PATIENT!!!

I have no plane to catch.

Cheers, Neli