complaint against airbnb

[Beefy0]

I am getting seriously **bleep** off with airbnb.

Firstly, it is impossible - as far as I can find to contact them directly to lodge my complaint. It is like trying to find your way through a maze. Most user unfriendly. Secondly, my complaint is the number of emails I get all related to one booking. Everything is already done, dusted and confirmed with guests and I still get on average of 4 emails afterwards stating my time to respond is running out etc. etc.  Grrrrrrrrr - I am seriously thinking of cancelling my arrangement with airbnb if only I knew how? 

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*[Profanity hidden –in line with the Community Center Guidelines]

[Happiness1]

I've been a long time Airbnb host/guest, Airbnb used to be so great and fast, it has been a nightmare lately, it feels like you have to explain the same issue to 7 different people over and over again and still unable to solve anything, if I get paid minimum wage just to call/wait/communicate/wait some more/explain my issues over and over again to this case manager, to that case manager, then cases transferred another different case manager (endless cycle, you get the idea...) with all that running around time and get paid minimum wage for it, I would actually make more than hosting.  Does anyone have hosted with other websites and prefer them over Airbnb?  Please share!!

[Olya16]

Wow! Just a week ago I thought it’s a trustworthy company before I got my own issue with them and read all these comments!

im a host . 

Airbnb isn’t releasing my payout without even giving me any reason for that and just sending me copy paste answers “how they are here to help me” or not replying at all. The payout is for all the reservations I’ve been hosting from January. As they say to cut the transaction costs I’ve set up a bigger minimum payout. All this time I’ve been paying water, electricity, heating, internet bills, paying the cleaner, etc from my pocket thinking I’ll just later get a bigger sum of money. But when I now decided to receive the payout and adjusted the minimum amount to the exact amount I have in upcoming payout I didn’t receive any . I’ve contacted Airbnb support and after some waiting been told it will be released within 24 hours. Well it wasn’t. 2 days later I’m contacting them and within hours of wait, transfers to 3 agent I guess I can’t even get any clear answer not when or will it be released, nor even on the reason for that . One of the agents even miscalculated the amount! What he told me is that he calculated my transactions manually and got that number ( which was obviously smaller than the one stated on my account on THEIR website!). I’ve calculated it as well and got the exact number I have on my upcoming payout and my minimum payout. But no answer for that . Completely unprofessional . I’m quite new to hosting with them but would never think they would do such a scam with not releasing money for months of reservations! Did anyone have a similar problem and how did you deal with that?

[Sally221]

There have been many instances of long delayed payouts- is there a local group of hosts in your area? These things seem to happen regionally & so you probably aren't alone, cold comfort I know but if you can get together with other victims & make more noise (twitter?) it might help, best of luck, Sally

[Shelley215]

Horrible organization.  EVERYTIME I try to rent a place, it runs me through new hoops, doesn't recognize my account, won't let me log in on phone, etcc...... I HAVE NEVER HAD AN EASY EXPERIENCE ON HERE.  So frustrating.  I'm going to delete my account and start using the competitor.  Good riddance Airbnb.  Happy to NEVER USE YOU AGAIN.

[Jean70]

Hello Tony , 

Thank you for sharing your experience and many helpful info. I totally agree with you Airbnb become a game player to cover up their mistakes all time. They never admit they had done anything wrong.

I had a few bad experiences recently with some cancellation of reservation involving my moderate cancellation policy. It was a negative impact on me emotionally and also badly affected on my review rate too.

When Airbnb calculated refund With my moderate cancellation, I knew it was wrong but  I was kind of confused initially if my moderate cancellation wasn’t what I understood or if it’s changed.

This was another miscalculation again in 3 months. I reviewed carefully over and over this time and started fight for my payment that should be received correctly.  

I will show you how I interpret my policy using an example of guest booking a 5 nights reservation says for a month of 21-26.

After check-in  on 21 he went to visit friends and decided to cancel the reservation . Airbnb advised him to stay one night and shorten the nights from 5 to 1  so can avoid cancellation policy inspection. Guest took the advice and stayed one night at my place, change the dates from 21-26 to 221-22. Airbnb refund him full amount for the 22-25 5 nights

My interpratation. 

- The moderate policy clearly states:
If the guest arrives and decides to leave early, 50% of the nightly rate for the nights not spent 24 hours after the cancellation occurs are refunded.

This is how I apply  this policy to this case

1.  Please note “guest arrives and decides to leave early “  is subject to the cancellation policy.

  Any change made on my policy should  be subject to my cancellation policy ,

2. The 22 is within 24 after the cancellation occurs

 Guest should not  get refund for the 22,

3  for 23,24,25  the 3 nights are the 24 hours after the cancellation occurs.

He eligibly receives the  50% refund of the 3 nights 23,24,25 

But Airbnb First misinterpreted the policy. They even told the guest do not chose  to cancel which will be subject to my cancellation policy. But change a reservation would avoid cancellation policy investigations. They tried using many terms like “change, shorten, modify...” of a reservation  just avoid the word of cancellation during our message and phone conversation, and told me that “change “ are not the same as to “cancel” so it’s not subject to my cancellation policy.

After I show them what was the policy states, and how to interpreter and  apply to my case, they didn’t answer my question directly, but continued Play all  tricks and games to avoiding their miscalculation, and told me this is the final conclusion.

I think I should file a complaint, but seems no way? BBB no good anymore? 

could you please provide the link or contact phone of the justice department !

Thank you!

Jean

[Sarah977]

@Jean70  Yes, a lot of tricks and games. It was wrong of Airbnb to advise the guest to make a date alteration so they could get out of the cancellation policy- that's just blatant discrimination towards the host, assisting the guest to do something sneaky.

However, when a guest makes an alteration, it is a request, which you have to approve, it doesn't just happen automatically- did you not get a notification that the guest wants to alter the reservation, which you then had to either accept or decline? 

[Chris2079]

A horrible organization. they have twice cancelled me. They have no communications for guest. Everything is about the hosts. the promised to email me but another flat out disemmination. 

[Sarah977]

@Chris2079  What makes you think their customer service is any better for hosts than it is for guests? I can assure you it isn't- it's equally appalling whether they're dealing with guests or hosts. Their entire corporate attitude sucks. So don't feel special 🙂

[Elena1424]

The customer service is non-existing. Some random people giving random answers.  They sent me £25 voucher towards my first booking asking to click on the link and saying that the discount will be applied once I paid .  I clicked and paid , the discount was not applied and apparently the link went to my friends account.  I have been corresponding with Airbnb for a week but their solution is to cancel and re-book and they will charge the service charge. They won’t let me have their complaints procedure. It doesn’t exist. Or won’t tell me who is their regulatory body. They are probably not regulated by anyone. The worst experience I ever had. Will never touch them again.

[Stephanie]

Hiya @Elena1424 ,

Could you let me know more about this situation so I can reach out to the Customer support team?

Thanks,

Stephanie

[Alayne5]

I paid £90 for a " professional photographer" to come and take photos of my property. He came, he went. £90was deducted and hey guess what?? No photos, customer support worse than useless.  I’ve messaged , called . Nothing , zip, Nader , just a £90 hole in my account!

[Mary1777]

2 months and still no refund. We had a reservation that AirBnb cancelled 13 days prior to our travel date. When we discovered that the day before of our travel, they tried to re-instate it but the host was not willing to. So we  booked another one and paid for it. The host had refunded out money back on August 3rd, 2019 and we still have not received from AirBnb. Numerous calls, messages and escalated to so called "lead" - named Richard. No resolution at all. Host refunded $644.77 and Richard wants to "maybe" refund 505. We have reported this Colorado Attorney General's office for consumer fraud. I suggest you take action as well. 

[Steven751]

customer service is the worst and they  do not help at all. 

[Lesley277]

Have to agree - I’ve found AirB&Bs service atrocious.  We had to call the police about our aggressive host and move to another property - we’ve told Air B&B about it but they aren’t prepared to refund the first property!  Delaying and replying slowing seems to be a conscious tactic as most guests stay for a few days/a week and so by the time they ‘resolve’ your case the trip is over so nothing needs to be done and no money needs refunding.  Personally I’m going to actively back calls for AirB&B to be limited in city’s (such a as mine that are considering it) and will be de-listing from them.  They started of as a responsible and respectful company but that’s lost now and they aren’t a safe provider. 

[Can964]

Hello,

I would like to share my bad experience with Airbnb. 

I reserved one room on Airbnb for 18-20 (2 nights) of October in Madrid. According to Host information we had to check-in at 16:00 and that's why we made our Madrid plan according to that information and we planned to go to host home about 20.00 - 21.00 (Even we wrote her time) (October of 18 on Friday) and we tried to call her but we couldn't reach her and then we were trying to find her home while asking neighbours and after several tries we found her home which we would stay at one of her room . First, we ringed the bell and she did not open the door and we thought she is not at home (actually she was at home that time). Then we decided to wait outside in front of her home. But this place was quite scary as some ghetto which smells as weed everywhere. Then we started to check other hostels but they were extremely expensive and far away from our place and after waiting one hour we had decided to check again that home and we heard some voice inside and my boyfriend started to ring the bell until they opened because we did not have any other option to stay at no place. When she opened the door she was high with one girl whom she already rent that room. And she told us to find some place because she already canceled that accommodation 3 weeks ago. But we were not informed about that accommodation was canceled. Even though we checked all time and as you approved, we were right. Just she was lying and then we said we can't go anywhere at 22.00 and there is not any close place over there. And then she tried to find some of her neighbors whose we can stay at and after 30 mins one drunk man (Diego) came and we had to stay at his place. It was extremely dirty and smelling bad but we did not have any other option left. We couldn't even sleep because of the condition we were at. Normally we reserved her place for 2 days but the next morning we left that place early and did not turn back again. And for the next day again we checked some hostel and Airbnb but they were still so expensive thats why we had to sleep at the airport. Because of that Airbnb, all Madrid trip was destroyed and we are psychologically and physically destroyed. And I shouldn't even remember the fact, we called her 3 times, wrote messages - all with no response, which means extra bills for us, because we don't have Spanish number, so it will cost us even more.

So I would like to complain about Airbnb and Host. I would like to see a solution from your side. I have photos from the place which we stayed, screenshots which we called and send SMS to her but did not reply.

I am attaching photos 

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Can AYKUT