Airbnb did not refund me

[Lyndsey51]

I was in Philadelphia for a wake of a friend.  I booked an airbnb for myself, the widow, and her sister and husband in law.  We were unable to check in before the wake began due to airbnb policy, which is fine.  However, at the end of the night, we went to the building and the front door was wide open.  It looked damaged.  We went to our apartment door and the code did not work.  I messaged the host via the app.  He did call me right away even though it was late at night.  I explained my situation and he said he would call me back with a solution.  There was no solution.  The 4 of us, after an emotionally charged evening had to take a very expensive uber ride back to my house an hour away as hotels were even more expensive.  After submitting a case with Airbnb, first I was told I would not be getting any refund.  Then, after more debate, I was refunded about 1/3 of the cost of the airbnb.  While I am glad I got some money back, I am very upset it wasn't a full refund.  Basically, what I was told was, that they are sticking to their refund/cancellation policy.  So, if for whatever reason, you pay for an airbnb and by no fault of your own, you are unable to get into the building, you will not receive a refund!  This is ridiculous and I'm very disappointed.  I will never use airbnb again and will encourage my friends to not use this service either.

[Frances4363]

Being a host means you take responsibility to be understanding that things happen and need to be taken care of. It really was up to the host to tell AirBnB to give you a full refund due to things being that way when you found it. It may have been a good idea to contact police and make a report as well that the place had been in that condition when you got there. The host does have the right to keep the contract as it states and not do the refund. Glad you got some of it back but it isn't AirBnB that didn't give you the money back it falls on the host due to it being a contract and if AirBnB did give you the money back without host agreeing the host could fall suit. Sorry for your loss. 

[Linda4476]

<Being a host means you take responsibility to be understanding that things happen and need to be taken care of>

So what happens when your host is not understanding or ethical?

The problem lies with Airbnb policies that allow hosts to get away with situations such as this.  The executives at Airbnb who are responsible for these policies have no interest in fixing them.  They are all quite worthless from the "customer experience" perspective.

So will Airbnb remove this post again?  The truth hurts, doesn't it, Airbnb?