Airbnb refuse to give me my deposit back on my card but give it as credit instead.

[Greg2460]

The day before I was due to stay at an Airbnb, the host contacted me to say I need to send her 500euro deposit. After being sceptical, I spoke to Airbnb’s customer service who told me everything is fine, you can do it through the resolution centre and if no damage was caused you will get this back to your card. 
After a nice trip, the host tells me she has refund this, which she had to Airbnb. Upon checking this Airbnb had put this amount as a credit on my Airbnb account which can not be withdrawn. 

I called the customer service line to explain and they said they would investigate and call me back. At first they never got back to me and after calling again, I had to start the process again with someone else. This happened 5 times but once someone got back to me they told me it was correct and they cannot do anything as the original booking was paid via voucher.

Looking at their website, they said all refunds would be paid back to the same method of payment. After mentioning this they still kept the same stance. Please can someone give me advice to how to escalate this? 

[Mike-And-Jane0 · Accepted solution]

@Greg2460 You can hope that the moderators @Paula or @Bhumika or @Quincy ask Airbnb to look at this again or you can raise a small claims court case against Airbnb.

[Bhumika]

Hi @Mike-And-Jane0 , appreciate you for tagging us!

I'd noted Greg's concerns earlier and have passed it over for the Support team to have a closer look. Hope they reach out to @Greg2460 directly, incase they have any updates to share. 

Thanks again😃