I was hacked last week. Locked down my checking account. AirBnB's final payment on the place I was already staying at was refused.
they sent me an email that when to spam. never sent me a text. never sent me a message through the app they insist you install.
The next thing I knew I woke up to a call from my host asking why "I" canceled the reservation. I did not.
This was Sunday morning, the 11th, the date the final payment was due. I tried to pay but they had already cancelled the reservation so I couldn't pay. After hours on the phone, trying to get someone to explain what happened, (no one could) I was instructed to wait for a call back from the "trust and safety department" (epically laughable monicker), 1-3 hours. After 4 hours I called. The agent said it would be another 1-3 hours. I harrangued him mercilessly and elicited a 1-hour call-back promise, that he assured me his supervisor concurred with.
Next day after no call back, I called again.
This agent said it would be 24 hours. Meanwhile, I'm sleeping in a property I have no legal right to be in, in Mexico. (my host was the best, but that is beside the point. He could have thrown me out at gunpoint. TY HECTOR!!!)
After 26 hours I called back and was on the phone for HOURS! No one could ever get a manager to return my call. I had to take cash out of the bank to pay my host for the remainder of the stay.
I lost $300 on a tour because I had to sit by the phone for a call that never came. Finally, on the 4th day, an agent resolved the issue.
I wouldn't let him off the phone for hours, literally.
This morning I woke up to find someone had hacked my account (maybe one of the agents I cursed at?) someone created a listing for
a container home in California, renting for $8 a day (no red flags there), and a confirmed reservation for "Jared" on a nonexistent property,
and my upcoming stay after this one, also in Mexico, had been canceled.
I called to impress that this was an emergency, that my next stay in a foreign country was canceled, not by me, and that someone
had jacked my account and created a property listing. Agents had the WORST listening comprehension skills I had ever encountered,
lied that they could solve the problem, put me on hold, and then told me a specialist would get back to me in SEVENTY-TWO HOURS!
I'm trapped in a Kafka-esque nightmare, in Mexico, with my safety and finances at risk with NO actual help from AirBnB!
HOW is this kind of irresponsible abuse even legal????
