Poor experience at a recent Airbnb stay

[Ming-Lam0]

I had never had such a bad experience with Airbnb; I and my friends booked ** and are terribly shocked and disappointed by the actual quality of the cottage when we got there. It looked totally opposite to what their pictures shown online. The door lock was broken so we couldn’t get into the house, we stood there for an hour and got mosquito bites the whole time because the lawn was all weeds grown in a foot tall at the front and backyards. Apparently the place has no maintenance whatsoever and we were left unattended even we had called 3 times and waited for the response from the owner of the house. At last the owner called us back after an hour but couldn’t guarantee that the locksmith would arrive within a certain time to fix the door lock. At the end we had to leave and the damage made was not just the mosquito bites on our body, the food spoiled, but also our mood and hopes of gathering with friends for the long weekend was ruined entirely. The emotional stress was intense and the damage cannot be mended. We tried posting a review on their site via Airbnb so that other people won’t become another victim, but there is no place for us to post it. Up to today’s date we have not received any refund.

**[Sensitive information removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines] - 3.  - Content that is sufficient to identify a listing’s location or other content that may pose a personal safety risk to an Airbnb community member 

[Joelle43]

Hello @Ming-Lam0 

I can imagine your disappoint and you were right in contacting the host first but have you since contacted Airbnb either by phone or via the message system?  You can report this host if you say that the photos on his listing do not correspond to the reality.  Go to your reservation number and there will be a help section linked to this awful listing.

Good luck and all the best

Joëlle (a host)

[Ming-Lam0]

Thank you Joelle, I guess you’re one of the best hosts so you’ve never received any complaints. We called Airbnb 3 times so that the owner called us after. He asked what did we want other than money back. We hope to let others know so that no one will become a victim like us.   We did check back the link but no place for us to input a review, I guess that’s not fair to other renters if they are unable to get informed of this awful listing.   Such a let down!

[Helen744]

@Bhumika  Is this post allowed with full details of a hosts property ? Surely not... H

[Ming-Lam0]

I guess that’s why lousy hosts can continue listing their poor property to scam renters.

[Jenny]

Hi @Ming-Lam0 

Sorry to hear you had such a disappointing experience.  Did you see @Joelle43's reply asking for some more details about whether or not you've contacted Airbnb?  You might find this article handy for information on how to handle this kind of scenario - although I sincerely hope it doesn't happen to you again.

As queried by @Helen744, it's against our Community Guidelines to post the full address of the listing, so I've had to remove it, and I've changed your post title to reflect what your query is about.

Feel free to pop back and answer @Joelle43's questions - it'll help us help you - should you need more support.

Take care,

Jenny

[Ming-Lam0]

Thank you Jenny!  You re a very responsible and kind manager. As a matter of fact our holidays were ruined already nothing can be helped anymore.  We just hope to justify it by putting a review in order to not let this listing hurt other renters again.  Very simple  -freedom of speech only but we are not allowed to do so according to the guidelines.

[Pat271]

@Ming-Lam0  Assuming no one (neither you nor the host nor Airbnb) cancelled the booking, you’ll be able to post a review on the day you were supposed to check out. Airbnb will send you a link in order to do so.

What did the reviews say for this listing? Surely others commented on the property’s abysmal condition.

I can’t imagine that Airbnb would not refund you if you can’t get in the house.

[Ming-Lam0]

There was no review when we booked it to begin with that’s why we were screwed. And there’s no place for us to post any review after that’s why I only posted it here in the forum.  We’re simply unfortunate.  Thanks for trying to help!

[Pat271]

@Ming-Lam0  There is a piece of your story that is missing. If the booking wasn’t cancelled, and the host is still on the platform and the listing wasn’t  suspended, then you should be able to leave a review on the last day of your stay. This isn’t complicated and there must be a simple explanation. You weren’t “simply unfortunate”.

[Ming-Lam0]

I didn’t put any review within the timeline I guessed but I had tried several times on Sunday (we’d booked 2 nights -Friday in Sunday out) and there wasn’t anyway to input review, I tried to report by clicking the link it just let me answer a set of multiple choice questions that didn’t serve the purpose of posting a review for others to know the actual facts. The first day we were too busy with searching another accommodation therefore didn’t get a chance to do the review.