Susan M.

Airbnb has done a really slick PR campaign in the UK recently, making the concept of the "sharing economy" sound so great and noble. And to be fair I do know a couple of people who have made successful bookings with them. But from my own first experience I would only recommend using this site whilst exercising EXTREME CAUTION and a healthy dose of SCEPTICISM. Don't get swept up in the trendy PR message of "we're all one big, happy, caring-sharing family looking to break the monopoly of the evil hotel chains". The company is currently valued at 10 billion dollars, it's a monster money-making machine in its own right and seems to have less integrity and accountability than many of the large hotel/letting giants.

I haven't actually made a booking with them yet (and probably never will) but my user experience on the site was pretty dire. We were looking for an apartment in Palma de Mallorca for a few days... I hope this rather long review will give potential users an overview of why Airbnb may not be as good as it seems on paper...

The very first property we considered clearly had incorrect information on the listing - ie, the title stated, and pictures showed, that it was a large 5 bed villa in what looked like an out-of-town location, BUT the 'blurb' underneath then went on to say that it was a small apartment with only 2 bedrooms and was in the centre of town. I clicked on the 'Contact host' button rather than the 'Request to book' button, since I wasn't requesting to book, I simply wanted to clarify the issue and give the host the benefit of the doubt that it was a one-off mistake. However, in my private Airbnb messages, I just got an automated reply saying ‘Declined'. How can a booking be "declined" when it was never requested in the first place? If they meant that my request for information was "declined" that's kinda even worse. It left a sour taste, ie, no personal response from the host explaining why their listing was wrong which it very, very clearly was…

A second property we were interested in looked like a large villa in a beachside location …. The response to the enquiry via the Airbnb message system requested us to contact the supposed host's "wife" via another email address (cunningly disguised to look like an offical Airbnb email) … this is a scam…. DO NOT contact anyone from Airbnb if they suggest you communicate with them directly outside of the site. I got an automated email from Airbnb about 24 hrs later saying that they had detected a potential fraud and not to contact the host again. Which is good on the one hand that they spotted this (although I noticed 3 days later the fraudulent listing was STILL up on the site) but bad in that in only our second enquiry we had come up against a scam on their website, a property that clearly didn't exist for rent (Looking back, I think the scammers had just cut-and-pasted some photos from another website).

The one saving grace was an interaction with a host on our third enquiry who seemed genuine and was very polite and responsive and lovely. Thank you Richard of "Huge Old Town Modernist Apartment" listing, you were fabulous (and the only reason I've given 2 stars rather than 1 star overall).

However, the next couple of listings we looked at – showing on the Airbnb map as being separate properties, a mile apart, and listed at different prices - BOTH HAD EXACTLY THE SAME PICTURES! I didn't bother contacting the hosts as I was fed up and disillusioned by this point.

The upshot of all this is that, honestly, you cannot completely trust the listings.

And don't necessarily be lulled into a sense of security if the property you book has great reviews. I'm sure many, many reviews are genuine, but out of curiosity after our poor experience, I briefly trawled through 60 property listings in a search of "Palma de Mallorca" – don't you think it's a little suspicious that I only found ONE review out of more than 130 individual user reviews for different properties that was less than 4.5 stars out of 5? Compare to TripAdvisor, which isn't perfect either, but at least they seem to actually allow people to post negative reviews and the customer can then take it all with a pinch of salt, read between the lines and get an overall balanced view. I cannot believe that all 60 of those Airbnb properties in Palma are SO marvellous that noone had posted a less-than-glowing review. Are they somehow blocking negative reviews from the site to make it look good? I would not be at all surprised.

Just take huge care when using Airbnb is all I'm saying, there are clearly lots of genuine hosts and happy customers, but the increasing popularity of the site has inevitably opened it up to large numbers of commercial agents looking to flog their inventory (rather than individual property owners trying to make a bit of extra cash from their beloved home, which is how Airbnb markets itself) as well as outright scammers and charlatans. Certainly the majority of listings we looked at in Palma were handled by agents, not owners, as evidenced by their multiple listings. Which makes it no different to booking with any other villa/property rental website.

It sounds like this company has become a willing victim of its own success – what started out as a great idea has been overtaken by financial greed and an inability to keep pace with the dramatic growth in terms of security and customer service. It sounds like it's become a numbers game for them – "OK, so xx percent of our customers/hosts are really dissatisfied, but there's always a bunch of others to take their place, so we don't need to worry too much about keeping the complainers happy!"

Be aware that Airbnb does not vet the properties offered, or ask for any proof of ownership such as a utility bill or whatever, they take the host's descriptions/photos at face value. And pretty much anyone can register as a host, despite all the guff about ‘verification' etc. Also be aware that your booking is not guaranteed – the host has the ability to cancel at very short notice, leaving you stranded. Plus if you have a problem, the small print on the Airbnb website (which I studied in detail) pretty much guarantees that you will have no comeback. Once you pay for your booking, they can effectively wash their hands of it and claim that it was up to you to check things out before you parted with your money.

You may get lucky and have a lovely time with Airbnb, but PLEASE at least consider the potential pitfalls, of which there are many, and go into it with your eyes very wide open.