Tamra S.

I almost never post nasty reviews on a service unless I am compelled to! So this is one of those times where my review must be completely negative! BEWARE of Airbnb!

The short version: From start to finish, Airbnb's customer "service" team was extremely unhelpful, impossible to get a hold of, and I never got a consistent answer from their team. The actual service they are providing (home rentals) is a good concept, but if something goes wrong and you actually need to speak with their team, you're hooped. You will have no luck in getting any sort of help from them at all! Their website is poorly designed, and it took at least five minutes to even find a contact phone number. Want to speak to someone else? Nope, no way to escalate any concern you have. They definitely do NOT want to talk with you or help you; they have taken every measure to avoid that. Even after you call, they want email communication only—but those emails bounce back! STAY AWAY from Airbnb.

And it's only appropriate to share that owner/unit information here as well... Haim Kovos, MGM Hotel Signature. He owns several properties that he rents out in the States. Staying at his unit started all this nonsense.

So, the long version: This started back in October and has still not been dealt with due to a number of issues from the side of their customer service team. After a pretty horrid stay in a Las Vegas hotel/condo (lack of cleanliness, ill-equipped room, shady behaviour from the host, even resulting in me leaving three days early), the host offered us a small refund. As the severity of the issue was pretty bad and I had been charged for the entire stay, close to $3000, I called Airbnb's team, and they said we could escalate it in the Resolution Centre after a period of time. I thought, great, we can get them the info, our requested refund, and they will help us handle this. Wrong! After giving them a very detailed explanation of our concerns about the stay, the only measure Airbnb took was a single email to the host, having told us they had "reached out." Again, when we followed up, they told us they never heard back from the host, and the issue was "closed due to lack of response." That was it! The case was "dismissed" and the "decision was final." How the heck is it my fault that the host didn't respond, and now I don't get a refund or at the very least an explanation... or even be able to leave a review about the host of Airbnb!? I was not able to leave a review on the host, as I left three days early, and even though I was charged for all those days, they started the 14-day cutoff for reviews on my day of departure! Great for the host, just ignore it and you don't have to fix your issues or give a refund when it's due. Huh?

After a few more bounced emails, calls, and frustration, I got an email from Austin, a Supervisor. So managers do exist! Since apparently we provided no photos, Airbnb can't issue a refund. Not sure how I'm supposed to send photos of essential items missing from in the suite that I had to go and purchase. I was NEVER told in the beginning I needed photo evidence. I sent them every possible email and text information I had, did all that I could on my end to at least get a reply from their team other than "sorry, you didn't send us exactly what we wanted within the stringent time frames we never told you about, and since the host hasn't gotten back to our one email, we can't help you anymore"!

The really frustrating part is that there is only ONE email, and ONE phone number where they can be contacted. Yet that email keeps bouncing back our responses, and I have to re-explain every time I call and I get nowhere. What could have been a very simple solution has turned into a giant mess thanks to their extremely poor customer service. Then I go to my "open cases" in the Resolution Centre a few days ago, and it still sits there "open" when they tell me it's been closed. It's unbelievably frustrating. No wonder they're rated 15% on www.sitejabber.com.

So in short, stay away from Airbnb, because if you have a problem, it won't get resolved.

PS… My daughter spoke to Airbnb after we wrote this review informing them that we were going to share our experience on social media and did they have anything to say, and lo and behold, we were offered a small refund. We are SO done with Airbnb.