Airbnb

We had a number or problems with AIRBNB. First the rental. We stayed at 161 Moonhill Ln, Boalsburg, PA near State College PA for a weekend. This house was quite expensive at $ 1800 for the 2 days, Actually check in at 5:00 pm Friday and check out at noon Sunday), so more like 1 1/2 day. We are non smokers and this was a non smoking required house. The owners are smokers though and were staying in the basement smoking the entire time. All the rooms smelled like smoke and we could not sleep well. The home was very dusty and dirty. You cannot leave a review on the property without the owner consenting to reviews, so no reviews can be trusted. 2 months later I have 6 charges in excess of $ 6800. 00 from airbnb. I contacted them and they said they were fraudulent but were unable to credit my account. My credit card company has credited our account but it sounds like this sort of thing happens often with this merchant. Avoid Airbnb art all costs. You may get lucky or have an experience like ours.

This was our first AirB&B experience and the property not as advertised. It was advertised as the entire house with back yard, deck, bbq, hot tub, and pet friendly in San Diego, All of the space was shared. Owner residence attached and backyard amenities shared. Pictures that indicate this information are not provided on listing. The Host, Aaron, showed lack of responsibility by not informing owner about our rental requirements made prior to reserving and showed no willingness to address our rental concerns. Owner planned a 4 hour event inviting guests and dogs in the shared backyard without regard to our presence. We were compelled to leave due to lack of respect for our reservation and requested private space. Neither host or AirBnB assisted us in this debacle. We were given minimal refund and required to find a new location on our own. Spent an entire day without a place to stay for our family (several who flew to SD for this vacation), and our two dogs. Paid service fees twice. Lost our 7 day discount. Paid cleaning fees for a house with mildew and urine smell, along with body odor from unclean comforter and mattress cover in the main bedroom. Not only do advise staying clear of this listing, we do not recommend AirBnB due to lack of customer support.

We had spent a lot of time finding a place to stay in Chicago. The reality that we only have a few more spring break vacations before our kids are off to college. The day before we were to travel to Chicago, we received an email at 10 a.m. from the owner that our airbnb reservation had been cancelled due to "circumstances beyond his control." Apparently, the guests that stayed in condo before us burgled the other condos in the unit. Nice. Needless to say, there was nothing even close to what we had booked still available the day before we were to arrive. I realize this is a first-world problem, but these trips mean a lot to us as a family. I also realize that sometimes things do come up that truly are beyond people's control. However, I also expect people to make some sort of effort to make things right when these things do happen. The owner's response? "You can go to the airbnb site to find another listing. Sorry." We tried to email him and did not hear back until 7 that night. Airbnb contacted us a 9:30 that night saying they will get us our money back within 5 business days, but they would give us a coupon for $100 off our next airbnb stay. All I can say is you have many options as a consumer to find places to stay on vacation or other trips. I would strongly suggest you consider any option other than airbnb.

Airbnb is excellent@ the Run-a-Round they call, "I WILL FORWARD THIS TO MY COLLEAGUE." I have spend hours and several days uploading and labeling photos and reply emailing to airbnb regarding their disgusting listing we have now been forced to stay in for 19 days. We have cleaned and a wait around for the property owners contractors to deliver and fix things. I have basically paid to become the caretaker of this unmaintained property which airbnb condones. Airbnb just leads you to believe, through emails and phone calls that they "GOT YOU" and have your back but, it's all about their bottom line. If you get a refund the they loose too! Use another venue because, this one is not there to protect or support the consumer.

I left my original review because that how I felt when Airbnb was not a stock market company they actually cared. These days they hang up on you I had a account with 200 5 star reviews on Airbnb to be canceled by This person called Nicole. This was a property that everyone enjoyed and Nicole took it upon herself to cancel my account with a word to me. Now they won't even let me communicate at all because they changed my account details so I can't verify myself. How does Airbnb cancel someone who's been hosted for 6 years without any issues. I stopped hosting because of covid then finally I had the confidence to get back to hosting only to be canceled out by Airbnb. Shame on them.
This was my original review boy have things changed.
I'm confused to these negative reviews I've had hundreds of experiences with Airbnb and never once had an issue. When something did arise and I needed to call Airbnb they handled it. My only assumption with these bad reviews are that there are millions of reservation booked each month so maybe this is the. *******% that had a bad experience in my eyes anyone who ever stays in a hotel is a sucker Airbnb is top notch when booking make sure your dealing with super host with great reviews. I've been to places I could only dream of years ago for a fraction of the cost of hotels. Airbnb has changed my life and all I ever think about is where am I going next.

I am so upset. We put our house back on AirBnB because we enjoyed the nice people we met. Over the last two weeks we have lost three customers because the website, especially the payment system wouldn't work effectively (it could have been four customers but one had the sense to contact me privately). I spent an hour on on the phone this morning with their Customer Service (the number BTW is not on their website and I had to google it) and they said that they had fixed the problem. The CSR - who was extremely polite - said it was some sort of incompatibility between the e-mail I have on AirBnB and the e-mail on PayPal. He also said that he would send out an e-mail to my potential customers stating that it was AirBnB's fault not mine. Well the problem was not fixed and we lost another customer who got so frazzled she decided to stay in a hotel.

This is unforgivable. I did a lot of work and shopping to get the place ready for the guests and I am out of pocket by about $1,000.

Beware if you host or use AirBnB services.

Renee Jones

I have been an airbnb host for 5 years. They consistently have terrible customer service. They allowed a guest to write a libelous and slanderous review of me and refused to allow me to respond. (I was unable to see the review prior to it being published). And they get all super sensitive when you call them on their constant foulups. IF YOU CAN AVOID USING AIRBNB, DO THAT. THEIR PURPOSE IN LIFE IS TO TORTURE HOSTS AND GUESTS WITH RIDICULOUS INSANE POLICIES AND A COMPUTER SYSTEM THAT IS TOTALLY INADEQUATE.

I attempted my first stay last night in an airbnb and it was a total bait and switch.

Misleading description. The property is in a ruff looking neighborhood with run down houses. "Farm" house is misleading when they show it with nothing but green grass as if it is outside city limits and in a rural area, it's not. The house had construction materials on the outside and the area generally looked ruff, with unkept lawns, homes in disrepair, etc... I was even mean mugged by a guy that looked like he was just out of prison, standing just outside the slum apartment across the street. The property was surrounded by run down homes & apartments. I did not even bother to check in.

Suspiciously they had no bad review. I saw that mostly woman stayed there or have had their reviews left online and what a shame, those woman are putting themselves in harms way and the "supposed" husband/wife/baby hosts are letting this happen, probably because they cant sell the house for what they paid, if they are even a real couple.

https://airhostacademy.com/remove-airbnb-reviews/ Its right there. They can be removed and even encourage it.

I am a traveling healthcare professional. I booked an Airbnb in Brevard, NC for an assignment in Asheville, NC and, with no notice or reason, the hospital in Asheville cancelled my assignment two weeks before I began. I was forced to cancel my accommodations in Brevard and neither AirBNB nor the host would help me by returning ANY of the $3,017 I had paid. I couldn't stay their for the 30 days I paid for and customer service offered nothing. It takes about 4 weeks after an assignment is canceled to find and new assignment, manage all the compliance material etc before you get your first pay check. Because of Airbnb's harsh policies I would NOT recommend them for traveling healthcare workers. Our assignments can be cancelled at anytime and Airbnb has NO respect and NO sympathy for healthcare workers.

AirBnB does not have a good policy for cancellation via inclement weather conditions.

If the "hotel" doesn't answer their phones for hours at a time and won't accept a cancellation 5 days in advance?

If a city is shut down because of snow?

If events, taxis, ubers and public transportation is grounded? If its a 3 hour commute to drive across Portland?

This should be a good enough reason to cancel for credit the reservation. I'm not asking for a refund; I want a credit. If it were any other business operating in the US? You could expect a reasonable result. But this is consumer robbery.

My advice to consumers? * Pay Attention to Cancellation Details *

AirBnB is a robot. It's not about your money -- but AirBnBs.

If it made a difference to negoatiate this with the hotel? Great. But why offer a crappy place on the Airbnb app? Especially if they have policies such as this?

I expect AirBnB to vet out inexpensive homeless shelters too. And to their credit - they do.

AirBnB needs to up there standards.

* Buyer beware *

The customer service is appalling. I rang them today to ask why my booking wouldn't go through and the person replied by telling me that there's an "ongoing experiment on my account". They refused to explain the experiment or why it's been applied to my account, and kept answering with stock answers. He would. Not. Listen. To. Me. After finally, FINALLY sending me the information about the "experiment", I wrote back to them to explain that there had been a mistake in their system. The experiment references a new policy which stops under 25s from booking under certain conditions, but the conditions did not apply to my booking, so either there's something wrong with the system or the policy information is incorrect. He replied, telling me simply "you cannot bypass or avoid the system". This was infuriating. I was not trying to bypass the system and he just wouldn't listen to me. I don't understand why Air BnB employs humans at all if it's no different than speaking to a machine. What an incredibly frustrating experience.

TERRIBLE AND FELT LIKE CHEATED. Even when my booking clearly says that a full refund is available, they are deducting the service fee. So what they are doing is they are ready to have the Host feel the heat of the situation but are not ready to have single scratch on their own earnings.

WHAT A HYPOCRISY?

And their service executives are no more than scripted robots. Only can help you with their scripted responses which are not worth a Penny of your real help.

AIRBNB - NEVER AGAIN WITH YOU

We've used http://Airbnb.com over the years and the service matches travelers with BnB hosting owners - - worked really creat - - until this week. We attempted to book a visit with a host with which we have stayed twice previously. Now the site has as new feature - - User Verification ID. The concept is novel enough in that it attempts to match the traveler with at least two Social Media site (Facebook, LinkedIN, Google). We had our reservation cancelled because 1) we don't have Facebook or LinkedIN accounts, 2) don't have a webcam to create a personal video, and certainly would not provide any form of government id (driver's license or Passport).

http://Airbnb.com has fallen into the trap of believing that Social Media is truthful, useful and a meaningful means of identification. We are seniors and like to travel, even world wide. I am a retired professional programmer. There are many websites using Social Media for single-click login, but attempting to use it as a means of ID Verification is totally bogus. Our friend has lost a book, we will not use http://Airbnb.com again (too bad - has some nice listings).

You might have no concerns for privacy and use the Social Media frequently - - good for you, but for those that don't, the new policy of ID Verification is a nightmare.

Renter beware! We are writing this review, so that others are not put in the same position we were put in. We stayed with our cousins and small children. The house is not small child safe as there are electrical outlets without covers on them (read previous reviews he says he fixed them -that is a lie). The bathroom in the main bedroom has live electrical wires coming out of the wall uncapped (which we capped to keep our children safe). There is only 1 egress out of the bedroom if their was a fire. Bunk beds in the area of the stairwell. We arrived to no heat in the main part of the house and they left a space heater to heat the kitchen and living room. The caretaker was supposed to come over and he never showed up. There was molding with nails sticking up laying in the pool area. The hot tub didn't work properly (no jets and lights) and when we told him he said "I ordered the part and it should be here soon". He did not notify us in advance that it was not properly working. The kids found glass bottles, garbage and even old food throughout the house. There are to many other issues to list, but we wanted to list our main safety concerns. He agreed to refund us 1 nights stay and the cleaning fee. When it came down to the last minute he changed the amount and refunded us only the cleaning fee and $100 more. He was also telling us that he would give us money back if we agreed to not leave a review. The House is not a luxury house as advertised it is basically an unfinished house with bedrooms and an indoor pool.

My husband, 15-year-old granddaughter and myself had planned a trip to Europe in May/June.
On March >>>> the US State Department declared a Traveler Warning for Europe, specifying that terrorists were targeting US citizens overseas, further stating that mass transit and tourist sites were likely to be the areas attacked. For the State Dept. to issue such an alert (with specifics) the state dept. must certainly have gathered enough information to deem travel dangerous for US citizens.
Therefore, we felt we must cancel, especially since we were traveling with our granddaughter. We had made reservations in 5 Airbnb places. We were required to pay in full, and four of the five owners would only give a 50% refund no matter the circumstances. Airbnb service charges ranged from $32-78 per reservation, which added up to a total for the 5 reservations at $272, all nonrefundable. The total we lost from the owners added up to $1,116, for a grand total of $1,388.
We cancelled on 3/25/16 and our arrivals dates were 5/31,6/3,6/7,6/10, and 6/13, leaving the owners 10.5 to 13 weeks to rebook.
Despite what they advertise, there was no way to communicate with any one at Airbnb, as I tried for an entire afternoon.
We will certainly never use Airbnb again, and feel other potential customers should be aware of their policies. A big thanks to Booking.com for their policies, customer service and being available to communicate with customers!

I have a guest who booked on March 17th. However, on April 4th an order for our area was put in place that guests had to stay for 14 days. I reached out to my guests and explained this to them. They explained they can't stay that long and now can't even leave their state due to a current order that was put in place for their area. We both reached out to Airbnb to request that the booking was cancelled at this time due to these orders and we were told- we could cancel, but they would not refund the guest money and I would be penalized for the cancellation because the guest booked after March 14th. We have no control of the orders that have been put in place after the booking happened and shouldn't be penalized as we are trying to follow the law and assist with health and safety of all parties. Airbnb is being completely unethical. They are more interested in keeping guest money and penalizing hosts like myself, just to make a few $$, rather than following what the laws are and taking everyone's health and safety into consideration.

I am a travel nurse who travels with another nurse. We rented a tiny home for a month which stated in the description it was a 1 bedroom. I told the host I would bring an air mattress as we are not a couple. Upon arrival we discovered it was not a 1 bedroom but one big room. We had to work the next 2 days 12 hour shifts and were going to try and deal with it. When we realized it was undoable we contacted the host who never replied so we started resolution with air bnb. Airbnb offers a guarantee of a refund if "not as described". I received the same mantra over and over again it was accurate. I showed this listing (saved it to in case it changes in the mean time) to several friends and 2 realtors who all replied the same way. It reads as if it has a separate bedroom. Since we were already there for half a week I only asked for $1500 back. We paid 2k+ with fees. The host stated it was $2000 for a month, so keeping $500 for a week seems reasonable since it was "not as described". I have spent the last 2 weeks to resolve this and air bnb says the description is accurate. This is truly unfair that this host is keeping all this money when there is a guarantee in place that air bnb will not honor. The description was inaccurate. As you will see in the below pics for The Oasis in the desert, one states "entire house/apt" and the other stated " 1 bedroom". No where did it state it was one large room and airbnb keeps saying "it's accurate." I have a trip planned for fall already paid for. After that I will no longer use Airbnb and will not recommend this company to anyone

It is now 2 months and a half I am sending messages to the support inbox.
It is not the first time that they have issues with fees that you set up as host. Unfortunately the handle it in a poor way. They confirmed that is was a technical issue and confirmed they will reimbursed all cleaning fees that were not set on bookings...and the other hands they confirmed it was my error!
All companies in the world, when they confirmed they will reimburse you...They do it... It seems AIRBNB is not part of them!
The worst thing is that I felt pressured, if I cancel the guests' reservations (who are not to blame) I am penalized with cancellation fees and if I host them I lose money! It's a huge amount of money and instead of dealing with the problem urgently, it took 2 months. The moment I informed them that someone who wasn't me was trying to connect to my account, the error disappeared! But who am I, a simple host, to claim respect for guests and my company? So if "confirming" doesn't mean taking responsibility and sticking to one's commitment, I don't know the definition of "confirming". It seems that AIRBNB uses this word to lull you to sleep and that at no time did AIRBNB wish to keep its commitment.
The worst part of this story is that I was taken for a ride and out of respect for my guests and customers, I bowed out and lost revenue.
That's the solution AIRBNB offered me, so be careful and hang in there!
Oh I forgot...THEY OFFERED ME A COUPON that also confirmed it was an error from their part...AIRBNB might thought this was the reimbursement of more than 20 missing cleaning fees...what else to say!

Here's my airbnb horror story. For a year I used airbnb for almost all my lodgings, more than 30 nights total. I was very satisfied with every host and accommodation, with a few minor issues that always got resolved between me and the hosts. Everybody happy.

So I had 5 upcoming reservations with airbnb, and a week or so before the first one, I get an email from airbnb that I need to be "verified" or my reservations would be cancelled. I'm an old dude (64) and don't do facebook, which is apparently the preferred verification method, but I followed the instructions for verification by webcam photo of my driver's license, and the airbnb screen said it had worked, so I forgot about it.

Four days before my first reservation, I checked my airbnb account and ALL my trips had been cancelled! I called airbnb after I googled their phone number (it was nowhere to be found on the airbnb website). The call center guy said he could see the problem but he would have to call special forces to fix it, then assured me it would be done within 24 hours and everything fixed. Three days later, after 3 more calls and 3 more call center flunkies with the same script, I gave up and told the last one to just let the cancellations stand. I ate the plane tickets.

I still have not heard a word from airbnb. No courtesy calls, no courtesy. Zilch. I would frankly recommend to anyone considering using airbnb that it may look like a good deal, but you get less than you paid for, and just pray there's no trouble because customer service is an insult and a sham.