Margaret B.

They claim to have lots of content to download for free, but the first thing you need to do is give them your credit card info. They promise not to charge anything to it, they say they just want to know the country you are in, because of license agreements. I don't believe it. If that were true, they would ask you when / if you wanted to download something with a restricted geographic license. They would have to have that information in their database anyway, since they if it were limited, they would have to look it up, so, since they have to check on everything, anyway, they could just ask the first time you wanted to download something that was restricted. No need to ask anymore.

Has anyone used this? For how long?

I've used AirBnB four times.
Two of those times were just fine, and two were awful. What I particularly did not like, and why I'm blaming AirBnB is that it was their customer service that is awful.

I can understand, with so many listings, and so many renters, that there will be problems. But they should go out of theri way to resolve listings that are fradulent or misleading, and help the stranded customer. Instead, they have an unacceptably cavalier attitude that is not acceptable.

The first awful one was when I booked a room in Utreckt several months before a conference I was scheduled to attend. Just by co-incidence, it happened to be the exact same weekend that the world championship soccer tournament was taking place in Utrect. Neither the host nor I knew this would happen when the booking was made.
A few hours after I checked in, the host was downstairs yukking it up with his friends. He then entered my room to tell me that his uncle was sick in the hospital in Germany, he had to leave, and I did, too. So now I'm stuck in a strange town, with no place to go. I found a computer, but it was in Dutch, so I could not log on to AirBnB to see about finding another place. AirBnB takes no responsibility when the hosts leave you in a lurch. Since he cancelled, I could not write a review. AirBnB gave me a $25 credit which expired a year after it was issued, so it went to waste.

The last time I used AirBnB to book a room in Palm Springs, the room was not as it was represented. I didn't have a thermometer, but the host looked up the temperature on the internet, and she said it was 88 outside, and the room, which had no air conditioning, was hotter than outdoors. Her website said, "Do not touch the air conditioning, it is set for 82 degrees. If you want it colder, I will have to charge more." She has since removed the words "air conditioning" from her description, but it was there before. She told us that if we didn't want to sleep in that room, which was tiny and stuffy, we'd have to go somewhere else. So, 7 at night, after a day of travelling in 90+ degree weather, we have to find a hotel. I told her I would ask for my money back, and she said she would call in the morning to find out what to do.

When I got checked in to the hotel, I spend hours trying to find help on AirBnB's site. I found a resolution center, where I filled in the form, and they said they would give the host 72 hours to respond, and to wait until then. Three days later, I went back, and they said that the host accurately described the room, and would not give a refund. I've received several emails since then from AirBnB. I can't decide if they were computer generated by a program that was poorly written, of it they were written by someone who is semi-literate in English - they were rather confusing, and could not be parsed into exactly what they were saying. Some said the matter was done, a decision had been made. Others said, if you are satisfied with this, you need do nothing. I think that's the jist of the emails - as I said, the writing was very poor - missing verbs and weird sentence structure. So I wasn't sure if the matter was still open for discussion. I didn't put in everything in the form I filled out, and if there was a place to add more info, and challend the decision, I wanted to do that, but I saw no way to do that, and earlier emails had said the decision final.

Then I got an email giving me a $97 dollar credit.

I called my credit card company to cancel the charge. They give the host 90 days to respond, and then they'll make a decision. I'll come back and report what my credit card company said.

I noticed that about 8 months ago, my comments have ALL been marked as SPAM. They are not. I contacted a few of the websites I posted on, and one answered back, saying that Disqus did not even let him see my post. When I was ready to post a comment to his website, I sent him an email, and then I posted. Then I sent him an email saying I posted. He looked and said my comment did not even show up for him to see!

That was about a week ago. At that time, I went to my Disqus account page, and could see the 20 or 30 comments I had made over the previous 8 months. When I went there today, they were all removed. I guess that solves Disqus' embarrassing situation when I complain to the websites, and they find out my posts have been disallowed before they even see them!

I wish I had been cynical enough to copy that page when I found it. Fool that I am!

Further update: I logged out of my account, and logged back in, and all my posts are there. At least I've got them to put on my own website at some point in the indefinite future.
Too bad there aren't negative stars I could give them.

I know what started it because they sent me an email saying I was banned. It was a comment I made to someone's post that the US is free because there is no press censorship. My comment named ten or so journalists and investigators who had been murdered or "suicided". BOOM. No more posting for me!

UPDATE: A few days after this review went live, Disqus removed all the comments I made that they had marked as SPAM from my account putting to lie their claim that I own the material! Too late smart. I copied all the comments I made more than 8 months ago, in case they decide to delete those, as well.