[HN Gopher] How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
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How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
Author : goostavos
Score : 255 points
Date : 2023-03-05 21:33 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (chriskiehl.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (chriskiehl.com)
| stavros wrote:
| I don't know why nobody is suggesting this, but wouldn't the
| simplest thing be for the author to say "oh oops, yeah, OK, I'll
| stay there then" and then just... not stay?
|
| What was the host going to do, go make the guest show ID to
| verify they're the author?
| Matheus28 wrote:
| I don't see why someone would still use Airbnb for short stays.
| At $1.5k for 5 nights in Seattle you can surely stay at a decent
| hotel (which the OP ended up doing anyway, at $1.3k), and not
| have to deal with some weird hosts.
|
| Hit them with a chargeback, who cares about getting banned from
| Airbnb.
| vasco wrote:
| I used airbnb for a couple of years but soon became apparent
| that booking through a hotel website directly was cheaper and
| lots of times included breakfast and you don't have to be their
| housekeeping at the end. I don't know why people still do it.
| Since then I've only used it as backup for last minute bookings
| in the middle of nowhere for just a night if I can't camp
| because it's raining.
| joezydeco wrote:
| My Corp just issued a new travel policy last week. AirBNBs are
| completely forbidden.
| fruit2020 wrote:
| Homes are sometimes nicer than hotels, better suited for
| families with children.
| londons_explore wrote:
| An airbnb feels like 'mine'. Whereas a hotel I have no
| confidence that some overzealous room service won't barge in
| and try to change the towels while I'm using them!
| yakireev wrote:
| Put a "do not disturb" sign on your door, every hotel room
| has one.
|
| I too don't like it when room service touches my stuff (it
| is a mess, but it is _my_ mess!) - putting a DND sign on
| the doorknob and not removing it for the whole stay fixed
| that problem for me.
| rocket_surgeron wrote:
| I travel for work approximately 120 nights per year, and
| have done so since 2011.
|
| The number of times room service has barged into my room
| without my knowledge and/or permission can be counted on 0
| fingers.
|
| If this has happened to you you may want to reexamine what
| hotels you stay in because the only thing you have to do to
| not experience this, even if you forget to hang up the "Do
| Not Disturb" sign, is lock the deadbolt on your hotel room
| door.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| If anything hotels have cut back on cleaning now so no one
| ever goes in.
|
| And you can always physically lock the door
| Matheus28 wrote:
| True, but Airbnb isn't the only option. In the past I simply
| used local companies that specialize in that. It's extremely
| common in tourist heavy areas. And you don't have a laundry
| list of things to do before your checkout like some Airbnb
| hosts expect you do to. The keyword to google for is
| "vacation rental".
| sdenton4 wrote:
| I often want to stay in a city for a couple weeks or a month to
| maximize time with collaborators. An Airbnb with a functional
| kitchen beats the pants off a hotel.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Some cities have aparthotels which can be a reasonable
| compromise. They can have similarly poorly kitted out
| kitchens to many Airbnbs, but you don't have to do your own
| housekeeping and you are dealing with an experienced
| business.
| jemmyw wrote:
| Everything about this is silly. You can contact hosts beforehand
| on AirBnB and I almost always do that, and certainly would if I
| was going to be booking an even slightly unusual situation (for
| someone else). I've booked for third parties before too and did
| exactly that, during a COVID lockdown when we needed to find a
| place for an old couple.
|
| I'm not sure I believe the host either. Perhaps AirBnB have
| changed things, but as far as I knew from talking to hosts
| before, the host could always refund up to the booking date, they
| had tools to do more than guests in exceptional circumstances.
| And it's in their interest as this dude is now going to give the
| host a 1-star rating.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Maybe to you it seems like an unusual situation, but to people
| who maybe don't travel very much, "booking a room for my
| spouse" isn't something they'd think is "unusual". It's a
| little absurd that it's "unusual", in fact.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| IME, the larger a company, and the longer it exists, the more it
| asymptotically approaches evil, and the less awareness and
| responsiveness there is to actual end-user experience, and these
| two factors in the end are the demise of large companies.
|
| Google, Facebook, AirBnB and I would say now Amazon too, are all
| on this path.
|
| No one like them or trusts them, they are broadly considered evil
| and their services are used where there are no reasonable
| alternatives or their monopoly hold of whatever form acts to
| prevent users from leaving, but the moment there are reasonable
| alternatives, those companies will be deserted.
|
| Speaking for myself, I have used AirBnB a great deal over the
| years - back in the early days I thought it was an amazing
| company. Now I avoid it as much I possibly can; hell, whenever I
| come to log in again I have no idea if log in will even work,
| with whatever latest false positive alarm that might have been
| introduced. It is my last choice, not my first, and I would be
| very happy never to use it again. When people are writing that
| about your company, the writing is on the wall.
| wffurr wrote:
| Can you even leave the host a review at that point to warn
| others?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Why would a scam operation allow someone to post something that
| discourages other marks from getting scammed too?
| [deleted]
| delegate wrote:
| There was a time, not so long ago, when you could 'fix' the
| things that didn't work in the world by building a new app or
| website. This is how airbnb came about.
|
| Sadly, that is a lot harder now, because all the apps have
| already been built and they're huge and have all the users. And
| now millions of people have to deal with the side effects or
| poorly built or abusive online services which are too big to
| disrupt or change. Policies upon policies, which, when applied to
| particular cases mean 'you gave us your money, now it's ours and
| you get nothing in return and we'll get away with it'.
|
| I think time is ripe for new disruptions.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Charge it back via your bank and explain the situation. Worst
| case scenario, it gets denied, you don't lose anything either
| way.
|
| The initial misunderstanding was cleared up just one hour after
| the booking - it should be very reasonable for the host to offer
| a full refund, it's not like it was a last-minute cancellation
| where the host would struggle to get it rebooked in time and lose
| out. The host is clearly being malicious here and trying to make
| a quick buck by double-dipping - getting some money from the
| cancelled booking _and_ then relisting the property back on the
| market.
|
| I am always surprised how many people don't know about payment
| card disputes/chargebacks or refuse to use them, even _right here
| on HN_. The bank and card networks are biased towards you to
| begin with, and there 's no downside to losing one as long as
| you're not being outright fraudulent or acting in bad faith.
|
| Card chargebacks (or litigation, if you have the means) is the
| only thing companies understand, especially in a country where
| consumer protection isn't a thing.
| olliej wrote:
| Don't do this. Not in America, and not in places with "consumer
| protection".
|
| Chargebacks are for fraudulent or erroneous charges, not for
| "you changed your mind about a purchase"
|
| (1) first up in this case, I'm fairly sure that every other
| party to the transaction would have grounds to say that the
| chargeback is fraudulent. The author is not saying that they
| didn't make the reservation, they're saying they realized after
| entering a contract that the contract was not what they wanted.
| Similarly the "host" is not breaking the contract: the person
| agreed to these terms of the contract, apparently having not
| read them. So this is not a fraudulent transaction, and
| claiming it is (for a charge back) just sounds like fraud
|
| (2) charge backs are not free to the merchant - as I understand
| it the merchant is subject to penalties from the processor
| and/or bank that can easily be hundreds of dollars. So even if
| the bank doesn't take you to court for fraud, airbnb maybe
| unhappy at having to cough up a few hundred dollars.
|
| (3) it seems like (IANAL) your chargeback could also be taken
| as a breach of contract by the host, and frankly they don't
| seem like people who will take a no harm, no foul response to
| this, especially if they not only don't get paid but if Airbnb
| offload any of the chargeback costs.
|
| Fundamentally your running into the reason that there are
| regulations governing hotels and rental, and why Airbnb insists
| that in spite of all evidence that is not what they are
| providing.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| This is fraud.
| triyambakam wrote:
| Isn't it fraudulent though? They didn't even use the service.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The other side's argument will be they cancelled the
| reservation and issued a refund under the agreed policy
| (so, partial refund only)
| olliej wrote:
| No. If you agree to a contract, and then choose to back out
| of that contract, or not use the service or whatever you
| agreed to, that's your choice.
|
| For example: if I rent a car, but then don't pick it up,
| the rental agency has not defrauded me. If I buy some food
| at a restaurant and then don't eat it all, the restaurant
| doesn't owe me a (partial) refund.
|
| If the person believes the host breached their contract,
| then they can try small claims courts and/or lawyer town.
|
| More realistically given most Airbnb hosts are land lords
| violating tenancy and hotel regulations it might be worth
| contacting the local regulatory authorities.
|
| But while you make think the behaviour of the host here is
| illegal, they placed this person booked was available, and
| was available under the terms they apparently agreed to, so
| being told "no you can't violate the terms you agreed to"
| is not fraud. This person could still go and stay at this
| property themselves, they just couldn't have some other
| person stay their instead.
| guluarte wrote:
| maybe he can sue the host in small claims?
| avalys wrote:
| I have heard of companies reacting to a chargeback in
| situations like this by banning your account.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| And nothing of value was lost.
| burnte wrote:
| Yeah, but if I have to file a chargeback, I probably don't
| want to do business with them again anyway.
| miohtama wrote:
| Uber, others, ban you on a chargeback immediately.
| fencepost wrote:
| Heck, years ago Uber used to ban you for having an old
| credit card on the account and trying to book a ride - no
| warning that the payment method had a problem, just boom,
| banned. Procedure for resolving was apparently sending a
| picture with the physical card (showing just the last 4
| digits) that was on the account, but since it'd been
| changed months before I didn't have it and didn't care
| enough to pursue unbanning.
|
| I think the card was replaced after a Home Depot breach,
| but not sure. Was definitely in or prior to 2015.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Firing your customers is not a good long term strategy.
| bsg75 wrote:
| I would be fine with that. The problem is both with the host
| and AirBnB, neither of which I would want to do business with
| again after this.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I don't think this person will use Airbnb ever again anyway.
| darknavi wrote:
| Not a huge issue probably because after loosing that much
| money I'd be surprised if they ever use AirBnb again.
| davidw wrote:
| See my other comment elsewhere, but they did not ban me even
| though I did a chargeback and won.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Imagine being banned from Best Western, for example, because
| you disputed a charge!
|
| Having a dispute, especially one which is so reasonable like
| this, being grounds for banning is insane to me. Companies as
| large as Airbnb cannot be just banning whoever they want.
|
| This whole notion of, we don't agree with you, so we'll just
| ban you thing has got to stop.
| loeg wrote:
| You should not be issuing chargebacks all the time. Most
| businesses will resolve without resorting to that. Airbnb
| absolutely failed here.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Companies want you to file the dispute through their
| support system using their existing process.
|
| Once you file a dispute through the credit card company,
| the dispute process is moved to the credit card company and
| now the company has a LOT less power on what might be
| happening. They also get severely impacted from having a
| high amount of charge back and hurts them the next time
| they want to negotiate their credit card rate.
|
| So from a market perspective, it makes total sense for a
| company to ban you. You're causing them problems, refuse to
| follow procedure on how to handle the dispute, and hurt
| their bottom line in ways that could impact them at the
| rate of millions of dollar. They would rather not have you
| as a customer at all than deal with you again.
| Statistically, a customer that uses charge back is a lot
| likely to end up using it again, so they avoid themselves
| future trouble as well.
| briHass wrote:
| Not Home Depot. Their support representative was
| worthless for an online order that was never delivered
| (lost in transit). They advised me to do a charge back.
| Luckily, it was an online chat, so I screen capped that
| to add to the CC docs you have to submit.
|
| Blows my mind; reshipping the item would (given they sell
| it for a profit) cost HD less than me doing a 100%
| chargeback, and it would be better customer service. I
| guess they use the friction of doing a chargeback to be
| their fraud prevention.
| tromp wrote:
| He did follow BnB dispute procedure and gave them a
| chance to overrule the host's unreasonable stance. But
| BnB conspired with the host to screw him over and should
| bear the consequences.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| So we need to externally regulate this market... cool.
| wruza wrote:
| How can they avoid future trouble by not refunding a 1
| hour cancel? The next person who makes a similar mistake
| will chargeback too, unless they aren't aware of it. For
| a company, the only way out of it is to stay within
| common sense, because that's what _all_ their clients
| have in common.
| vuln wrote:
| Their clients are the Hosts.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Silicon Valley scum relies on a lot of people not knowing
| their rights to open a dispute/chargeback. Seems to be a
| winning strategy considering even on here most people
| don't seem to be aware of this option.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Best Western hotels are individually owned and operated,
| and Best Western itself does not lose any money from
| chargebacks, the motel owner does. Best Western gets paid
| their 10% to 15% of gross revenue royalty either way from
| the hotel owner.
|
| Hotel owners, however, can and do ban individuals for
| chargebacks.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Hotel owners will in general not screw a potential
| customer for an honest mistake like this, so maybe the
| chargebacks actual hotels get actually do warrant a ban
| compared to VC-funded scammers.
| eli wrote:
| Uh yeah that absolutely can happen. Car rental companies
| are known to ban people who do chargebacks. If you refuse
| to pay a business what they think you owe then there's a
| decent chance they won't want future business from you.
| luckylion wrote:
| Isn't the charge-back lower stakes than actually suing
| them? Because that would be the only alternative left,
| the charge-back is the third-party arbitration.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _have heard of companies reacting to a chargeback in
| situations like this by banning your account_
|
| Reporting this back to your bank, better yet, with your state
| financial regulator and maybe a federal copied, usually gets
| this swiftly reversed.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I am curious how this would work. I have not heard of a US
| government forcing a business like AirBnb to do business
| with a customer unless there was a violation of
| discrimination against a protected class.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I think it's less about forcing them to do business and
| more about the regulator/consumer protection agency
| getting wind of what is obviously malicious and
| potentially illegal behavior from the company - a lot of
| companies will fold when a case gets anywhere near
| litigation/consumer protection/arbitration just to not
| attract attention.
|
| In this case, the chargeback was just the last resort
| solution for the customer because they were stonewalled
| by customer "service", but they otherwise didn't want to
| chargeback and would rather just be able to cancel their
| booking properly and keep using the service.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sure, but refusing to do business with someone is legal
| in most cases.
| bboygravity wrote:
| I'm confused by the banning comments. Can't you just create a
| new account with a new payment method and different email
| address?
|
| Maybe I still have too much of that 90's internet mentality,
| dunno.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It should be trivial to ban a certain billing address, plus
| a lot of companies require SMS 2FA now, and most people do
| not have multiple phone numbers to burn. Besides that, I
| think AirBnb might require you to upload government issued
| photo identification too, but I am not sure.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Myths that programmers believe about reality:
|
| - Only one person can live at an address
|
| - Two people with the same name can't live at the same
| address (Jr/Sr)
| Nextgrid wrote:
| They use heuristics, but yes in general you can work
| around them if you're persistent enough.
| baremetal wrote:
| >It should be trivial to ban a certain billing address,
|
| Everything is trivial when you aren't the one who
| actually has to implement it.
|
| If you ban a billing address: what if someone else moves
| to that address?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| With the same name? I think the probability is low enough
| to accept the false positive.
| [deleted]
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Haha. I had the same reaction. Clearly this person has
| never had to deal with addresses in a database.
|
| There are any number of ways to represent the exact same
| address (apt vs. unit vs. suite vs. '#', 5 digit zip vs.
| 9- digit zip, st. vs. street), and there are cases where
| the same address serves multiple people (private/virtual
| mail boxes). A billing address is a loose identifier at
| best.
| [deleted]
| ScottEvtuch wrote:
| Surely almost everyone does address standardization on
| user inputted fields, right? You'd be silly not to do
| this.
| rcruzeiro wrote:
| You need to verify your account with an ID or passport
| FractalParadigm wrote:
| Personal experience shows you can typically use the same
| payment method and often even the same email address (with
| a different alias) to get around most bans. You'll get the
| odd place where this doesn't work, usually because they're
| implementing IP bans instead of just user bans. Bans are
| typically, at worst, a minor inconvenience for the
| person/party receiving it.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| So you use another email address next time if you must
| Nextgrid wrote:
| And phone number, and fake name and address (you can do
| very creative things with billing addresses and have it
| still match - the matching is very fuzzy).
|
| But yes, these companies will lie and break the law when it
| suits them, no reason to feel bad about giving them a taste
| of their own medicine.
| rcruzeiro wrote:
| I was in a very similar situation and requested a charge back
| through Visa. it got denied after 2 months and AirBnb sent me a
| stern email saying they will ban my account if I try something
| like this again.
| kornish wrote:
| One danger of chargebacks: companies may ban your account or
| otherwise treat your activity as fraud. It can be extremely
| difficult to get through to a person to correct the situation.
|
| I know a couple folks who still can't use Lyft, for instance,
| because they charged back an NYC Citibike subscription. You can
| allegedly cancel a Citibike subscription by contacting customer
| support -- but after no response, they issued a chargeback and
| Lyft banned them a couple days later. Since the accounts are
| tied to the phone number, they simply can't use the service.
|
| Support actually managed to reverse the ban for a few days, but
| then it was re-triggered (presumably by some automated system).
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Get a new phone number/email/etc. These companies will lie to
| you when it's convenient, no reason not to lie back if it
| becomes convenient for you.
|
| However, in this case I don't believe the author will ever
| want to do business with this disgusting company, so nothing
| of value will be lost.
| ergocoder wrote:
| It is cute to think that a person who was scammed on Airbnb
| for $950 where Airbnb refused to help resolve a blatant scam
| would even touch Airbnb again.
| dubcee349 wrote:
| I don't think I would want to ever use Airbnb after that
| experience so charging back would be worth it.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| Why would you want to keep using a service that just ripped
| you off anyway?
| grandpoobah wrote:
| > Nicky (from the movie Casino): Where the f** do you get off
| talking to people about me behind my back going over my head?
|
| I'm guessing if he does a chargeback he gets banned from
| AirBnB.
| goshakkk wrote:
| This is correct. I had an issue with an Airbnb at some point
| that Airbnb was struggling to resolve. When I said "whatever,
| I'll just dispute the charge", the rep said that it is their
| policy to permanently suspend an account when a user
| initiates a chargeback. Not "may" but "definitely will". The
| issue did end up getting resolved after countless phone calls
| and escalating the issue to supervisors of supervisors but
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| That seems like more a 'pro' than a 'con'
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Yes at the very least chargeback gives you leverage.
| the_af wrote:
| It doesn't seem like the author intends to use AirBNB ever
| again, so a chargeback seems like the right solution...
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| An important thing to remember is that the chargeback doesn't
| necessarily absolve you of the legal need to pay.
|
| Just because the credit card company claws the money back
| doesn't mean that a merchant can't come after you in court/debt
| collection.
|
| It's not common, but for a big enough transaction, there's
| nothing stopping a business from coming after you.
| shusaku wrote:
| On a related know, I wonder if an Airbnb can effectively sue
| you or there is some kind of mediation clause
| ape4 wrote:
| Perhaps take AirBnb or the "host" to small claims court
| monksy wrote:
| Don't forget they've already collected a digital copy of your
| ID so that it's easier to let them track you down to sue you.
| [On sign up]
| dubcee349 wrote:
| Suing someone across state lines for a small amount like 1k
| is not really worth it in most scenarios if the host is the
| one that tries to sue you. If its air bnb i don't think a
| jury would find they deserve the money if it was cancelled
| within 1 hour of booking due to a misunderstanding.
| User23 wrote:
| Likewise there's nothing preventing you from suing the scammy
| host in small claims court. You probably won't get the money
| for a while, but once you get the real estate lien you'll see
| it sooner or later.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Are you actually likely to win this chargeback? I'm sure that
| airbnb made the terms very clear in their million page T&C's
| document...
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| He paid for a service they didn't provide. So there is
| definitely some argument to it.
|
| I guess they could say they will still provide the service?
| lol
| grecy wrote:
| I've been with my bank 15+ years, and have a good credit
| rating.
|
| The one and only time I tried a chargeback, they approved it
| virtually before I could ask for it. I think they look at
| your account and see you've been a good customer and give you
| the benefit of the doubt.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| If it was an Amex card, very likely to win, from my
| experiences with them.
| baremetal wrote:
| paying colossal annual fees on a credit card does come with
| a few perks
|
| edit: they do have cards that have no annual fee. disregard
| my comment.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I don't know if it counts as a true AmEx, but I have a
| free one through Wells Fargo
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Amex does have at least one free card issued directly
| from them. I have one. Blue Cash Everyday I think it's
| called.
| baremetal wrote:
| Ah fair enough.
|
| Sometimes you get one free through employers too.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| My AmEx card doesn't have any annual fees.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't have Amex. But higher-tier Visas with annual fees
| can be worth it for a variety of reasons if you travel
| and charge a lot.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It will depends on the local laws/regulations that apply to
| distance-selling and the card network rules. Considering
| there is clearly no bad faith involved from the buyer (he's
| not even trying to weasel out of the booking - he was looking
| forward to use the service he paid for), I'd say he has a
| good chance.
| che_shirecat wrote:
| Getting yourself banned off of Airbnb for $950 doesn't sound
| optimal unless you are swearing off short term lodging around
| the world (outside of hotels) for the foreseeable future.
| That's one of the negative externalities of capture-the-market
| VC investing - getting banned on one of these platforms cuts
| you off from almost the entirety of supply because of how
| marketplace dynamics work.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| Maybe your market is different, but Airbnb is hardly a
| monopoly on either short term housing or vacation rentals
| these days. The entire travel booking industry has caught up.
|
| Similarly to the OP, both my wife and I had to pull teeth for
| weeks to get the full refunds we were entitled to after
| booking airbnb units. We both had dozens of stays and 5 star
| reviews under our belts prior to those experiences, dating
| back through 2013. In my case, it was a unit that the host
| admitted was infested with rats prior to arrival. In my
| wife's, it was a unit that didn't remotely match the photos
| of the listing.
|
| At this point it's my very last resort for booking any kind
| of stay, which is to say I've effectively sworn off the
| service. Since then, I've had no trouble finding vacation
| rentals elsewhere. For $900, yeah, I'd chargeback in a snap.
| twelve40 wrote:
| it was the case when they were the hot new disruptor. By now
| there are alternatives for house/apartment rentals, so they
| can't dick around and rip people off like that anymore.
| They've been called out on "cleaning fees", at some point may
| be forced to implement a sane cancelation window as well.
| gsich wrote:
| I doubt that after such an experience you'll want to use
| Airbnb again.
| loeg wrote:
| I would absolutely end any customer relationship with Airbnb
| for a $950 host scam. If they can't fix that they don't
| deserve your business and you are better off off their
| platform.
| hkgjjgjfjfjfjf wrote:
| [dead]
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| If this is how the service is going to work - why would I
| want to be part of it? I'm not interested in playing some
| VC's network effects game.
|
| The era of free money is over for now, they're going to want
| business soon.
| che_shirecat wrote:
| You assume you have a choice in playing. Most of the supply
| will never consider listing on multiple marketplaces,
| because its a massive hassle. $ABNB is up 48% YTD bucking
| the rest of the market, they have strong financials and are
| massively profitable. The growth-at-all-costs play DID
| work, and now you have no choice but to bend the knee. Edge
| cases like this will never materially affect their
| business.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Just have a friend use their account. Or make a new
| account. Or use VRBO or a number of Airbnb's competitors.
| Or use a sock Airbnb account to connect with a host and
| then negotiate directly.
| srcreigh wrote:
| There was a thread this week (?) about how AirBNB will
| ban you for traveling with a banned person
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Great, maybe they get banned too and it's two less people
| playing a stupid game. I'm not going to tell anyone else
| how to live their lives, but cowering on my knees to tech
| bureaucracy out of San Fransisco is not how I'll live
| mine.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _how AirBNB will ban you for traveling with a banned
| person_
|
| Why do they need to know?
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| > $ABNB is up 48% YTD bucking the rest of the market
|
| Thats pretty cherry-picked, and I wouldn't look to stock
| price to make the conclusions you've shared. Lots of
| growth companies are bouncing back after being oversold
| last year. As another cherry-pick, it's also down nearly
| 50% from its 2021 high.
| twelve40 wrote:
| I've never been a host so can't speak for multiple
| listings, though there seem to be a ton of services that
| try to market to multichannel listing, so "never" seems a
| pretty strong word here?
|
| But, if the interwebs are correct, airbnb has 7 mil
| rentals, booking - 6 mil rentals (vacation specifically,
| not hotels) and vrbo - 2 mil
|
| https://hosttools.com/blog/short-term-rental-tips/vrbo-
| vs-ai...
|
| whatever advantage airbnb has, they are no longer the
| only game in town *
|
| * depends on the town
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| There are lots of alternatives. Agoda, Booking.com, and many
| similar sites offer short-term apartment rentals. Also, in
| much of the world outside the US, hotels are a better and
| surer bet than short-term apartment rentals.
|
| Look at it like this: Would you pay $950 for the privilege of
| using AirBNB? I sure wouldn't. An "AirBNB Membership fee" on
| the order of $950 should seem absurd.
| r00fus wrote:
| The alternatives are often better than airbnb too.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Even in the US, hotels are better and cheaper than airbnbs
| ghaff wrote:
| For most people I can't imagine that keeping AirBnB "happy"
| is so important that you wouldn't try to get $1000 back. But,
| yes, it's a problem when keeping AirBnB, Google, Twitter,
| etc. placated requires rolling over.
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| If a service stole $950 from me, the last thing I would be
| worried about is getting banned from the service
|
| They would not get a single cent from me for the remainder of
| my life and in fact I would do plenty of things to cost them
| business at any chance I will get.
|
| AirBNB is also not the only short term rental option out
| there. E.g. Vrbo
| mariopt wrote:
| Sometimes some hosts make up some ridiculous excuse to lure you
| into cancelling yourself to make a quick buck. A minority but
| they do exist for sure.
|
| When I had an issue with "funny" hosts, I reached out to the
| Airbnb supported and I actually got a full refund and a discount
| for a future booking as an apology for the situation.
|
| To be fair, your host was extremely rigid. Reach airbnb support,
| maybe you'll get a full refund.
| brian-armstrong wrote:
| The post very clearly explains that they did reach out to
| airbnb
| benj111 wrote:
| Credit card chargeback?
| twelve40 wrote:
| what a greedy-ass host! they probably turn around and book
| these dates with someone else after ripping off the author. I
| think a chargeback is definitely worth a try here.
| trhr wrote:
| I had the same thing happen to me. Not only do I not stay at
| AirBNBs anymore, I cancelled my Discover Card when they refused
| to fix it... after ~15 years as a customer.
|
| Once you hit a certain tax bracket and your purchases tend to be
| of a certain value, you start getting a more skilled person
| trying to fuck you, and they often win. At this income bracket,
| it's time to get an AmEx (or another card with really good
| payment protection policies).
|
| But in this case, I'd let the family member sleep in my bed, and
| I'd go stay at this AirBNB, and I'd probably trash the fuckin'
| place or something.
| ralph84 wrote:
| Meh, Amex denied my chargeback when StubHub was illegally
| refusing refunds for events canceled due to covid. I don't
| think there is any card out there that hasn't gotten much
| tougher on chargebacks recently due to both the covid shitshow
| and the massive increase in chargeback fraud.
| dawnerd wrote:
| chwrgebacks from stubhub/Ticketmaster/etc are hard since they
| have you basically agree to not charge back and they use that
| against you. Had to try a chargeback one with them and also
| got denied because I signed a waiver. Complete nonsense
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I had no issues charging back thousands because of covid
| cancellations
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Outright trashing the place is obvious and will backfire, but
| there are plenty of subtle ways to generate significant
| inconvenience and expenses in a plausibly-deniable manner that
| will only take effect weeks or even months after the fact.
|
| Hint: perishable goods and unaccessible (maintenance?) areas in
| the property. Pests would also work.
| sva_ wrote:
| 'Forget' a nice swiss cheese behind the heater.
| Meph504 wrote:
| Many states have laws that are specific extra penalties for
| this sort of malicious behavior. Not only could it cost you
| the cost of undoing any damage you've done, but criminal
| charges on top of it. probably not the best advice to be
| giving to people.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Key words being "plausibly deniable".
| shitlord wrote:
| Maybe you could also leave the water running and keep all the
| appliances turned on for the duration of the stay.
|
| edit: I did a ballpark estimate and it won't even come close.
| If a bathtub wastes 10000 gallons/day at 0.25 cents/gal, then
| that's only about $25/day.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| I used to do something like that whenever I was in a hotel
| that charged outrageous fees for WiFi (this doesn't seem to
| be as common nowadays, though oddly it's more likely to
| happen in a "luxury" hotel than a "business" hotel).
|
| Nothing damaging or malicious per se, but "Oh, hey, I think
| I need a fresh copy of every Linux distro"... stuff like
| that.
| trhr wrote:
| idk, i'd feel morally duplicitous engaging in plausibly-
| deniable damages to someone else's property. i'd rather just
| steal all their lightbulbs or burn the place to the ground.
| but that's just me.
|
| the nice thing about this strategy is that _you_ don't have
| to do any of it. because eventually, they'll try to fuck me.
| vasco wrote:
| Or just say that you'll be staying there even if you're not and
| not trash anything? I feel like any normal person would not
| just throw $900 bucks away like this, probably because they
| wouldn't have planned for a $900 bucks extra spend. What is the
| host gonna do?
|
| What if you book for a couple and the one that booked gets sick
| and has to return early? This makes no sense, I feel like most
| people would've edited the form through support and just added
| themselves in and not use airbnb again after this.
| ghaff wrote:
| Are they going to have bed checks?
|
| But depending on the circumstances of how the rental is
| handled with respect to checkin etc., if the host is going to
| be an ass, now you have someone else thinking they have a bed
| and the host won't let them--because you already told them
| you won't be there.
|
| It does sound in this case though that they could have just
| checked in with their friend and then taken off.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| I recently stayed in Panama City, Panama for a week, and booked
| an Airbnb for my stay. When I checked in, I was so tired from the
| flight that I just wanted to take a hot shower and crash. I
| turned on the shower and waited for the hot water. And waited.
| And waited. Finally I messaged the host to ask if I was doing
| something wrong with the shower controls.
|
| The host's response: "We don't offer hot water at this rental."
|
| I was, let's say, surprised.
|
| I asked them where in the listing they mentioned that, and they
| said "We didn't list hot water as one of the amenities. That was
| intentional."
|
| So essentially, Airbnb considers hot water to be an "amenity", on
| the same level as a coffee maker or a carbon monoxide alarm.
|
| Of course I escalated to Airbnb support and of course they sided
| with the host. So completely aggravating. Like, ok but you also
| didn't list "front door" or "roof" among the amenities. What
| should I infer from that?
| saboot wrote:
| This comment is the one that has convinced me to never use
| AirBnB again.
|
| That is absurd.
| yakireev wrote:
| Never been in Panama, but my experience in Colombia was
| similar: in warmer areas hot water just was not a thing -
| homes, hostels, hotels just did not have it, without special
| notice. "Yeah, the temperature outside is above 30C all year
| round, why would you need more heat?". To be fair, the "cold"
| water was not really cold either, 25-30C or so, so showering
| with that was not unpleasant.
|
| Not sure whether things are similar in Panama, but it could
| very well be. If so, it's cultural barrier, not malignacy.
| SeattleAltruist wrote:
| Had a similar experience with an ethics-free host. Support was
| execrable. So canceled my account and use VRBO or hotels.
|
| Don't understand how AirScrewYouAndB is still in business.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| This is a scam. We were almost a victim of something similar, but
| through Expedia. The scam is to induce you to cancel so they can
| extract a fee.
|
| Basically the listing was nonsense, but we didn't notice it
| immediately. In our case the flat in Paris was both in the 2nd
| and 14th androssiment, somehow. It was listed in the 2nd but
| elsewhere it says 14th.
|
| Of course we went to cancel but there was a 30% fee. We explained
| it to Expedia customer service and of course they're useless and
| said the fee was legit and didn't understand the scam.
|
| We took it up with our bank (Chase) who took months to resolve
| it, we basically kept on getting passed up the chain of people
| who examine the claims, until we got to a high enough level that
| they actually understood the scam (after a hour explaining it
| several times). We were fully refunded our ~$500.
|
| Of course we never will use Expedia again. We generally stick to
| booking.com because they seem to side with the customer most
| consistently. Free cancellation, or pay at the hotel is a must.
| One of the main reasons to avoid AirBnB is that they will keep
| your money in most cases.
| sambull wrote:
| I've had too many bad experiences with them AirBNB is a liability
| just4down6 wrote:
| I had a terrible experience this January with airbnb and it's
| support.
|
| I had a 6 days stay in Zakopane, Poland. My friend was physically
| attacked by the owner of the house, and support done nothing but
| removing my review from one of his apartment page(it's seems that
| the owner can create identical listing pages for one house, and
| just hide/show the ones with best reviews on it)
|
| At first support seemed very supportive, but it the end they done
| nothing, but a "close investigations with an undisclosed results
| by internal guidelines", according to one of the support-stuff. I
| also got my review removed because of the "links to external
| resources"(I've attached the link of the video with screaming
| home-owner) and emotional advice to use other services like
| Booking(without direct link). The last one is understandable.
| Through it wasn't specified as a reason to remove the review, the
| support gave me no chance to edit or re-post the review.
|
| So at the end I can surely say the only thing they care is the
| money, and your well-being is the latest thing they care.
| skilled wrote:
| I would be so mad if this happened to me, what an absolute
| asshole of a host. Can't believe Airbnb wouldn't enforce it
| either.
| daneel_w wrote:
| _> "Can't believe Airbnb wouldn't enforce it either."_
|
| They'd lose money if they did. They understand they can get
| away with it because nobody can raise enough hell for anything
| to happen.
| znkynz wrote:
| Otoh, you did crash a confirmed booking for the host, at too late
| a date for them to find another guest. I can see both sides here.
| skilled wrote:
| 1 hour is too late?
| avalys wrote:
| The article says the initial interaction (including trying to
| cancel) happened within one hour of booking.
| weaksauce wrote:
| I had a bad experience with airbnb too. trash company with trash
| employees that offer no help.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I wish we would prosecute fraud in the US.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| From all the comments here I'm glad I've never used AirBnB. VRBO
| has thus far been ok - anytime we've had an issue with the place
| (once) the hosts were reasonable and provided a refund.
| narrator wrote:
| I think the issue with AirBnB is they are trying to be the
| cheap low maring option. They rent individual rooms, etc. I
| think that's where all the terrible customer service comes
| from.
|
| Perhaps most of their hosts can barely pay expenses and so they
| do all these sorts of cheats to avoid going broke? Perhaps
| AirBnB is just desperate for inventory and lets too much stuff
| slide on both the customer and vendor sides of the marketplace?
|
| Anyway, I have had great experiences with VRBO, which is a bit
| more expensive generally, and always got a refund if there was
| a significant issue.
| noncoml wrote:
| Why wouldn't they fuck your up? They got nothing to lose. They
| don't have a brand name to protect and it's not like they will
| not lose you from a customer(it's unlikely you would book with
| the same host again).
|
| I really don't know why people chose AirBnB. It's the shiniest
| experience ever.
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| First thing that annoys me: they ask for your email address. That
| way whatever communication you have can be done outside of
| AirBnb. Big no-no. Like eBay. Don't move outside of the platform.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| 4.47 rating. That is, believe it or not, a pretty appalling
| score, and not something I would book. Also, the host is an ass,
| I cannot count how many times I have had people book for family
| members, and I've had numerous occasions where someone has booked
| for someone else for work.
|
| You also want to avoid 5.00 or 4.99 with hundreds of stays as
| they are inevitably buying or extorting reviews. 4.88-4.97 is the
| sweet spot.
|
| I really wish Airbnb would just ban hosts like this, as it makes
| those of us who are honestly trying to provide good hospitality
| all get tarred with the same brush.
| avalys wrote:
| Pretty funny that the 5-star system compresses the actual
| useful signal into less than 10% of the range.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| It's ridiculous - and Airbnb perpetuate it. If you get a 4.8*
| or below review, you get a cranky email from Airbnb saying
| that you suck and red warnings all over the "improvements"
| section of the admin. It works, just barely, as long as you
| only book places with like 50 stays and a score in the range
| I mentioned - which isn't something you expect your average
| Joe to realise.
| ghaff wrote:
| At least historically, eBay was the same. Anything other
| than Positive: A++++++++++++++++ Fantastic seller meant
| that they shipped me a cinder block rather than the MacBook
| I purchased.
|
| >If you get a 4.8* or below review, you get a cranky email
| from Airbnb saying that you suck and red warnings all over
| the "improvements" section of the admin.
|
| The one stay I've had at AirBnb--a lovely place in Maui
| (mostly because the hotels were so expensive and it was
| nice)--there were at least a couple pleas in the various
| information about talking to them before leaving anything
| like a 5 rating because they might lose their super-host
| status.
| daneel_w wrote:
| Smells like a systematic scam. An opportunistic one-off like this
| would already be beyond immoral, but I bet the host is abusing by
| plan and full understanding of what they can get away with "by
| policy".
| xwdv wrote:
| Am I missing something? Why didn't the author just say yes he was
| staying as well? In fact he was going to be there at check in,
| just not sleeping there. Do you really think they'll check the
| bed to see if you're in it every night?
|
| The host is not your friend, if you're doing anything odd with an
| Airbnb it's best to just be quiet and not divulge more info than
| what is necessary.
| [deleted]
| richiezc wrote:
| Hot take from somebody I follow on twitter:
|
| "AirBnB is the new Facebook, everyone complains about how
| terrible it is and yet they keep growing usage & making even more
| money each year."
|
| https://twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1625607351083597825?...
| davidw wrote:
| My elderly parents were going to visit us last spring, but my
| daughter came home from school with a sore throat, so I went to
| cancel immediately, and they weren't willing to work with me _at
| all_ , and also mentioned I shouldn't have booked for my parents.
| I did that because they're not very tech savvy.
|
| In any case, I did a chargeback and got all of my money back,
| even though I would have been happy to forfeit some since this
| was the day before they were supposed to arrive.
|
| Airbnb did make some noises about removing my account "if this
| happens again" or something like that, but they can take a hike.
| The whole thing was handled very badly.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I ran into a similar situation- booked for my wife to have a
| girls getaway, the place was disgusting and unsafe (no walking
| path up a hill covered in snow) and had to book elsewhere
| because the host wasn't around when they arrived.
|
| Airbnb refused to help, because per Airbnb policy, me booking
| for my wife counted as a "third party booking".
|
| They tried being reasonable up until the person said "well if
| your wife damaged something you wouldn't want to be responsible
| would you?" and I pointed out that legally, in my state spouses
| are responsible for debts incurred by their partners.
| Mentioning the word "legal" put an immediate stop to the
| conversation with a blunt sentence along the lines of "we have
| done all we can for you. Goodbye."
| stagger87 wrote:
| I had something very similar happen to me when a mudslide
| physically prevented me from getting to the property. You'd think
| you would be able to get a full refund, but the host had to
| approve and of course they didn't. $400 in my case. This was
| years ago, and I've never used the site again.
| rjh29 wrote:
| This is the reason I hope booking.com are successful (they
| increasingly have aparthotel listings). They usually offer free
| cancellation and I've never had a problem cancelling for free if
| I had a good reason (such as illness).
|
| Other thing to watch out for is fees. The place I'm staying at
| charges 20000yen ($150) if you enter the apartment without taking
| off your shoes, 6000yen ($44) per hour overstayed after checkout,
| and inviting anyone into the house for any amount of time causes
| your entire booking to triple in price ($2000 in my case). I'm
| not sure if they can enforce those...
| franciscop wrote:
| They definitely cannot enforce those. Now if you do enter with
| shoes AND damage the floor a bit*, I still doubt they could
| even enforce those. Even courts here are not punitive in nature
| (they are restorative), so even if they sued you and won for
| going in with shoes, which I highly doubt, at most you'd have
| to pay for the damage they can prove that you made, which would
| be few thousand yens.
|
| The only one I am a bit unsure is about guests, since they
| might technically be able to limit who goes around.
|
| *if you do go with dirty shoes and make a mess is a different
| matter, I'm just talking about normal walking with shoes
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Presumably local laws apply. I don't have any idea whether
| fees like that would be allowed in Japan.
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| Looks like you just got the 11 star experience!
| guluarte wrote:
| I'll call my bank and ask for a chargeback, you may get
| permabanned from airbnb but fuck them.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| He should have just stayed the nights then if it was that
| important and he would be there anyway. And then misplace his
| frozen fish in a vent somewhere.
| [deleted]
| jrootabega wrote:
| I think "Claire" is a fake persona.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Probably
| [deleted]
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| I refuse to use Airbnb after a couple of shitty experiences. The
| first time, the place was fine and everything. The issue was that
| when I got there the host told me that he wasn't supposed to be
| renting out his apartment, gave me a description of the property
| manager, and told me to tell the manager that I'm friends with
| the host and staying with him for a few days if the property
| manager chats me up. So it was just awkward and I was a bit
| paranoid.
|
| The 2nd situation, and the one which made me decide to no longer
| use Airbnb, was when we had booked a fake rental. So Airbnb
| doesn't give you the exact address until after you've booked. My
| brother booked a house for 11 of us to stay at in Minneapolis. A
| couple hours outside the city I was trying to figure out the
| quickest route to the train station when I saw that the pictures
| on Google Maps didn't match up with the pictures on the listing.
| This place just didn't exist. We were unable to contact the host.
| So we contacted Airbnb and cancelled while I tried my best to
| find a couple of hotel suites to house us all. It was really
| stressful and dumb and I'm pretty sure there was some sort of fee
| that my brother didn't get refunded.
| elzbardico wrote:
| This is one of the reasons, besides all the ethical stuff, that
| made me stop using AirBnB. Some hosts are a-holes, and AirBnB
| usually sides with the hosts. Personally I never had issues, but
| have seem to many having this kind of issue. So, go to an hotel,
| that pays taxes, have employees and where you are not a source of
| nuisance for neighbors and an agent of gentrification. As a bonus
| you will avoid this kind of problems.
| jgb1984 wrote:
| I don't understand why anyone would still bother with Airbnb. So
| many headaches. I've used booking dot com, to reserve real hotels
| or apartments managed by real professional people, all over the
| world, for over a decade and counting, and I never had a single
| issue.
|
| Airbnb is built on evading taxes, skirting the law and exploiting
| the real estate market to the detriment of the local population
| AND the traveler. Don't support them.
| jedberg wrote:
| Another notch in the "AirBnB is a totally different experience
| outside the USA vs inside of it".
|
| Every story I've heard, as well as my personal experience, is
| that people outside the USA are very customer service oriented,
| want you to have a good time exploring the place they live, and
| are generally very attentive and accommodating.
|
| Inside the USA people are just in it as a side hustle. Usually it
| works out fine, sometimes not so much.
|
| I've never had a bad experience personally, but I've had some
| pretty amazing experiences outside the USA, but never within it.
|
| (Stuff like hosts buying us groceries ahead of time because they
| knew we were arriving late, personally showing us around town
| upon arrival, paying for my offsite parking when my rental car
| wouldn't fit in the provided garage, etc).
| PufPufPuf wrote:
| Yes. I've stayed in AirBnBs in Italy, Germany, Hungary, and
| Japan, and mostly met very hospitable and helpful hosts that
| seemed genuinely interested in providing the best service.
| Maybe I'm picky with the listings, maybe I'm lucky, maybe it's
| a thing of culture like you suggest.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| I only use Airbnb when I have no other options (no nearby hotel
| or I have too many people). Which has been a total of three times
| ever.
|
| It certainly doesn't make me want to use them more often. Hosts
| always have insane rules like I basically have to be a full time
| cleaner and also the only parking is three miles away and I can
| only eat in exactly one place.
|
| And I always have to live in fear that something will come and
| I'll have to cancel and lose 100% of my money. Why is it that
| hosts can have misleading listings and cancel days in advance
| while I have no power at all?
|
| Really tells you who Airbnb's customer is.
| akinbio wrote:
| I also recently lost $3050 to Airbnb and a terrible host in
| London. The listing was wrong (including the address), but both
| Airbnb and the host didn't want to refund my long term stay and
| dragged it to force me to stay. I am still fighting it through my
| bank to no avail :(
| cubico wrote:
| Airbnb is awful, it's like all the problems of landlords without
| any of the protections.
| smallerfish wrote:
| I'm picturing "Claire" swinging a knife every time "she" says
| "Chris".
|
| "Hello Chris [stab] might I ask Chris [stab] if you wish Chris
| [stab] to be scammed today Chris [stab]? That's wonderful Chris
| [stab] but I'm afraid Chris [stab] that I am required to scam you
| Chris [stab] by my boss Chris [stab] nothing personal Chris
| [stab] it's fine Chris [stab]."
| tiredrunner wrote:
| Airbnb hosts these days are insane for real. You pay a premium
| and still you do laundry, clear the garbage, mop the floor and
| what not and still be charged for cleaning.
| anadem wrote:
| Commenting as a "host" on Airbnb: yes, it's a reeaaally nasty
| company with absolutely horrible "support", from the hosting side
| as well as from the guest side.
|
| In this particular case it's an unkind and nasty host as well;
| they could perfectly well allow the guest despite Airbnb's
| policies, though Airbnb would say that their laughable "Aircover"
| "insurance" would not apply to the rental.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is exactly what happened with eBay and PayPal. The
| scammers learn how to work the system and "innocents" on both
| sides get screwed.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| I've only used AirBNB a few times and it always sucked. The fact
| that you have to pay a cleaning fee, then you have to do all
| these chores on the way out (strip linens down, do dishes, take
| out trash, etc.) never made any sense. I just wish hotels would
| have found a way to compete better for longer term stays. You
| should get some kind of price break for staying longer in a
| hotel.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Lots of hotels offer weekly and monthly discounts.
|
| They cater to 1. People without housing 2. Longer term business
| travelers. The former is more affordable, but comes with...
| issues. The latter is probably what you want.
|
| IME, the nighly cost of an Airbnb is generally in the same
| ball-park as a reasonable budget friendly hotel after you
| factor everything in.
| jonplackett wrote:
| I would absolutely go stay in the Airbnb myself regardless where
| it is.
| Leader2light wrote:
| [dead]
| onphonenow wrote:
| Uhh - I came ready to blame Airbnb as I no longer use them.
| However - you obviously can't do third party bookings and if a
| host has had third party booking issues (Airbnb will not cover
| these at all) I think hosts will have a very negative reaction to
| a third party booking.
|
| Maybe blame Airbnb for not being clearer, but the profile photo /
| ID verification stuff is designed for the guest.
|
| Do people do third party dating or car reservations etc?
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Well people do blind dates or get set up by friends or both, so
| maybe that counts? And the OP managed to make a third-party
| hotel reservation fine.
|
| I think the actual issue was not the Airbnb rule but that it
| makes little sense that the OP was unable to cancel at no
| charge for a reasonable reason an hour after making the booking
| (and plenty of time before the stay).
| johnfn wrote:
| This kind of article makes me angry because an extremely similar
| situation happened to me. I made a reservation months in advance,
| only to have Airbnb cancel it on me days before the flight out.
|
| I panicked and booked another place, only to try to cancel the
| booking a few hours later when I calmed down and realized it
| wasn't large enough. But I couldn't, because of the cancelation
| policy. I contacted Airbnb customer support and they wouldn't
| cancel it either, so I ended up having to pay the entire bill.
|
| The supreme irony of course is that Airbnb cancelled a
| reservation I made months in advance without a single penny paid
| to me for my inconvenience - but when I cancelled because of
| Airbnb's incompetence I had to foot the entire bill. Truly
| absurd.
|
| Airbnb completely lost me as a customer at that point, and I'm
| someone who had spent quite a good deal on Airbnbs in the past.
| Hotels have never cancelled on me days before a trip.
| normaldist wrote:
| Airbnb customer support is terrible. I placed a booking and got
| complete radio silence from the host. Support wouldn't provide a
| refund until checkin-in failed.
|
| I had already booked a hotel, and don't use Airbnb anymore.
| irrational wrote:
| Why didn't they do a chargeback?
| JakaJancar wrote:
| Why not just tell them you'll be there yourself too?
|
| It's not like they're going to drop in unannounced, ID you, and
| if you're missing a few times while your friend is there, make a
| case to cancel the booking in the middle of it.
| ddoolin wrote:
| I don't use Airbnb since they did a background check (which I
| guess I agreed to at some point) and then banned me when my
| record came back. I thought that was strange since it's up to the
| host if they want your record checked, I think, and instead of
| preventing me from reserving that particular listing, they banned
| me for life. It doesn't seem to matter how long ago the offense
| was, and it also seems pretty indiscriminate with regards to the
| type of offense as well.
|
| Oddly enough, I can usually go to VRBO and rent the exact same
| properties, or go to any hotel.
| bensons1 wrote:
| Had more or less the same situation. My flight got cancled some 8
| hours after my AirBNB booking. Story is similar, host refused to
| refund "no refund policy" and AirBNB trying to blame the host. In
| the end I went to PayPal, as I used them for payment. Opened up a
| ticket, explained the situation and after 5 days I received a
| full refund. AirBNB afterwards sent some two horribly translated
| E-Mails to me, explaining I might loose my account blabla, but
| nothing happend. Still I stopped using them.
| DueDilligence wrote:
| [dead]
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Note that the cancellation policy for Hosts is quite generous:
| https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/990
|
| This lets a host dump you three days before your booking and get
| away with "only" 25% in fees.
|
| AirBnB definitely invests in their inventory (the hosts).
| ape4 wrote:
| Easily found in article 900 ;(
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Even if you cancel 1 second before checkin the fee is only 50%.
|
| Meanwhile a guest is on the hook for all of it.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| I will never ever use airbnb again
|
| In munich I had booked 3 night stay, 2 HOURS!! before i was to
| turn up the host made an excuse of their dad had died and
| cancelled the reservation - this was obv nothing to do with the
| fact they had just realised there was an exhibition on in the
| area (where rates sky rocket x4)
|
| I spoke to the person and they was extremly unconvicing of the
| real reason of cancelling - luckly I managed to get a hotel for
| a little more, but the stress!!!!!!! I WILL NEVER EVER use
| airbnb again
| plantain wrote:
| There's something in the water in Munich - I had the same
| experience, probably because it was just coming into
| Oktoberfest...
| 123pie123 wrote:
| Oktoberfest... the memeries make up for all the bad
| experiances from airbnb
| cmsonger wrote:
| This sucks. I was doing exactly this yesterday and fortunately
| figured it out before sending money that I could not do the
| booking. Instead I told the people I wanted to stay close to me
| "book it and I'll send you the money."
|
| I bet AirBnB people read hacker news.
|
| Folks: I should be able to pay for another user's booking. It
| just can't be that hard. I set the dates, supply the payment
| info, anoint another user of your platform to reach out to the
| host.
|
| Alternatively (if there's something with payment processing that
| I don't understand), the user who wants me to pay chooses the
| dates, writes what they want to say to the host, and then passes
| the baton to me for supplying payment info.
|
| I've paid for friends and family to stay in hotels a zillion
| times. I was amazed that your platform does not allow this. Now
| I'm appalled that it allows situations like OP's to happen. And
| for the record, I was not thrilled to have to disclose what I was
| paying for my friends. Until this is fixed, will actively try to
| use hotels for this in the future. (This was a unique case.)
| berkle4455 wrote:
| They said "kindly". Claire isn't a real person, that was a an
| intentional scam.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Yep, sounds like third-world boiler room and will explain the
| determination to make a quick buck and screw the customer
| despite an honest mistake.
|
| Chances are, the listing itself is a complete scam and there
| would've been something else gone wrong if the booking
| proceeded, but the author being honest about the third-party
| booking gave them an easy way out to begin with.
| gameman144 wrote:
| I wonder what the outcome would have been here if the author just
| turned this into a game of chicken with the host.
|
| It sounds like the host said "You can't have this reservation you
| made", the author said "Okay, I'll cancel", and the host said
| "Whoops too late".
|
| Since the host is the one who was requesting that cancellation,
| I'd be curious what would have happened if the author replied
| with "You can cancel the reservation if you can't fulfill it, not
| a problem".
|
| Obviously no ruling out that AirBNB wouldn't just charge the
| author _and_ not give access to the property, but seems like at
| least a higher probability of success.
| barrkel wrote:
| AirBnB is like a no-recourse Paypal for random third parties of
| unknown psychological stability. You do not contract with AirBnB.
| I recommend staying well away from them.
|
| I have my own horror story, involving an overflowing toilet and
| hysterical accusations from the host.
|
| We noticed the toilet was backed up in the bowl in the morning
| and alerted the host. The person the host sent round to look at
| it found some kind of cosmetic wipe, then the host leapt the
| conclusion that we were at fault, thinking they were nappy wipes.
| We were not at fault; we use laundered reusable cotton wipes. In
| any case, this lead her to _not fix_ the problem!
|
| In the evening, after we came back to the apartment, the toilet
| started overflowing when the apartment upstairs flushed. Then the
| apartment upstairs had a shower; water was coming up out of our
| shower, out of the toilet, flooding out of the bathroom, into the
| living area. We had a toddler, and toilet water started flooding
| into his bedroom too.
|
| After some heated phone conversations, the apartment upstairs was
| determined to be the problem (she was flushing cosmetic wipes),
| and still the host was incredibly nasty, because we weren't
| grateful enough that it was cleaned up late at night.
|
| I deleted my AirBnB account after this experience.
|
| It's not worth the risk. Not once.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Just say you're staying there.
|
| The last few Airbnbs I stayed in had self-checkin. I never saw a
| person, host or owner. There's an easy way around this issue, as
| crafty as it might be.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| I don't understand why you wouldn't just go through with the
| original plan.
| breatheoften wrote:
| The "third party booking" element is a drag here since there's a
| definite scam angle for this from either side.
|
| Guest: always book only for others in order to get refunds
| against policy somehow (minor) or to do fraudulent bookings with
| stolen account creds (major problem!)
|
| Host: create a misunderstanding in order to lead a guest down a
| suboptimal refund flow
|
| I wonder if airbnb support would have been able to advise the
| customer to just add themselves to the reservation -- seems like
| that would've actually worked for everyone involved in this case
| assuming the guest actually trusted the family member that was
| staying in the airbnb ...
|
| I suppose there could also have been an upcharge for the second
| guest ...? Really makes this feel even more scammy ...
|
| If airbnb really doesn't think it has the power to take the money
| back from the seller in this case - they definitely should have
| the power to eat this fee themselves because this kind of
| experience will lead people to stop using the platform imo ...
| reverend_gonzo wrote:
| I am a host and an often traveler.
|
| AirBnb doesn't necessarily side with one side or the other, but
| rather, there, customer service is outsourced to the Philippines
| and they just don't care. The side you wins is the side you can
| say the magic words that specific agent wants to hear.
|
| I've had guests stay at our place and get a refund at the end by
| lying, and even admitted to me, he knows how Airbnb support works
| so knew what to say to them.
|
| I've been able to get damage claims paid by Airbnb when guests
| refused.
|
| Looking at this host though and reading the reviews, this looks
| like a complete scam. Claire, for one, is definitely not real.
| Also anything under 4.7 on Airbnb is generally not good. I
| generally only rent 4.8 and up. The first review (I hough it may
| not have been up when he booked) mentions being hit up for money,
| bad checking, etc, lol of which point to a scam.
|
| Had it been me, I wouldn't have cancelled and would have just
| said I'll stay there and been done with it.
| kadomony wrote:
| AirBnB is dogshit.
| bsuvc wrote:
| Unfortunately, I found that the best way to resolve these
| situations is to post publicly on Twitter about what happened
| making sure to @ the relevant company and # the relevant things.
|
| If the support group won't help you, then maybe the PR group can.
|
| Basically you attitude has to be "either you give me my $900
| back, or I'll make sure this problem costs you more than $900 in
| bad publicity."
|
| The math becomes better for them to give you your $900 back, if
| they can publicly look responsive to complaints or maybe even get
| you to take down your post.
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