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How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

chriskiehl.com

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Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#101

Post by FractalParadigm »

bboygravity wrote: post #66
avalys wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard of companies reacting to a chargeback in situations like this by banning your account.

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.

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.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#102

Post by 123pie123 »

whiplash451 wrote: post #52

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).

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

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#104

Post by tromp »

jeromegv wrote: post #59
nixpulvis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 ca…

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.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#105

Post by gsich »

che_shirecat wrote: post #45
Nextgrid wrote: post #6

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 ma…

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.

I doubt that after such an experience you'll want to use Airbnb again.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#107

Post by shitlord »

Nextgrid wrote: post #32
trhr wrote: post #9

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 pay…

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.

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.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#108

Post by Nextgrid »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #91
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#109

Post by stagger87 »

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.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#110

Post by baremetal »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #75
bboygravity wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

>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?

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