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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

#121

Post by Nextgrid »

Meph504 wrote: post #84
Nextgrid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Key words being "plausibly deniable".

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#123

Post by johnfn »

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.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#124

Post by lotsofpulp »

baremetal wrote: post #110
lotsofpulp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

With the same name? I think the probability is low enough to accept the false positive.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#125

Post by jazzyjackson »

goshakkk wrote: post #35
grandpoobah wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

Yes at the very least chargeback gives you leverage.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#126

Post by daneel_w »

skilled wrote: post #13

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.

>"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.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#127

Post by baremetal »

the__alchemist wrote: post #99
londons_explore wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

If it was an Amex card, very likely to win, from my experiences with them.

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.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#130

Post by User23 »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #120
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…

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.

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.
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