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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

#221

Post by tedivm »

User23 wrote: post #130
dghlsakjg wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you sure there isn't an arbitration clause hiding somewhere in the tos?

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#224

Post by VectorLock »

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…

Changebacks aren't guaranteed that your bank or credit card issuers will allow it. I've had a bank tell me several times that I can't do a chargeback when there were fraudulent purchases made on my account on the Playstation Network.

Even better, Sony threatened to ban my account and I'd lose all the content I legitimately purchased if I did a chargeback against them.

I buy physical game copies now and I've found CapitalOne is better at doing chargebacks than my credit union is (guess credit unions aren't all they're cracked up to be in certain aspects)

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#225

Post by thimabi »

gameman144 wrote: post #56

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 reserv…

That seems the best alternative to me. If the host is so interested in enforcing the policy, let she enforce it herself.

Given the circumstances, I think it is highly unlikely Airbnb would charge the guest. In any case, the guest can also resort to a chargeback, as others have said.

Not giving in to unreasonable demands should be the norm when using services such as Airbnb, Uber, etc.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#226

Post by Nextgrid »

olliej wrote: post #160
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…

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 af…

He never changed his mind. He wanted to amend the name on the booking to rectify what is essentially a clerical error. It’s not his fault if the only way to do that through the software is to effectively cancel and make a new booking.

If we’re talking about laws, the law varies between states and countries and just because something is buried in page 59 of a clickwrap agreement nobody reads doesn’t magically mean the case is a slam-dunk - there will be many nuances a court will consider if it actually gets there, which it will not because Airbnb and maybe even the host has way more skeletons hidden in the closet to risk showing up in court over a cancellation fee - in fact the only reason this wasn’t resolved in favor of the guest is because the entire case was offloaded to someone in a third-world country barely capable of speaking English and definitely not paid nor trained enough to understand and care about the situation - so they’re definitely not going to be flying in a lawyer to argue their case for a few hundred bucks in court.

With regards to a chargeback fee, Stripe charges around 30 bucks last time I checked? Far from breaking the bank I would say.

> it seems like (IANAL) your chargeback could also be taken as a breach of contract by the host

I would absolutely pay good money to see that host argue their case in court when the whole dispute started out of them trying to make a quick buck instead of allowing the guest to change their name. However just as the above there is no way they will show up in court considering it’s very likely they’re not even abiding by their local laws when it comes to short-term rentals, and the writing style of “Claire” suggests the whole thing might be a complete scam in the end.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#227

Post by olliej »

makeitdouble wrote: post #216
DangitBobby wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fraud.

Sadly parent's point is correct. Chargebacks are not to protect from jerks and bad customer service. If there was a contract you first agreed to, but you find out afterwards that one of the clause is problematic in your case, and the other party is a jerk about it, chances are your card issuer won't even accept the chargeback. Most of the time you need proof that the merchant is the one breaching the contract.

More over most honest businesses would rather you contact them for a refund rather than a chargeback. A chargeback should not be your go to for someone stealing your credit card or whatever as that costs the business (which is itself a victim) money. For Amazon etc that might not matter, but for smaller businesses it can be an expensive event. The payment processors charge them significant fees for any charge back (to “discourage” the need for them). (Ignoring that those companies may sell through Amazon or whatever, and those intermediaries take double digit % of every purchase, but don’t pay a cent of any refund).

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#229

Post by world2vec »

dan-robertson wrote: post #194
sdenton4 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

This. Aparthotels (like Sonder) are imo much better than Airbnbs for medium to long stays.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#230

Post by ghaff »

DangitBobby wrote: post #185
jemmyw wrote: post #144

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,…

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.

Yeah, if I were booking a trip with a spouse or friend and I was maybe joining a couple days later, I would absolutely book for them. I would make sure the hotel had their name whether through the booking form or another channel. But that would be something bog-standard for just about any normal hotel on the planet.

I actually find it downright weird that you can't book a reservation for someone else on AirBnB.

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