I used to regularly rent a particular BnB for 1-2 weeks when I used to travel back home (Delhi), once, during my 3rd trip the water heater was broken, (this is in the middle of January (~3-13C)), and I was not made aware of the fact. Additionally, there was also no heating, nor any areas where I could take a hot shower, when I asked the manager, who had been pretty friendly with me, he said it'll take 5-6 days for him to figure it out. I, unfortunately prefer to shower daily, so staying like that was very hard. When my booking did end, I rated them a very generous 4/5 because I thought that the relationship mattered more than my discomfort. The next time I wanted to book, I was denied, saying we require all our guests to rate us 5 stars, and if not, they don't accept bookings. I had to then promise them I'd rate them 5 since I didn't want too much of a hassle and that place was pretty nice/economical by the city standards. Rated them a 1/5 and never booked again. Hotels are my goto for any duration of stays now, nothing more than a cursory, "Hi I'd like a please, thanks".
How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
281–290 of 377 posts
Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
#282I 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.”…
Our shower didn't work in an airbnb (well-reviewed) in WA state. Another guy I know got a place with no heat in the winter in Montana (probably illegal). Airbnb can sometimes save you a buck or get you a unique place, but you're really rolling the dice without those pesky regulations and professional hospitality workers.
Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't it fraudulent though? They didn't even use the service.
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 t…
Your local laws will dictate what a contract can and can't do, but generally contracts require a "meeting of the minds" and it's up to a court to decide what that means and which clauses are actually enforceable (that's also why we have courts instead of the whole "code is law" crypto-dystopian BS, because not every possible edge-case can be predicted and written in the contract in advance).
In this case the guest did not realize the bookings were nominative, and once he made aware, he wanted to change the booking to the proper person. A shortcoming of the Airbnb platform is that there is no way to transfer a booking to another account, so the only way is to cancel and rebook.
Notice how at no point the guest's intention was to cancel and back out of the deal. The cancellation was suggested by the host themselves being unreasonable and trying to exploit a policy technicality to make a quick buck.
Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
#284I 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.”…
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 sim…
I was just in Barbados and almost every house had a solar water heater on the roof. You still need hot water to wash dishes and clothes.
Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
#285I 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 indiscrim…
> it's up to the host if they want your record checked...
Hosts have very little say about how the platform works. Airbnb suddenly hid guest account details (name, photo etc) from hosts during the booking process because they decided there would be less racial (or whatever) discrimination, and removed the requirement for people to have their face in their account image. The result was somebody would roll up at a property and the host has no idea who they are, and no way to verify whether they were the guest or not.
Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> IP bans VPN to the rescue!
A VPN would already be banned or be considered a high-risk to begin with.
You'll need a clean, residential IP. Thankfully if you're on a dynamic IP all you need to do is restart your router, or just use your phone as pretty much every carrier only uses dynamic IPs for mobile devices.
Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
#287Charge 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…
You make it sound like chargeback is an easy thing to do, with 100% success rate. I tried twice in my life to chargeback, for items not delivered. Both times unsuccessfully. It looks like banks usually side with merchants, because merchants pay them, not the customers, and because companies are generally considered more trustworthy than individuals.
Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
#288I 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 :(
$3050 is a large enough amount that I would take it to small claims court. In which case, AirBNB has to send a representative to court to fight the charges, or they'll default and you'll (eventually) get your money back.
Even if they do send somebody (which is doubtful) what you're saying suggests that the listing was totally fraudulent.
Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
#289Why 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.
Here is one of the problems with third-party bookings: the person that makes the booking is sent all the information needed to make the stay a pleasant experience. This can be details like: where to park and where NOT to park; how to find the house; how to find the key or the code to the electronic lock; how open the front door; etc, and the host is given the contact details of the person that made the booking (phone number, e-mail). The preferred method of communication between host and guests should ALWAYS be the Airbnb app messages, not third-party systems where fraud could occur, so the host has no way to contact the person staying and usually has no idea who it is.
Typically NONE of this information is passed from the person making the booking to the person actually staying, so the guest parks in the wrong spot, goes to the wrong house, cannot find the key or doesn't have the code to open the front door, etc, and after an hour or so they contact the hosts demanding action and the host says "Who are you and why are you phoning me at midnight?"
Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb
#290I 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…
Is that what AmEx is for? I've always wondered in all honesty. I had a similar experience with non-AmEx. Got double billed by a hotel and the credit card company initially didn't have my back. I had to go back and forth with them multiple times even with a seemingly obvious fraud.
I dunno if that's what its "for," but it's quickly becoming a point of differentiation between their competitors, if it hasn't always been.
It's likely that having a lot of cards with annual fees attached to them, plus not being an easy target by those manufactured spend weirdos, plus having a fairly high "minimum bar" for customer quality means that they've got their customers' backs an inch further than Discover does.
For comparison, Discover gave me a ~$20,000 credit limit when I was 19 and didn't have a job. Now I'm 37 and have millions of dollars in the bank and I had to call and argue with AmEx before they would approve my application for their entry level card.