An Airbnb Thanksgiving Burglary

A bit acrid but maybe on point. I feel what bothers me the most is that I related to the post until the very end. What frustrates me is that I, too, operate under a guise of assumptions that might not be mandated: there is room for nefarious actors in the AirBnb system, up to and including hosts who control the wifi you connect to and/or the locks you use. I'm not sure where to take it from here, Awareness is a delicate virtue, too much of it and it turns into paranoia.

Not meaning to suggest he "asked for it", but there's a reason hotels have safes and secure storage services.

Burglaries happen all the time. Even if all the windows are locked, burglaries can happen in all sorts of ways, particularly in free-standing houses. I don't like leaving my laptop or other valuables in my own home. I keep my devices with me when I can, and avoid owning items that burglars would want to steal (watches, jewellery etc).

Another issue with electronic devices and insurance is fraud. Having worked in the travel industry for a long time, I've known of people working in the industry, casually making fraudulent claims on devices just because they felt like an upgrade. Fraud is easy to commit and hard to prove, so the insurers just can't offer much cover, unless you're willing to take out special top-level cover for your devices, which is expensive for just this reason.

It always sucks being robbed, and it's natural to want to blame someone, but I'm not sure what more Airbnb is meant to do in cases like this.

I've deleted my account and vowed never to support the company again. If it works, it's great. If it doesn't, you're completely hosed, often with no ability to complain or get recompense beyond your own insurance and/or consumer credit legislation. Their customer service system is _designed_ to make it as hard as possible to contact a human, and there are times when you _really_ need to contact a human. Three vignettes over three different years highlight why:

(a) Experience 1: Went to a scientific conference, rented a flat ["condo" in en-us] in Toronto with colleagues. Beautiful apartment, great location, great price. Toilet blocked on day 3. Host blamed the only female member of my party and claimed that she must have flushed 'sanitary products' down it -- without having previously seen it. Colleague was offended. Searching ~500 reviews showed occasional mention of toilet blocking. Host did not unblock toilet. Toilet started to accumulate other people's toilet contents. I went and bought draino and a plunger. I got toilet semi-working before the flat got filled with faeces. It still stank. I complained to the host and asked if she could sort out a plumber. Host blamed us, refused to. At the end of the stay, host charged us 600 CAD, and took the deposit, for a plumber coming to rod the building, and, again, blamed my female colleague for flushing tampons down it. Female friend/colleague flatly told me that she wasn't menstruating that week, didn't flush anything, and the whole thing was moot.

I became convinced that someone, at some point in the past, had indeed flushed something inappropriate, and the host knew about this, and then used us to pay for fixing it. Complained to Airbnb (a difficult thing to do). Airbnb sided with the host. Ended up making a chargeback on my credit card and they never pursued it.

(b) Experience 2: A colleague of mine rented an airbnb house in Montreal for a large group of us for the same scientific conference a few years later. We arrived, late at night, to see her upset and wet. The property had a definite vibe of crack-den-cum-brothel. There were urine stains on the curtains, a broken poledancing pole in the corner, and the whole place smelt of bad air-freshner, cigarette smoke, urine, and semen. The windows were broken, electricity didn't work, the sockets were hanging out of the walls, and the roof leaked. The front door locked, but you could push the polystyrene out of the windows and hop in. It was the same place as described on the net, just...ruined. We'd just landed on an international flight, it was about 2 am local time, and we were shattered. Airbnb refused to do anything. We paid for another hotel out of our own pockets, and claimed on insurance. Airbnb eventually gave us travel credit.

(c) Experience 3: Cologne, DE. Friend's stag do ["bachelor party" in en-us]. Again, group of us, going on a weekend holiday for go-karting, to see the groom's family, a bit of football (to date the only live football I have ever seen in my life), and some opera [we had a mix of tastes]. Nice-looking airbnb apartment booked by a friend of mine, who was german, with good reviews. We travel to Germany, and he gets a message. The host wants to meet in a random location.

Now, something I didn't realise at the time was that Cologne was home to Europe's largest brothel [1], and where the host wanted to meet us was in a nearby park to Pascha. At about 10 pm at night. We turn up, huddle by a dark tree away from street lighting as per instructions, and this guy on a BMX bike arrives out of the gloom. A hushed, sotto voce conversation takes place in German with my friend, of which I glean a few bits of information -- there's quite a lot of apology and "take it or leave it". Guy on bike vanishes into the night towards the brothel. My friend says, in english, "Okay, so there has been a change of plan...." and proceeds to hand us all ~€20 in cash, and some keys. We go for what seems like forever on the u-bahn to a totally different location, again, by a sex shop, and arrive outside a concrete block of flats. There's a single lightbulb swinging in the stairwell. The flat on the right has a solid steel front door with reinforced piano hinges. The (three) keys open the locks. It's the kind of lock that needs keys on both sides to open. We go inside, and see a completely furnitureless apartment, with a wooden park bench in the kitchen and a pyramid of toilet-rolls by the toilet -- right on the left side, without a door to the hallway. The two bedrooms consist of enough mattresses for us all on the floor, with threadbare blankets on top. By this point, it's about 3 am, and I am exhausted. I lie down, and the pillow feels like it bites me. I reach around, try to adjust it, and realise that it's not really a pillow. It's the broken arm of a sofa in a cotton sack. I wonder if this is repurposed accommodation for...a different purpose. -----

Three times. Once by my own volition, and twice by peer pressure. I'm not staying in an Airbnb again, even if someone else is paying. Hotels may have their own problems, but fundamentally I don't feel like I'm going to get "accidentally" confused for a sex slave at 3 in the morning when the mob come knocking. I also think it's better to support a business that pays taxes (even if it's a badly run business) than what I can only describe as tax-dodging "entrepreneurs". Avoid Airbnb. Just do so.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascha_(brothel)

Or a past tennant who has simply made a copy of the keys

I've been an Airbnb guest on 3 continents with good experiences. On 12 November this year, I became an Airbnb host by listing my beach pad for rent in Queensland Australia. What a shock. I am trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare.

Christmas is mid-summer in Australia. With the southern states coming out of lockdown, and my area COVID free, demand for beachside properties on the Sunshine Coast has never been higher.

The first two bookings went fine. I was having a great Airbnb experience. Then the 3rd and 4th bookings came in at less than half price. I couldn't understand it because Christmas is the peak period of demand, and my new property was the only one listed in the area. All other comparable properties have already been booked for the Christmas-New Years period.

The support staff said the pricing was a result of "Smart Pricing". That's a "feature" that defaults to ON, along with Instant Booking, which means an algorithmically generated price was locked in.

But surely it's a bug to offer a price below the low season minimum for the busiest week of the year, which should rent for 2.5 times that price? And I had set a Custom Price for that week, which "Smart Pricing" ignored!

The support ambassador said she could see my point. She did a search for comparable properties and verified that mine was the only one. She agreed something had gone wrong, and said she would investigate.

I spoke and chatted with 4 different support ambassadors over 5 days. All were professional, polite, and agreed there had been an inexplicable mistake. At 3am on the 5th day, a supervisor unilaterally closed the case via chat, saying "Smart Pricing is based on the type and location of your listing, the season, demand, and other factors. For instructions on how to turn Smart Pricing on or off, visit our Help Center article. I will be out of the office from Nov 17-18. Should you wish to cancel the reservation or need further assistance please know that we are here with you all throughout your Airbnb journey, please don't hesitate to reach out to us."

I didn't want to cancel because this is clearly a bug and I want Airbnb to fix it, for their own sake as well as mine and my guest. My guest over Christmas is an experienced Airbnb superhost, who agrees it is a bug in Airbnb's platform. She doesn't want to re-book either, so we agreed to go through the support process and get a correction. She hoped for compensation.

22 days later, we still have no resolution. 3 days ago, the support ambassador said the issue would be escalated to the Product Team, but to do that, she had to close the support ticket. She said if I wanted to know the status, I could call them back. I asked her which team is working on the problem. She said it's a secret.

I am not the only host to experience this problem.

The problem is evidenced during periods of peak demand e.g. Xmas-NYE in Australia and New York, Spring Break in Hawaii, Winter in Florida. Hosts report "Smart Pricing" has imposed the low season minimum nightly price or below, instead of a high season price.

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Smart-Pricing/td-p/...

That's a bug! Hosts lose confidence in Airbnb's platform because "Smart Pricing" costs them money or administrative overhead at precisely the point when Airbnb should be delivering maximum value.

Surely someone at Airbnb can see the value in fixing this?