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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

#31

Post by avalys »

madaxe_again wrote: post #21

4.47 rating. That is, believe it or not, a pretty appalling score, and not something I would book. Also, the host is an ass, I cannot count how many times I have had people book for family members, and I’ve had numerous occasions where someone has booked for someone else for work. You also want to avoid 5.00 or 4.99 with hundreds of stays as they are inevitably buying or extorting reviews. 4.88-4.97 is the sweet spot…

Pretty funny that the 5-star system compresses the actual useful signal into less than 10% of the range.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#32

Post by Nextgrid »

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.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#33

Post by davidw »

avalys wrote: post #19
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…

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

See my other comment elsewhere, but they did not ban me even though I did a chargeback and won.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#35

Post by goshakkk »

grandpoobah wrote: post #26
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…

> 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

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#36

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

I refuse to use Airbnb after a couple of shitty experiences. The first time, the place was fine and everything. The issue was that when I got there the host told me that he wasn't supposed to be renting out his apartment, gave me a description of the property manager, and told me to tell the manager that I'm friends with the host and staying with him for a few days if the property manager chats me up. So it was just awkward and I was a bit paranoid.

The 2nd situation, and the one which made me decide to no longer use Airbnb, was when we had booked a fake rental. So Airbnb doesn't give you the exact address until after you've booked. My brother booked a house for 11 of us to stay at in Minneapolis. A couple hours outside the city I was trying to figure out the quickest route to the train station when I saw that the pictures on Google Maps didn't match up with the pictures on the listing. This place just didn't exist. We were unable to contact the host. So we contacted Airbnb and cancelled while I tried my best to find a couple of hotel suites to house us all. It was really stressful and dumb and I'm pretty sure there was some sort of fee that my brother didn't get refunded.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#37

Post by elzbardico »

This is one of the reasons, besides all the ethical stuff, that made me stop using AirBnB. Some hosts are a-holes, and AirBnB usually sides with the hosts. Personally I never had issues, but have seem to many having this kind of issue. So, go to an hotel, that pays taxes, have employees and where you are not a source of nuisance for neighbors and an agent of gentrification. As a bonus you will avoid this kind of problems.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#38

Post by sdenton4 »

Matheus28 wrote: post #4

I don't see why someone would still use Airbnb for short stays. At $1.5k for 5 nights in Seattle you can surely stay at a decent hotel (which the OP ended up doing anyway, at $1.3k), and not have to deal with some weird hosts. Hit them with a chargeback, who cares about getting banned from Airbnb.

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.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#40

Post by nixpulvis »

avalys wrote: post #19
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…

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

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.

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