Live data from Hacker News

How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

chriskiehl.com

341–350 of 377 posts

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#341
post #19
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.

lol who cares if airbnb cancels your account? There are a million other ways to get a room . I mean it's convenient and I use it but it wouldn't be the end of the world if they banned me.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will result in an immediate ban by Airbnb. I got screwed by Oculus and spent almost half a year getting my account back after a chargeback ban. Don’t ever chargeback big tech. You will lose every time.

Why would you charge back Oculus?

I bought one oculus quest 2 while their site was blowing up during preorders. They shipped and charged me for 3. Nothing showed up on the order page or confirmation email. I didn’t notice the 3 charges until 3 of them were at my door.

A total nightmare to fix. Kinda hard to RMA an item that didn’t show up on my order page. They offered to RMA but no assurances I would get my money back. I didn’t order this many and the screwup was on their end. So in the end I did a chargeback for the 2 I didn’t order.

They banned me. Making my quest useless. I could not make a new account because at the time they were moving to FB and banning people with alt accounts or asking for ID to verify them.

In the end, I undid the chargebacks, sent back the extra two quest units (which I held sealed with no intention of profiting from them and I mailed after the chargebacks) and of course they didn’t refund me for one of them.

I had to keep escalating as they closed tickets. Was close to trying to use HN and internal friends to help. In the end they did a “one time” unbanning. Still lost $400+. Never again.

EDIT: It took me like half a year to resolve this. At first I could not even figure out what happened. I got no email I was banned. Just adding any form of payment failed with an esoteric error message. I’ll never buy direct from any big tech company again. Go ahead and down vote.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#343
post #212

Note that the cancellation policy for Hosts is quite generous: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/990 This lets a host dump you three days before your booking and get away with "only" 25% in fees. AirBnB definitely invests in their inventory (the hosts).

Easily found in article 900 ;(

Ranks first on google when you type « airbnb cancellation policy ».

Note that you don’t even need to search for _host_ cancellation policy.

Airbnb is even biased in their SEO investment.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed this thread. That doesn't make something scammy. I presume you're arguing that they didn't read the TOS and tried to reconcile the mistake within an hour so the non-recoverable refund shouldn't be enforced. If you were right, there'd be a class action lawsuit. But your premise is silly because standard hotels even have "accountholder must be present to check-in" policies and do the same things with non-ref…

>standard hotels even have "accountholder must be present to check-in" policies Funny you mention that - once I booked a room in my SO's name using my card She fell asleep in the room before I got there, and they refused to let me up even though I had the card on me, along with several forms of photo ID Eventually she woke up, but it wasn't the best start to the stay

You're typing so apparently you survived!

Inconvenient but sound policy. For example, I wouldn't want an executive assistant to be able to get a block of rooms and then get a key to my room without my permission.

I'm still shocked by the backlash ITT against the host/AirBnB. Hotels have always had as/more stringent stay policies.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He paid for a service they didn’t provide. So there is definitely some argument to it. I guess they could say they will still provide the service? lol

Why would you reduce the transaction to a single sentence and think that overrides a many page fully qualified set of terms agreed upon for service?

You can’t “terms and conditions” your way out of the card network rules which you agreed to when setting up a merchant account to accept card payments - those will take precedence regardless of what your own terms say and generally favor the cardholder.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#346
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 Cap…

They aren’t guaranteed, but the author has nothing to lose trying it anyway. I’ve had great success with them personally.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#347

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…

I know a fulltime host in my city. He goes to extreme lengths to ensure only 5-star reviews. He is basically on call 24/7 to address guest concerns, however the total amount of work he does in a week is probably 10-15 hours for a livable income. The sleep he loses and amount of psychoanalysis he attempts on guests sometimes doesn't seem worth it though.

You know me, apparently.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#348

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 prob…

I'm curious. What's your ethical issue with AirBnb?

Usually it’s about how they drive up rent and make apartments unaffordable for the locals.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#349
post #325
post #321

DO NOT USE AIRBNB IF YOU HAVE OPTION OF USING A HOTEL! AirBnb is a minefield of gotchas. 1. They don't show you full price. Most of the hosts make bank from cleaning fees. $300-$500 cleaning fees tacked onto final price is usual. Please airbnb fees, resort fees, tourist fees, cleaning Brian Chesky's ass fees. 2x what you see on the listing is normal. 2. The reviews are heavily biased. Hosts will pester you to leave p…

> 2. The reviews are heavily biased. Hosts will pester you to leave positive review, if you leave even a 4 star, they get really mad at you. I left a 4 star review and the host gave me a 1 star that almost got me banned. I've always felt that reviews should be not be visible until both parties had 'blindly' submitted their reviews. Or if only one party submits a review, then after a set period of time, it is publishe…

The reviews are blind as you suggest, always have been - OP is lying.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#350
post #325
post #321

DO NOT USE AIRBNB IF YOU HAVE OPTION OF USING A HOTEL! AirBnb is a minefield of gotchas. 1. They don't show you full price. Most of the hosts make bank from cleaning fees. $300-$500 cleaning fees tacked onto final price is usual. Please airbnb fees, resort fees, tourist fees, cleaning Brian Chesky's ass fees. 2x what you see on the listing is normal. 2. The reviews are heavily biased. Hosts will pester you to leave p…

> 2. The reviews are heavily biased. Hosts will pester you to leave positive review, if you leave even a 4 star, they get really mad at you. I left a 4 star review and the host gave me a 1 star that almost got me banned. I've always felt that reviews should be not be visible until both parties had 'blindly' submitted their reviews. Or if only one party submits a review, then after a set period of time, it is publishe…

Haven’t used Airbnb in a while but I could swear that’s how it worked. Which is why I’m confused reading all these experiences about retaliatory negative reviews.
Post reply on HN