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How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

chriskiehl.com

361–370 of 377 posts

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#361
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Generally, companies of any size can choose not to do business with you. What's wrong with that? If you disagree, you need to change the definition of "utility" then; a utility such as an electricity company can't just cut you off for no reason.

And almost all the companies in the US can choose to not do business with you. That doesn't make it fair or just.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#363
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and he should issue a chargeback, and then bear the consequences of AirBnB no longer doing any business with him in response. A chargeback is the burn-all-the-bridges, fuck-you-pay-me nuclear option, and you will be banned from any business that you use it against. You should not use it against any business you intend to patronize in the future.

> Yes, and he should issue a chargeback, and then bear the consequences of AirBnB no longer doing any business with him in response. I struggle to think that a person should bear literally any consequences if they weren't in the wrong, which AIUI in this case he isn't.

Why do you think a non-monopoly business should be compelled to continue to serve a customer that does chargebacks against it?

You can fire that business as a vendor, they can fire you as a customer.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#364
post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Putting it in a TOS is one thing, how is it enforced? This comes off like a bad faith question because OP wrote this article because AirBnB's TOS was enforced in explicit detail. > Also, it’s trivial to book a room at a hotel and have someone else check in under the reservation as long as you put them on the guest list. I’ve done it before. Did you have to present ID? Were you over 18? Did someone in your party alre…

The op wrote an article about how he shot himself in the foot and got taken advantage of by a shitty host. He should have put his name down as one of the guests. When the host saw his name wasn’t listed, he got him to incriminate himself and reported it knowing she wasn’t going to have to give him a refund. With hotels, typically you reserve a room with a credit card, and any guests you put on the list can show up, p…

> When the host saw his name wasn’t listed, he got him to incriminate himself and reported it knowing she wasn’t going to have to give him a refund.

She asked if he was staying. He said no. She clarified that if he did stay, things would be fine and wouldn't have cancelled. He answered honestly.

In AirBnB, if the person making the booking isn't staying there, it pattern matches as a red flag with credit card fraud, people throwing parties, people spoofing AirBnB accounts because they're blacklisted, etc.

> You never have to check in yourself. So I really don’t think what you said was accurate. The hotel doesn’t even know who is making the booking, there’s no account they can check like there is with AirBnB.

I provided counterexamples to your claims. I don't know where you're getting the claim that hotels don't know who's making the booking or they can't check for blacklisted customers.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could also leave the water running and keep all the appliances turned on for the duration of the stay. edit: I did a ballpark estimate and it won't even come close. If a bathtub wastes 10000 gallons/day at 0.25 cents/gal, then that's only about $25/day.

I used to do something like that whenever I was in a hotel that charged outrageous fees for WiFi (this doesn't seem to be as common nowadays, though oddly it's more likely to happen in a "luxury" hotel than a "business" hotel). Nothing damaging or malicious per se, but "Oh, hey, I think I need a fresh copy of every Linux distro"... stuff like that.

Sorry, if a hotel charges me $25 for WiFi, I'm going to do my best to use up $25 worth of bandwidth.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They definitely cannot enforce those. Now if you do enter with shoes AND damage the floor a bit*, I still doubt they could even enforce those. Even courts here are not punitive in nature (they are restorative), so even if they sued you and won for going in with shoes, which I highly doubt, at most you'd have to pay for the damage they can prove that you made, which would be few thousand yens. The only one I am a bit…

Despite enforceable or not, it's considered extremely rude to enter a property wearing shoes in Japan. Do you want to be a good guest or an entitled douchebag? (I don't mean you personally).

I'm sure they had problems with people spreading dirt on the floor and a cleaning fee is perfectly reasonable, I just found the size of the penalties to be amusing.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#367
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…

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.

Airbnb won't sue them since it's not their money. Host won't sue them since they would be laughed out of court for trying to recover a thousand bucks for nothing.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#368
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.

Probably just removes the temptation of using the shitty service again. Not a huge loss.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#369
Something I don't get. What does it mean "you need to be there for the whole duration"? Is it some kind of house arrest? I've rented places where I was absent the whole day except a few hours at night. How would anyone know I was or wasn't there at all? It's not the business of the host anyway to tell me where I should be present. I paid money, I rent the place, where I am physically present is not their fricking business.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

chwrgebacks from stubhub/Ticketmaster/etc are hard since they have you basically agree to not charge back and they use that against you. Had to try a chargeback one with them and also got denied because I signed a waiver. Complete nonsense

If that's all it takes to make chargebacks impossible, why doesn't every merchant add that to their 67-page terms and conditions?

They do try, it's just the way the ticket sellers do it make it a little more in their favor, especially when they can show you signed something. Bought a ticket to EDC and they made me write my signature with my mouse and then used that when I charged back after they cancelled half the event (this was many years ago now).
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