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I've lived in Airbnbs full-time for about 18 months while traveling, and Airbnb has lost my trust repeatedly in terms of reliability, safety, and user-friendlin

I've lived in Airbnbs full-time for about 18 months while traveling, and Airbnb has lost my trust repeatedly in terms of reliability, safety, and user-friendliness. - Host listing quality has gone consistently downhill. Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. - Airbnb support response times are horribly slow. They hide their phone number, then force you to go through a ticketing system for urgent issues. Then, they start assigning you a new "case manager" every few hours as their shifts change, which means the rep never is caught up on the issue. Sometimes, they forget to transfer you to a new rep before ending their shift, which could result in zero responses for days until the rep works again. - When there is a problem, Airbnb supports the host and makes little to no effort to relocate users. For example, when our unit flooded, among other problems, the feedback was basically "well we can book you into another available unit". The problem was that it was peak Summer in Barcelona, we were there for a long period of time, and the only available units were minimum 5x the price. - We had an Airbnb burglarized. Again, we waited hours for a response, as a police forensics unit was dusting the unit for fingerprints. We suspect that the host was complicit after realizing that previous tenants were also burglarized. Airbnb's insurance policy covered none of our losses ($10K+ in electronics, jewelry, watches, clothing, etc). We ended up feeling unsafe and canceling the reservation with 3 weeks remaining. As a "courtesy", Airbnb support credited our account for less than the cost of one night at a local replacement unit. Because we accepted the credit, they considered the matter "resolved" and did nothing else. I've spent $30K+ on Airbnb. It started as a great alternative to hotels. Now, I can no longer recommend it, and I prefer a hotel.

seesaw 8y ago
I may be naive, but I never got the buzz around Airbnb. I had been a user of vrbo (vacation rentals by owner) for a long time, well before Airbnb. I continue to use vrbo, as I rarely see a better deal with Airbnb. Infact even the booking UIs look very similar.
- isostatic 8y ago
  I’ve booked cottages for years, my parents did it for us in the 90s, when the catalog was posted out. My understanding was Airbnb started as renting out sofas or spare rooms, but is now basically the same as cottages.com, but with more hype, and apparently far worse property owners.
munchbunny 8y ago
It's almost as if AirBnB's hosts and guests are bearing the externalities that should be priced into the transaction on both sides... For hosts, property damage, etc. is a matter of when, not if, and for those things you get insurance. But as far as I know that's not a standard thing for hosts. Pricing in hidden hosting costs would make hosting look less profitable up front, then AirBnB's market would shrink. For guests, inconvenient cancellations, bad hosts, bad rentals, etc. AirBnB doesn't give you any real recourse like paying for you to stay elsewhere the way a hotel often does. That would be expensive and you'd have to either pass the cost onto the customers (raise fees/prices), or reduce your margins. That's not counting societal externalities like permanent AirBnB setups in neighborhoods that are affecting community cohesion. These days, I use AirBnB to save money by taking on some level of discomfort/risk. If I'm looking for a worry-free night with decent amenities where I want to minimize mental overhead, I just book a hotel.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  I wonder if the Airbnb team has ever thought about their profit and its relationship to the externalities you describe. As a customer, I've felt like I pay for something and then bear lots of risk if it goes wrong, but the discount often isn't sufficient to cover that risk. At the end of the day, it may still be a good thing for the temporary housing marketplace if people who want certainty (in general or just for the trip) stay in a hotel, and people who are willing to trade certainty for some savings stay in Airbnbs. This would lower demand for hotels, and therefore cost. But this is only an efficient outcome if Airbnb guests understand how the company will leave them high and dry if something goes wrong.
  - michaelchisari 8y ago
    I wonder if the Airbnb team has ever thought about their profit and its relationship to the externalities you describe I'm convinced the majority of "unicorns" ignore (or actively dodge) externalities in favor of lucrative profits.
    - gnicholas 8y ago
denzil_correa 8y ago
> The problem was that it was peak Summer in Barcelona, we were there for a long period of time, and the only available units were minimum 5x the price. I've never got this at all. Why should you pay 5x price for AirBnb's risk?
- philip1209 8y ago
  Exactly. They take a huge cut, hold cash for months ahead of time (earning considerable float), preach the need to use their in-app messaging and platform for "safety", then just abandon ship when things go wrong. If I showed up to a hotel and they didn't have a room available, they would rebook me at a different hotel. Airbnb just seems to say, "well, that's not our problem". It makes me wish that there was a tenant bill of rights similar to EU Regulation 261/2004 about canceled flights.
  - loceng 8y ago
    I have had similar experiences with Airbnb, and problems as a host and a guest. Why they have gotten away with these behaviours for so long is likely due to forced arbitration. Their business plan is likely to show as much profit as possible, IPO/get on stock market, exit early investors and founders, and leave the mess and risk associated with their unconscionable protocols to the public markets - offloading it to society as what will inevitably be a loss, as they're not going to realize these nuances. The forced arbitration is going to stop sooner or later, and cities are going to start to crack down heavily - going through the counter appeals of landlords and commercial hosts with many properties.
  - hangonhn 8y ago
    "If I showed up to a hotel and they didn't have a room available, they would rebook me at a different hotel. " Don't be so sure about that. I had a Marriott reservation but apparently they overbooked a whole bunch of us and tried to rebook us at Motel 8 without refunding any of our money. Luckily I had booked through Priceline.com and called their support and they rebooked us at the nearest hotel that's comparable to or better than Marriott, which ended up being a five start boutique hotel. I've been pretty loyal to Priceline every since.
teachrdan 8y ago
I've had nearly identical experiences, the worst being an apartment infested with bedbugs. Despite having video proof [0] of our mattress literally crawling with bedbugs, Airbnb support took the landlord's side and bounced us between case managers until it was finally resolved almost 24 hours later. At least at a hotel they have to acknowledge and fix the issue on the spot. 0. https://youtu.be/RJHScbdp15s https://youtu.be/RJHScbdp15s
- philip1209 8y ago
  Yeah, we had a similar issue with mice at an Airbnb listing in London. Airbnb asked us to send photos to prove it. They ended up settling for pictures of feces in the kitchen. It took a couple of weeks to resolve, and the host seemed mad that we asked them to come to clean up the excrement in the kitchen. In this case, they wouldn't even let us cancel the reservation - we would have needed the host's permission to end the reservation early without fees.
- bsamuels 8y ago
  had the same issue with bedbugs. was staying at a place for 3 months and they refused to relocate me. they stopped paying the host so he was up in my shit about not being paid, (he said he couldnt afford to get the place treated) and I was already out of all my money paid out to airbnb. it was a very awkward situation
- botverse 8y ago
  Same, bedbugs in India, had to go to a proper hotel costing me more than $1000 between room and cleaning all my belongings, I take bedbugs seriously and didn’t want to bring any bug back home. I had pictures of the bugs and the hotel and cleaning invoices. They asked for a medical (!!!) report. Airbnb refunded me 1 of the 2 nights out of 7 I didn’t spend there. So Airbnb costed me more money than going directly to a hotel. Not to mention how distressful and time consuming all this was. I didn’t ever use Airnb before and I’m not going to miss them at all...
  - nanoseltzer 8y ago
    You tried to airbnb in India ? It’s probably barely passable in LA. Hotels in India would be quite cheap with the American dollar. Hmmmmmmm :thinking face:
paulcole 8y ago
> Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. This is basically the Etsy playbook. Have a good model that doesn't scale. Back yourself into a corner by taking VC money and end up having to do the opposite of what made your service good in the first place to keep growing your platform. Just like there are only so many people making actual handmade goods, there are only so many homeowners looking to host guests. Fortunately, there is a never ending stream of Chinese-made trinkets and garbage just as there is a never ending stream of slumlords (oops, property investors) looking to make a quick buck.
bfirsh 8y ago
I had a similar experience to your last one. I was in a small house fire in a shared Airbnb. I left immediately. Airbnb wouldn’t compensate me because I didn’t take photos and the host claimed nothing had happened. (I was honestly too shaken to even think I would need evidence.) They gave me a $200 voucher which didn’t cover the time left in my stay. It is partially my fault for not getting evidence, but you’d think they would do more for somebody who, like you, has spent an awful lot of money on Airbnb. Unfortunately they often have the best apartments available in a city. I do still use them, but I’ll search alternate sites first.
- philip1209 8y ago
  The trouble is that, if you use any buyer protections available to you outside of the platform, you risk being banned for life. That to me seems unfair. For your case where they wanted evidence - what would have happened if you had no evidence, and ended up issuing a chargeback for "Services not provided? You would have been in the right, but probably would have been banned for life from Airbnb's system. The lack of competition and monopolistic nature makes this seem hostile to consumers.
  - matte_black 8y ago
    There’s always ways to get around being banned.
  - dhimes 8y ago
    if you use any buyer protections available to you outside of the platform, you risk being banned for life Could you elaborate a bit on this? I've not used airbnb but have a trip coming up and am reading this thread with great interest.
    - URSpider94 8y ago
      Specifically, if you charge back the stay on your credit card, which would get you a refund. I expect that if you do this, Airbnb will ban you from the platform.
draw_down 8y ago
Yeah, it started as a great alternative to hotels, both on price and the sort of hospitality offered. I think the comparison is now much closer, Airbnb has lost a lot of that edge. At the same price point I would take a hotel, they have employees whose job is to help you and instead of the "hey we're sharing a space and growing together and learning about each other" horseshit Airbnb is trying to peddle.
gnicholas 8y ago
I laughed out loud the other day when I saw an Airbnb receipt that broke down the total cost and showed their Airbnb fee. It attributed the $100 fee to paying for 24/7 customer support during the trip. Having experienced their horrendous support in the past (bounced from agent to agent over a 72-hr period, as you describe), I can attest that this fee is worth nowhere near that. The support is a joke, and when dealing with something as critical as housing, this is not acceptable.
rickyc091 8y ago
I'll add to this as well. I've had two incidents over the past year. 1. I rented a place and was told that I could check-in whenever. When I got there, the key wasn't available and I wasn't able to contact the host. I was essentially just standing around for three hours waiting for Airbnb to respond. Apparently, you can contact them, but it's extremely difficult to call them if you're international unless you want to pay for roaming, which I doubt they would compensate you for, so I had to wait for case managers to reply to my email. After fiddling around with my phone for a while, I managed to install Skype, sign up for some credits, and call them. It was resolved within an hour after that, but the non-savvy tech user would probably have a lot more trouble. 2. The second incident was when I went to an Airbnb and the electricity wasn't working, the roads were closed off for 3 blocks to the apartment due to construction. I paid for a week's stay, but I immediately left since this wasn't disclosed in the listing. By the evening, I was fed up with the problems, so I left to another Airbnb. I contacted Airbnb, again through email support, since that was all they offer and they told me I could not get a refund since I was past their 24-hour cancellation policy. After going through numerous emails and case managers, I never received my money back based off of a technicality. Their response was that I should have contacted them immediately... but they don't make it easy to contact them.
- dhimes 8y ago
  Their response was that I should have contacted them immediately... but they don't make it easy to contact them. Companies like this should be left to die.
  - techslave 8y ago
    it's good to hear the horror stories like this. here's hoping they IPO so I can short them! seriously, companies like this are not long for this world.
    - gamma-male 8y ago
      They change the way people travel in a good way. I wouldn't be so hateful towards them.
siruncledrew 8y ago
This summarizes why we can't have nice things. As Airbnb scales, the problems scale too. Unless they started seeing serious financial implications putting the investor dollars at risk, Airbnb basically has no choice but to scale to 'sustain the machine' and stay competitive (monopolistic) in the shared-lodging marketplace. Airbnb sounds good in theory - like when the founders described how they came up with the idea after they started making side money letting travelers crash at their pad and jovially cooking breakfast with their guests. There's other people out there that could share their homes with nice strangers and enjoy these fun bonding experiences with guests too, right? However, this theory goes out the window once the platform is opened up to the world for all kinds of good, bad, and in-between actors to use. Now we have guests/hosts stealing from each other, scamming each other, pulling nefarious acts, and destroying the housing markets of various communities. And Airbnb throws up their hands from the sidelines and apathetically wonders "What could we do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
- Retra 8y ago
  Once could argue that this sort of thing happens because people are very quick to try and turn any value-making proposition into a money-making proposition, as though the relationship between the two were simple and obvious, or often, equivalent. Some things are no longer valuable when you intend to extract that value as money. That's why the poor king doesn't hire cheap mercenaries to protect his kingdom. Sentiment has nontransferable value.
gumby 8y ago
This is a great example of why we have regulations. Regulations can be burdensome, they can entrench existing players, etc -- the disadvantages are frequently discussed. But also they can be too light. AirBnB was how inns basically used to work, and then iteratively an infrastructure built up.
matte_black 8y ago
I find that the only scenario that Airbnb still comes in handy for is when you want to book a large place for a group of 8 people or more to stay together.
- pocketstar 8y ago
  vrbo.com works for renting large places too.
polskibus 8y ago
Have you considered booking.com instead?
0x8BADF00D 8y ago
Not sure about recently, but I’ve had the opposite experience living in Airbnb’s three months at a time when I was in between my startup and current job. My two hosts were very friendly, and I got on great with them. My first host would throw weekly dinner parties, cooking fresh organic food with vegetables she grew in her garden. When I was sick she would bring me breakfast in bed. Indeed, this woman was a wonderful human being. My second host I would hang out with on an almost daily basis, we became really good friends. Hockey games, getting smashed on the weekdays, and other such fun times. I’ve kept in touch with both.
- woolvalley 8y ago
  It's like contracts. When everything is good, they don't matter. They only matter when things go bad.
  - 0x8BADF00D 8y ago
    Or human relationships. As one of my old friend/coworker once said, your reputation is like a whiteboard. Once there is a tiny black dot upon it, you’re screwed.
    - blub 8y ago
      Your colleague is obviously wrong. Think Cosby and Weinstein or look at the other AirBnB examples in this thread.
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  The problem is that the whole model changed a lot. Chances are much bigger that you wind up in some cooky cutter appartment of dubious quality and design managed by some management company that manages dozens, if not hundreds of such appartments and gives exactly zero fucks about your well being. Experiences as you describe them certainly exist. My girlfriend had a great experience in San Francisco, but that was in 2014. My expreiences are very mixed and the reviews are rather useless in my opinion. Since I had a couple of youngster neighbors turning their temporary (and illegal) sub lease into an illegal hotel I will not use AirBnb again. It's just too damn painful for the people actually living in a multi party dwelling.
whitepoplar 8y ago
I've had similar Airbnb experiences as you, and I'm convinced that Airbnb has the worst customer service of any company I've ever dealt with. I've never felt more defeated, humiliated, and powerless as I've felt when dealing with them. I used to think, "those people who have problems are just exaggerating, or they're problem customers." Nope, Airbnb will screw over everyone, and make them gag on cloying "community" marketing in the process. I like the idea of Airbnb and many of the apartments can be great, but boy do I wish Airbnb would die a cold, harsh death.
city41 8y ago
I consider Airbnb to be a menace to society. The hotel industry exists for a reason. I've been lucky and never had a truly bad experience with Airbnb, but I've had some lousy ones and never a top notch or even good one. Conversely hotels usually provide at least decent service and usually are great in my experience. What I really dislike about Airbnb is the feeling of being an invader in a neighborhood. Doing something I shouldn't be doing, because, well I am. No one wants the house next door to them to become an Airbnb, so why do we support its practice by using them? (I no longer use Airbnb btw)
- gamma-male 8y ago
  Airbnb is great if you want to feel at home when you travel. A hotel room is so impersonal.
  - vosper 8y ago
    Or if you want to have a home when you travel. A kitchen, living room, etc... I'd almost always prefer having these things to a hotel room.
    - seppin 8y ago
      exactly, so much of traveling being unhealthy comes down to not having access to a kitchen to cook your own food.
- nicolas_t 8y ago
  > No one wants the house next door to them to become an Airbnb, so why do we support its practice by using them? Well, my next door neighbor in my building rents his apartment on Airbnb about 8 months a year (he travels a lot for business so is not often there). Honestly, I don't really mind. There's been a few noisy guests but those are few and far between and apart from that I've talked to and met some nice guests of his. That said, his apartment is a great apartment since he actually lives there part of the year. It's totally different from apartments that were built for airbnb and tend to be really bad with crappy furniture. And, since the guests are happy, they are more likely to be respectful I think.
rb808 8y ago
Its interesting that if you spend a few dozen nights a year in a hotel chain they treat you like gold. Airbnb doesn't give anything.
egonschiele 8y ago
Same here. I've had bad experiences, and AirBnB has not responded to complaints in any way. In one case, the host was so hostile that we left after staying one night. I've yet to hear back from AirBnB about it, and my review was not published either.
- jrnichols 8y ago
  I wonder how many reviews go unpublished. I had a host try to shake me down for nearly $200 saying that "you spilled something on the bed, I had to have a professional cleaner come out." I had spilled nothing at all! His "evidence" was some unclear photos of a mattress, and that's it. I refused, noting exactly that - it felt like a shakedown, and he had even admitted that another guest had already stayed. I don't know how or if it'll affect my reputation, but I was pretty turned off on Airbnb after that and i'm not too sure i'll use it again.
mindgam3 8y ago
I've spent a similar amount as you on Airbnb as a hotel replacement over the years. I have the same exact feedback. What started as a great community vibe is now being exploited by slum lords. It's really a shame, the site is a victim of its own success. I have to believe that with better curation it would have been possible to maintain quality. For example, Lyft still has a great UX with awesome drivers like they did at the beginning, even after they have scaled up to MegaCorp status. It seems Airbnb has made a conscious decision to pursue growth at all costs, including what made them great in the beginning. Time will tell if that was a smart play.
yesimahuman 8y ago
I tend to agree. I've grown tired of the poor-quality, soulless flips that are falling apart and barely cleaned that have completely taken over Airbnb. For business I find myself not wanting to deal with the uncertainty of Airbnb and just get a hotel.
jMyles 8y ago
The downfall of AirBnb's quality has been enormous, highly observable, and scarily rapid. I have had similar experiences to yours (as, obviously, have many other repliers in this thread). I have mostly switched to booking.com, which also has some homeshare type listings (or maybe that's only in Europe?).
carimura 8y ago
just throwing in one more +1 to how absolutely terrible their customer service was to deal with. We had an AirBnb scheduled for 2 weeks once, and I emailed the host saying we didn't need the first week and we'd be there starting the 2nd week and go ahead and keep our money for the first week. Well the day we were getting ready to go check-in, he cancels saying we were a "no show" with no refund despite multiple written records of his confirmation that we'd be there the second week. I asked AirBnb to refund us for half, and over and over they'd transfer between agents who had no f*cking clue about the case and just kept regurgitating some cancellation policy and ignoring my obvious evidence. Finally I took to the social airwaves and kept calling over the course of a week and they eventually relented and refunded something.. and the best part, they never apologized once, in fact they made some absurd 6-year old passive aggressive comment about still being right but they'd refund me anyways -- and the refund was less than half. I get that two-sided markets are tough, but even having the slightest decency and empathy during the matter would have made a world of difference to me.
megy 8y ago
> The problem was that it was peak Summer in Barcelona, we were there for a long period of time, and the only available units were minimum 5x the price. What can they do then? Build new apartments for you? > We had an Airbnb burglarized Once again, what can they do? They are not a hotel. You accept that when you book somewhere. It is not magic, there are going to be horrible places, there are going to be shitty owners who rob you. You want all the benefits but none of the compromises. Too bad.
- smnrchrds 8y ago
  > What can they do then? Build new apartments for you? Do the same thing an airline does. If a flight is cancelled, they don't just refund the original price you paid for the ticket. They have to get you to the destination. If the only available option is a first class seat, it's their problem, not yours. They don't ask you to either pay $1000 for the price difference and get on the next flight or get your $100 back and try to get to the destination on your own. So in this case, the alternative was not building apartments. It was to eat the price difference and house OP in another listing or even a hotel.
seppin 8y ago
> I prefer a hotel. I have nothing to back this up, but it feels like hotels have been lowering prices and raising their quality as a result of Airbnb. Lots of "boutique" hotels offering great rooms for less. I was an early adapter to Airbnb and sung their praises for years, but for all the above reasons I too prefer hotels now.
nojvek 8y ago
I had some terrible experiences with Airbnb a couple of times. Their customer service is as responsive as that if Google’s; almost non-existent. I prefer to stay away from any company that doesn’t offer a human to talk to when things go awry.

seesaw 8y ago

I may be naive, but I never got the buzz around Airbnb. I had been a user of vrbo (vacation rentals by owner) for a long time, well before Airbnb. I continue to use vrbo, as I rarely see a better deal with Airbnb. Infact even the booking UIs look very similar.

isostatic 8y ago
I’ve booked cottages for years, my parents did it for us in the 90s, when the catalog was posted out. My understanding was Airbnb started as renting out sofas or spare rooms, but is now basically the same as cottages.com, but with more hype, and apparently far worse property owners.

munchbunny 8y ago

It's almost as if AirBnB's hosts and guests are bearing the externalities that should be priced into the transaction on both sides... For hosts, property damage, etc. is a matter of when, not if, and for those things you get insurance. But as far as I know that's not a standard thing for hosts. Pricing in hidden hosting costs would make hosting look less profitable up front, then AirBnB's market would shrink. For guests, inconvenient cancellations, bad hosts, bad rentals, etc. AirBnB doesn't give you any real recourse like paying for you to stay elsewhere the way a hotel often does. That would be expensive and you'd have to either pass the cost onto the customers (raise fees/prices), or reduce your margins. That's not counting societal externalities like permanent AirBnB setups in neighborhoods that are affecting community cohesion. These days, I use AirBnB to save money by taking on some level of discomfort/risk. If I'm looking for a worry-free night with decent amenities where I want to minimize mental overhead, I just book a hotel.

gnicholas 8y ago
I wonder if the Airbnb team has ever thought about their profit and its relationship to the externalities you describe. As a customer, I've felt like I pay for something and then bear lots of risk if it goes wrong, but the discount often isn't sufficient to cover that risk. At the end of the day, it may still be a good thing for the temporary housing marketplace if people who want certainty (in general or just for the trip) stay in a hotel, and people who are willing to trade certainty for some savings stay in Airbnbs. This would lower demand for hotels, and therefore cost. But this is only an efficient outcome if Airbnb guests understand how the company will leave them high and dry if something goes wrong.
- michaelchisari 8y ago
  I wonder if the Airbnb team has ever thought about their profit and its relationship to the externalities you describe I'm convinced the majority of "unicorns" ignore (or actively dodge) externalities in favor of lucrative profits.
  - gnicholas 8y ago

denzil_correa 8y ago

> The problem was that it was peak Summer in Barcelona, we were there for a long period of time, and the only available units were minimum 5x the price. I've never got this at all. Why should you pay 5x price for AirBnb's risk?

philip1209 8y ago
Exactly. They take a huge cut, hold cash for months ahead of time (earning considerable float), preach the need to use their in-app messaging and platform for "safety", then just abandon ship when things go wrong. If I showed up to a hotel and they didn't have a room available, they would rebook me at a different hotel. Airbnb just seems to say, "well, that's not our problem". It makes me wish that there was a tenant bill of rights similar to EU Regulation 261/2004 about canceled flights.
- loceng 8y ago
  I have had similar experiences with Airbnb, and problems as a host and a guest. Why they have gotten away with these behaviours for so long is likely due to forced arbitration. Their business plan is likely to show as much profit as possible, IPO/get on stock market, exit early investors and founders, and leave the mess and risk associated with their unconscionable protocols to the public markets - offloading it to society as what will inevitably be a loss, as they're not going to realize these nuances. The forced arbitration is going to stop sooner or later, and cities are going to start to crack down heavily - going through the counter appeals of landlords and commercial hosts with many properties.
- hangonhn 8y ago
  "If I showed up to a hotel and they didn't have a room available, they would rebook me at a different hotel. " Don't be so sure about that. I had a Marriott reservation but apparently they overbooked a whole bunch of us and tried to rebook us at Motel 8 without refunding any of our money. Luckily I had booked through Priceline.com and called their support and they rebooked us at the nearest hotel that's comparable to or better than Marriott, which ended up being a five start boutique hotel. I've been pretty loyal to Priceline every since.

teachrdan 8y ago

I've had nearly identical experiences, the worst being an apartment infested with bedbugs. Despite having video proof [0] of our mattress literally crawling with bedbugs, Airbnb support took the landlord's side and bounced us between case managers until it was finally resolved almost 24 hours later. At least at a hotel they have to acknowledge and fix the issue on the spot. 0. https://youtu.be/RJHScbdp15s https://youtu.be/RJHScbdp15s

philip1209 8y ago
Yeah, we had a similar issue with mice at an Airbnb listing in London. Airbnb asked us to send photos to prove it. They ended up settling for pictures of feces in the kitchen. It took a couple of weeks to resolve, and the host seemed mad that we asked them to come to clean up the excrement in the kitchen. In this case, they wouldn't even let us cancel the reservation - we would have needed the host's permission to end the reservation early without fees.
bsamuels 8y ago
had the same issue with bedbugs. was staying at a place for 3 months and they refused to relocate me. they stopped paying the host so he was up in my shit about not being paid, (he said he couldnt afford to get the place treated) and I was already out of all my money paid out to airbnb. it was a very awkward situation
botverse 8y ago
Same, bedbugs in India, had to go to a proper hotel costing me more than $1000 between room and cleaning all my belongings, I take bedbugs seriously and didn’t want to bring any bug back home. I had pictures of the bugs and the hotel and cleaning invoices. They asked for a medical (!!!) report. Airbnb refunded me 1 of the 2 nights out of 7 I didn’t spend there. So Airbnb costed me more money than going directly to a hotel. Not to mention how distressful and time consuming all this was. I didn’t ever use Airnb before and I’m not going to miss them at all...
- nanoseltzer 8y ago
  You tried to airbnb in India ? It’s probably barely passable in LA. Hotels in India would be quite cheap with the American dollar. Hmmmmmmm :thinking face:

paulcole 8y ago

> Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. This is basically the Etsy playbook. Have a good model that doesn't scale. Back yourself into a corner by taking VC money and end up having to do the opposite of what made your service good in the first place to keep growing your platform. Just like there are only so many people making actual handmade goods, there are only so many homeowners looking to host guests. Fortunately, there is a never ending stream of Chinese-made trinkets and garbage just as there is a never ending stream of slumlords (oops, property investors) looking to make a quick buck.

bfirsh 8y ago

I had a similar experience to your last one. I was in a small house fire in a shared Airbnb. I left immediately. Airbnb wouldn’t compensate me because I didn’t take photos and the host claimed nothing had happened. (I was honestly too shaken to even think I would need evidence.) They gave me a $200 voucher which didn’t cover the time left in my stay. It is partially my fault for not getting evidence, but you’d think they would do more for somebody who, like you, has spent an awful lot of money on Airbnb. Unfortunately they often have the best apartments available in a city. I do still use them, but I’ll search alternate sites first.

philip1209 8y ago
The trouble is that, if you use any buyer protections available to you outside of the platform, you risk being banned for life. That to me seems unfair. For your case where they wanted evidence - what would have happened if you had no evidence, and ended up issuing a chargeback for "Services not provided? You would have been in the right, but probably would have been banned for life from Airbnb's system. The lack of competition and monopolistic nature makes this seem hostile to consumers.
- matte_black 8y ago
  There’s always ways to get around being banned.
- dhimes 8y ago
  if you use any buyer protections available to you outside of the platform, you risk being banned for life Could you elaborate a bit on this? I've not used airbnb but have a trip coming up and am reading this thread with great interest.
  - URSpider94 8y ago
    Specifically, if you charge back the stay on your credit card, which would get you a refund. I expect that if you do this, Airbnb will ban you from the platform.

draw_down 8y ago

Yeah, it started as a great alternative to hotels, both on price and the sort of hospitality offered. I think the comparison is now much closer, Airbnb has lost a lot of that edge. At the same price point I would take a hotel, they have employees whose job is to help you and instead of the "hey we're sharing a space and growing together and learning about each other" horseshit Airbnb is trying to peddle.

gnicholas 8y ago

I laughed out loud the other day when I saw an Airbnb receipt that broke down the total cost and showed their Airbnb fee. It attributed the $100 fee to paying for 24/7 customer support during the trip. Having experienced their horrendous support in the past (bounced from agent to agent over a 72-hr period, as you describe), I can attest that this fee is worth nowhere near that. The support is a joke, and when dealing with something as critical as housing, this is not acceptable.

rickyc091 8y ago

I'll add to this as well. I've had two incidents over the past year. 1. I rented a place and was told that I could check-in whenever. When I got there, the key wasn't available and I wasn't able to contact the host. I was essentially just standing around for three hours waiting for Airbnb to respond. Apparently, you can contact them, but it's extremely difficult to call them if you're international unless you want to pay for roaming, which I doubt they would compensate you for, so I had to wait for case managers to reply to my email. After fiddling around with my phone for a while, I managed to install Skype, sign up for some credits, and call them. It was resolved within an hour after that, but the non-savvy tech user would probably have a lot more trouble. 2. The second incident was when I went to an Airbnb and the electricity wasn't working, the roads were closed off for 3 blocks to the apartment due to construction. I paid for a week's stay, but I immediately left since this wasn't disclosed in the listing. By the evening, I was fed up with the problems, so I left to another Airbnb. I contacted Airbnb, again through email support, since that was all they offer and they told me I could not get a refund since I was past their 24-hour cancellation policy. After going through numerous emails and case managers, I never received my money back based off of a technicality. Their response was that I should have contacted them immediately... but they don't make it easy to contact them.

dhimes 8y ago
Their response was that I should have contacted them immediately... but they don't make it easy to contact them. Companies like this should be left to die.
- techslave 8y ago
  it's good to hear the horror stories like this. here's hoping they IPO so I can short them! seriously, companies like this are not long for this world.
  - gamma-male 8y ago
    They change the way people travel in a good way. I wouldn't be so hateful towards them.

siruncledrew 8y ago

This summarizes why we can't have nice things. As Airbnb scales, the problems scale too. Unless they started seeing serious financial implications putting the investor dollars at risk, Airbnb basically has no choice but to scale to 'sustain the machine' and stay competitive (monopolistic) in the shared-lodging marketplace. Airbnb sounds good in theory - like when the founders described how they came up with the idea after they started making side money letting travelers crash at their pad and jovially cooking breakfast with their guests. There's other people out there that could share their homes with nice strangers and enjoy these fun bonding experiences with guests too, right? However, this theory goes out the window once the platform is opened up to the world for all kinds of good, bad, and in-between actors to use. Now we have guests/hosts stealing from each other, scamming each other, pulling nefarious acts, and destroying the housing markets of various communities. And Airbnb throws up their hands from the sidelines and apathetically wonders "What could we do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

Retra 8y ago
Once could argue that this sort of thing happens because people are very quick to try and turn any value-making proposition into a money-making proposition, as though the relationship between the two were simple and obvious, or often, equivalent. Some things are no longer valuable when you intend to extract that value as money. That's why the poor king doesn't hire cheap mercenaries to protect his kingdom. Sentiment has nontransferable value.

gumby 8y ago

This is a great example of why we have regulations. Regulations can be burdensome, they can entrench existing players, etc -- the disadvantages are frequently discussed. But also they can be too light. AirBnB was how inns basically used to work, and then iteratively an infrastructure built up.

matte_black 8y ago

I find that the only scenario that Airbnb still comes in handy for is when you want to book a large place for a group of 8 people or more to stay together.

pocketstar 8y ago
vrbo.com works for renting large places too.

polskibus 8y ago

Have you considered booking.com instead?

0x8BADF00D 8y ago

Not sure about recently, but I’ve had the opposite experience living in Airbnb’s three months at a time when I was in between my startup and current job. My two hosts were very friendly, and I got on great with them. My first host would throw weekly dinner parties, cooking fresh organic food with vegetables she grew in her garden. When I was sick she would bring me breakfast in bed. Indeed, this woman was a wonderful human being. My second host I would hang out with on an almost daily basis, we became really good friends. Hockey games, getting smashed on the weekdays, and other such fun times. I’ve kept in touch with both.

woolvalley 8y ago
It's like contracts. When everything is good, they don't matter. They only matter when things go bad.
- 0x8BADF00D 8y ago
  Or human relationships. As one of my old friend/coworker once said, your reputation is like a whiteboard. Once there is a tiny black dot upon it, you’re screwed.
  - blub 8y ago
    Your colleague is obviously wrong. Think Cosby and Weinstein or look at the other AirBnB examples in this thread.
CaptainZapp 8y ago
The problem is that the whole model changed a lot. Chances are much bigger that you wind up in some cooky cutter appartment of dubious quality and design managed by some management company that manages dozens, if not hundreds of such appartments and gives exactly zero fucks about your well being. Experiences as you describe them certainly exist. My girlfriend had a great experience in San Francisco, but that was in 2014. My expreiences are very mixed and the reviews are rather useless in my opinion. Since I had a couple of youngster neighbors turning their temporary (and illegal) sub lease into an illegal hotel I will not use AirBnb again. It's just too damn painful for the people actually living in a multi party dwelling.

whitepoplar 8y ago

I've had similar Airbnb experiences as you, and I'm convinced that Airbnb has the worst customer service of any company I've ever dealt with. I've never felt more defeated, humiliated, and powerless as I've felt when dealing with them. I used to think, "those people who have problems are just exaggerating, or they're problem customers." Nope, Airbnb will screw over everyone, and make them gag on cloying "community" marketing in the process. I like the idea of Airbnb and many of the apartments can be great, but boy do I wish Airbnb would die a cold, harsh death.

city41 8y ago

I consider Airbnb to be a menace to society. The hotel industry exists for a reason. I've been lucky and never had a truly bad experience with Airbnb, but I've had some lousy ones and never a top notch or even good one. Conversely hotels usually provide at least decent service and usually are great in my experience. What I really dislike about Airbnb is the feeling of being an invader in a neighborhood. Doing something I shouldn't be doing, because, well I am. No one wants the house next door to them to become an Airbnb, so why do we support its practice by using them? (I no longer use Airbnb btw)

gamma-male 8y ago
Airbnb is great if you want to feel at home when you travel. A hotel room is so impersonal.
- vosper 8y ago
  Or if you want to have a home when you travel. A kitchen, living room, etc... I'd almost always prefer having these things to a hotel room.
  - seppin 8y ago
    exactly, so much of traveling being unhealthy comes down to not having access to a kitchen to cook your own food.
nicolas_t 8y ago
> No one wants the house next door to them to become an Airbnb, so why do we support its practice by using them? Well, my next door neighbor in my building rents his apartment on Airbnb about 8 months a year (he travels a lot for business so is not often there). Honestly, I don't really mind. There's been a few noisy guests but those are few and far between and apart from that I've talked to and met some nice guests of his. That said, his apartment is a great apartment since he actually lives there part of the year. It's totally different from apartments that were built for airbnb and tend to be really bad with crappy furniture. And, since the guests are happy, they are more likely to be respectful I think.

rb808 8y ago

Its interesting that if you spend a few dozen nights a year in a hotel chain they treat you like gold. Airbnb doesn't give anything.

egonschiele 8y ago

Same here. I've had bad experiences, and AirBnB has not responded to complaints in any way. In one case, the host was so hostile that we left after staying one night. I've yet to hear back from AirBnB about it, and my review was not published either.

jrnichols 8y ago
I wonder how many reviews go unpublished. I had a host try to shake me down for nearly $200 saying that "you spilled something on the bed, I had to have a professional cleaner come out." I had spilled nothing at all! His "evidence" was some unclear photos of a mattress, and that's it. I refused, noting exactly that - it felt like a shakedown, and he had even admitted that another guest had already stayed. I don't know how or if it'll affect my reputation, but I was pretty turned off on Airbnb after that and i'm not too sure i'll use it again.

mindgam3 8y ago

I've spent a similar amount as you on Airbnb as a hotel replacement over the years. I have the same exact feedback. What started as a great community vibe is now being exploited by slum lords. It's really a shame, the site is a victim of its own success. I have to believe that with better curation it would have been possible to maintain quality. For example, Lyft still has a great UX with awesome drivers like they did at the beginning, even after they have scaled up to MegaCorp status. It seems Airbnb has made a conscious decision to pursue growth at all costs, including what made them great in the beginning. Time will tell if that was a smart play.

yesimahuman 8y ago

I tend to agree. I've grown tired of the poor-quality, soulless flips that are falling apart and barely cleaned that have completely taken over Airbnb. For business I find myself not wanting to deal with the uncertainty of Airbnb and just get a hotel.

jMyles 8y ago

The downfall of AirBnb's quality has been enormous, highly observable, and scarily rapid. I have had similar experiences to yours (as, obviously, have many other repliers in this thread). I have mostly switched to booking.com, which also has some homeshare type listings (or maybe that's only in Europe?).

carimura 8y ago

just throwing in one more +1 to how absolutely terrible their customer service was to deal with. We had an AirBnb scheduled for 2 weeks once, and I emailed the host saying we didn't need the first week and we'd be there starting the 2nd week and go ahead and keep our money for the first week. Well the day we were getting ready to go check-in, he cancels saying we were a "no show" with no refund despite multiple written records of his confirmation that we'd be there the second week. I asked AirBnb to refund us for half, and over and over they'd transfer between agents who had no f*cking clue about the case and just kept regurgitating some cancellation policy and ignoring my obvious evidence. Finally I took to the social airwaves and kept calling over the course of a week and they eventually relented and refunded something.. and the best part, they never apologized once, in fact they made some absurd 6-year old passive aggressive comment about still being right but they'd refund me anyways -- and the refund was less than half. I get that two-sided markets are tough, but even having the slightest decency and empathy during the matter would have made a world of difference to me.

megy 8y ago

> The problem was that it was peak Summer in Barcelona, we were there for a long period of time, and the only available units were minimum 5x the price. What can they do then? Build new apartments for you? > We had an Airbnb burglarized Once again, what can they do? They are not a hotel. You accept that when you book somewhere. It is not magic, there are going to be horrible places, there are going to be shitty owners who rob you. You want all the benefits but none of the compromises. Too bad.

smnrchrds 8y ago
> What can they do then? Build new apartments for you? Do the same thing an airline does. If a flight is cancelled, they don't just refund the original price you paid for the ticket. They have to get you to the destination. If the only available option is a first class seat, it's their problem, not yours. They don't ask you to either pay $1000 for the price difference and get on the next flight or get your $100 back and try to get to the destination on your own. So in this case, the alternative was not building apartments. It was to eat the price difference and house OP in another listing or even a hotel.

seppin 8y ago

> I prefer a hotel. I have nothing to back this up, but it feels like hotels have been lowering prices and raising their quality as a result of Airbnb. Lots of "boutique" hotels offering great rooms for less. I was an early adapter to Airbnb and sung their praises for years, but for all the above reasons I too prefer hotels now.

nojvek 8y ago

I had some terrible experiences with Airbnb a couple of times. Their customer service is as responsive as that if Google’s; almost non-existent. I prefer to stay away from any company that doesn’t offer a human to talk to when things go awry.