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Yeap. Dealt with Airbnb mishandling my issue over a one night $50 stay. Owner of room apparently leaves the door key in a mailbox. Previous renter apparently t

by swang 5y ago

Yeap. Dealt with Airbnb mishandling my issue over a one night $50 stay. Owner of room apparently leaves the door key in a mailbox. Previous renter apparently took it with him when he left leaving no way of getting in. Owner obviously did not live nearby. I eventually waited for someone to exit the complex so I could get in. The door to the apartment had a computerized lock but that basically meant I could not leave the room at all. Room of course was also not cleaned from the previous customer since all the towels didn't appear to be thoroughly washed if at all. After waking up at 4AM to bug bites I basically frantically made sure none of them got into my luggage for the last 3 hours or so I was there. What did airbnb do? They "refunded" my cleaning bill and ended it at that. For 2 weeks I had to go through their support on the website only to be stonewalled or ignored. I sent them pictures of my hand that had bug bites, I sent them the text messages the owner sent, even though it was on the Airbnb platform. No dice. Finally I ended up getting through to someone via their Twitter account and was eventually able to get a refund for the night. Of course I left a negative review on their page warning others about the possibility of being stranded if the previous guest forgets the key and also their lack of cleaning, but it got immediately buried by their algorithms. That was about 4-5 years ago, never used Airbnb again.

gordon_freeman 5y ago
This. Last summer, we rented a space due to wildfires going on and too much smoke in our area. We saw the pictures on the listing with more than 100 guests giving 4.5+ rating in total for cleanliness and that convinced us to stay there for a few days until the smoke clears up in our area. When we visited the apartment, we just put our stuff there and went out for dinner and spend evening out and when we came back slowly we realized how dirty, bug and mold infested that place was. After checking with Airbnb they kept telling us to deal with host and all they did at the end was...you guessed it right...refunded the cleaning fees ($20). terrible customer service! One simple fact Airbnb does not understand is: vacation rental biz is built on repeat customers coming back to the platform often. If folks like us get such a bad experience in staying first and then dealing constantly for weeks with AirBnb customer reps, that experience would make sure we would never rent again on Airbnb. This is the biggest problem with their business right now...their customer service is just terrible.
- dreamcompiler 5y ago
  Customer service doesn't matter to the FAANG-like companies. They've run the numbers and they know that if 10% of their customers never return it will cost them $x (which they'll make up for in new customers anyway), and keeping those 10% happy by hiring enough customer service reps will cost them $100x. "Good customer service interferes with our exponential growth plans and makes our investors nervous, so we ain't gonna do it."

by swang 5y ago

gordon_freeman 5y ago

This. Last summer, we rented a space due to wildfires going on and too much smoke in our area. We saw the pictures on the listing with more than 100 guests giving 4.5+ rating in total for cleanliness and that convinced us to stay there for a few days until the smoke clears up in our area. When we visited the apartment, we just put our stuff there and went out for dinner and spend evening out and when we came back slowly we realized how dirty, bug and mold infested that place was. After checking with Airbnb they kept telling us to deal with host and all they did at the end was...you guessed it right...refunded the cleaning fees ($20). terrible customer service! One simple fact Airbnb does not understand is: vacation rental biz is built on repeat customers coming back to the platform often. If folks like us get such a bad experience in staying first and then dealing constantly for weeks with AirBnb customer reps, that experience would make sure we would never rent again on Airbnb. This is the biggest problem with their business right now...their customer service is just terrible.

dreamcompiler 5y ago
Customer service doesn't matter to the FAANG-like companies. They've run the numbers and they know that if 10% of their customers never return it will cost them $x (which they'll make up for in new customers anyway), and keeping those 10% happy by hiring enough customer service reps will cost them $100x. "Good customer service interferes with our exponential growth plans and makes our investors nervous, so we ain't gonna do it."