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This is madness. I only use Airbnb in Europe for properties that are properly licensed by local authorities. They're very professionally run and would never pu

This is madness. I only use Airbnb in Europe for properties that are properly licensed by local authorities. They're very professionally run and would never pull these kind of stunts. I won't stay in a "room" or a property which isn't licensed now as Airbnb's policies alone isn't enough. All my bad experiences in the past have been with owners of just one property (unlicensed) But I only use Airbnb for trips where multiple hotel rooms are significantly more expensive - very much a last resort. I just stay at hotels now when I travel solo or there isn't too much of a premium. As crap as hotels are these days they're still better than having to deal with Airbnb I also refuse to use Uber Eats, Deliveroo etc as they're similarly too big for their boots and anti consumer.

saaaaaam 2y ago
I’ve noticed a significant change in Uber Eats and Deliveroo recently. Uber Eats has become almost impossible to use to resolve problems - and they seem to have doubled down on this. I recently ordered food where the driver called me several times because he was lost, and then ended up marking the food as delivered even though his location was completely wrong. Uber Eats refused point blank to refund me. I got the impression that the email replies were automatically generated and the issue had not been reviewed by a human. I couldn’t get through by phone because I didn’t have an active order and you can only get phone support for active orders. I ended up raising a chargeback with my bank. Conversely, in my recent experience Deliveroo has become much better at resolving problems. I’ve had a couple of issues recently (food delivered cold, a substitute item in a grocery order I’d specified no substitutions) and both were sorted out with a single message resulting in a full refund. I now use Deliveroo over Uber Eats and wonder whether they are making a conscious decision to get customers to prefer them by offering better customer service. And, simultaneously, I wonder whether that customer service will be pulled back again once they’ve increased whatever metric they are optimising against. I do also wonder whether you get better customer service from these platforms if you meet certain characteristics - not a super regular user, but regular enough, with a moving average spend over or under a particular level, or indications from buying patterns that you are likely (or unlikely) to become a loyal or high spending customer.

saaaaaam 2y ago

I’ve noticed a significant change in Uber Eats and Deliveroo recently. Uber Eats has become almost impossible to use to resolve problems - and they seem to have doubled down on this. I recently ordered food where the driver called me several times because he was lost, and then ended up marking the food as delivered even though his location was completely wrong. Uber Eats refused point blank to refund me. I got the impression that the email replies were automatically generated and the issue had not been reviewed by a human. I couldn’t get through by phone because I didn’t have an active order and you can only get phone support for active orders. I ended up raising a chargeback with my bank. Conversely, in my recent experience Deliveroo has become much better at resolving problems. I’ve had a couple of issues recently (food delivered cold, a substitute item in a grocery order I’d specified no substitutions) and both were sorted out with a single message resulting in a full refund. I now use Deliveroo over Uber Eats and wonder whether they are making a conscious decision to get customers to prefer them by offering better customer service. And, simultaneously, I wonder whether that customer service will be pulled back again once they’ve increased whatever metric they are optimising against. I do also wonder whether you get better customer service from these platforms if you meet certain characteristics - not a super regular user, but regular enough, with a moving average spend over or under a particular level, or indications from buying patterns that you are likely (or unlikely) to become a loyal or high spending customer.