That's essentially what I was thinking even when reading the article. Get a good credit card company that's on your side (Amex has been best for me, Discover too), and let them deal with it. They absolutely will not screw around with stuff like this.
Yup, fraud like this is exactly what chargebacks are for. Companies don't listen to anything but money. AirBNB counts on you being a pushover and not disputing the charge. I don't understand this "Well they charged my credit card so there's nothing I can do!" attitude.
Just be aware that a chargeback is an instant bridge-igniter with the company or platform you’re filing it against, most considering it a breach of the TOS and banning your account.
You might find it hard to reverse charges. Credit card companies will absolutely reverse fraudulent charges. However, they don't like to get in the middle of price disputes in my experience. If you say you agreed to pay $10, but that you were charged $20, the credit card company may tell you to work it out with the merchant.
It really depends on the card. As mentioned, Amex and Discover really seem to be the best. I've only disputed a handful of times, and each time they refund the money immediately while they figure out who was right.
This can work, but beware that the company may send the charge to collections. It's a slimy thing to do, but we are talking about a company that's built its success on evading all manner of legal responsibility. (And outright law-breaking by many of its hosts.)
I charged back a fraudulent charge to a local company, and they sent it to collections. Immediately sent the collection agency a registered letter demanding they validate (prove) the debt as required by the FCRA and California law, then another one a month later after they ignored me, and that was the end of it.
There's often no reason to fear these shenanigans. Companies get away with it when people don't understand their rights regarding credit and debt and cave in to the shenanigans.
Where are you getting $1000 from? He says 3 figure so it's in the hundreds, I'm assuming lower. Everyone has there point where they'd be fine burning the bridge. To me the ability to get a place quickly with an app from anywhere has a good amount of value, but I'd have trouble putting an exact price on it.
I disagree. I've been both a host and customer for many years, and in general I've found the customer service to be good or even very good for resolving issues either as a host or as a customer.
In fact, many 'scare' articles about airbnb puzzle me, because it seem seems that the problems could have been avoided if the guest had read the reviews and/or booked with a superhost (or other host with a history of good reviews).
Having said that, I do think it's insane that the reviews are no longer listed in chronological order (or at least with the option to view them in chronological order).
But how can I trust that the reviews are good if, as this article talks about, people are hesitant to post anything but good reviews for fear of receiving a retaliatory review?
One screw up isn't going to keep me away, as I've had mostly good experiences with Airbnb.
Is it worth a one time screw up of $200 for my years of positive experiences? For me, yes.
If the ratio of positive to negative experiences starts going down, I'll be finding other ways to vacation.
Likewise, if a grocer messes up once, but I've been going to them for years without issue, I'm going to let it go. If it starts happening more often? I'll look for other ways to get my groceries.
(Side note: I've been booking more hotels recently. But that has to do with cost and convenience mostly, not false listings or false cleaning fees or anything else like that).
From a consumer that's fine - you've got your scammed money back (and they do not have the evidence that the payment was valid), and creating a new account is easy enough.
Because they control a huge part of the market, and the cost of accepting the fraud is often lower than the cost of losing access to that part of the market.