| This is like the dirty secret of Airbnb. They have absolutely garbage customer service. The Reddit /r/airbnb is mostly frequented by Hosts, and there is a horror story posted there weekly. I get that people only kinda show up there to complain, but there is a theme amongst these stories. 1. Customer Service doesn't understand their own policies. Often, a host will need to read their own terms of service back to the CS rep to get some requested action (undo an instant booking, not allowing a pet, etc). 2. To get a promised refund / money owed / etc. you need to call and call and call, continue to ask the status, etc. etc. 3. Their $1 million host guarantee isn't worth anything. Their marketing on this vs the reality is comically far apart. Unless it results in bad publicity for them, they will stick very very strictly to all of the gotchas. (Claim denied, guest says it wasn't them, existing damage. Ohh you had another guest in, claim denied it could have been anyone.) The general recommendation is that as a host, you need to 100% look out for yourself and that the company does not have your back at all. |
I'm not a customer of AirBnB; I'm the neighbour of an unhosted AirBnB flat, that is let for most of the year. They dump food-waste in my recycling bin; break the common parts, leaving me to fix the damage; come and go at all times of night; and they intimidate me if I'm unlucky enough to meet them.
I'm OK with the old-style "couchsurfing" model. But the unhosted ultra-short letting model means that I don't have a neighbour, instead I live next to a glorified holiday chalet, except that a holiday chalet is usually let for a couple of weeks; this place is rarely let for more than 2 days.
I want to see AirBnB banned from the city I live in.