My shitty AirBnB experience | Hacker News Reader

My shitty AirBnB experience

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46 pointsfnando34 comments

I had a very similar frustrating experience with AirBnB. Essentially, my rental turned out to be an illegal sublet that hosted a large party the weekend before. There was still trash strewn about. The real owner contacted the neighbors and they (kindly) informed me of the situation.

I immediately contacted AirBnB, here's a quick summary of what happened:

- On hold for 30 min - Offered a $50 coupon for another booking (I was traveling with 5 other people) - We had a full day of activities so I booked a rental with instant confirmation. - The customer service rep scolded me because I was supposed wait for the coupon code (which was sent 30 minutes after I booked). - The coupon could not be retroactively applied to my new booking. - Only after tweeting their customer service did someone else reach out. - Every new customer rep had a different answer for me. - In the end took 2 months and a credit card chargeback to sort everything out.

My whole experience left me with a whole bunch of questions.

- If your $20B valuation comes from connecting rentors and rentees, shouldn't your customer service be stellar?

- If something goes wrong (at the fault of the rentor), why is the onus on me to solve it (imagine if this happened at a hotel)?

- There's a lot more time and emotion invested in making an AirBnB rental over a car share (Uber, Lyft). So when things go wrong, why does it feel like AirBnB treats it as the same (e.g. "just book another AirBnB")?

- To cut down on illegal rentals, AirBnB could choose to ask for a copy of the lease agreement. It's an obvious answer, but why not?

When everything goes right, I'm sure AirBnb is fine. But if you have an experience when something goes wrong, you'll understand why I no longer use AirBnb.

So let me say this to others who may be reading:

If you book something like this, and your expectations are not met and you call the company and they do not provide adequate compensation, do not bullshit with calling them back or tweeting their customer service or whatever. Tell them you are going to call your credit card company and dispute the charge. Period. Normally this is a magic keyword to immediately remedy the situation, and if the situation is still not fixed, then your credit card company will deal with it for you. This is particularly true if you have a high-end credit card like the Amex platinum or CSR. No need for you to screw around with bullshit customer service.

Example: GF and I booked a tour. Tour bus didn't show up. Called, emailed, no response. Called credit card company. Transaction reversed within 24 hours after the credit card company called and took care of the situation (CSR in this case).

I think your advice is reasonable, but I believe it's not sufficient.

Yes, vendors are somewhat pained by chargebacks, but many CC will ask you to resolve with them first.

Ultimately when AirBnB has this failure in quality, they should provide you a free room of equal or greater value AND not charge you.

AirBnB seems unwilling to invest in quality, which makes me believe they are not delivering a quality product.

I mean, then you change CC providers to someone more reasonable.

As of yet I have not run into an issue with my credit card company has asked me to resolve an issue so long as I had previously attempted to resolve it. I don't disagree with what AirBnB should probably provide as compensation, I'm just trying to save you from wasting time or dealing with stuff that you just don't need to be dealing with.

My experience out of four AirBnB stays was that two were as advertised and two were complete dirty slums, nothing like the photos or reviews suggested. We had to leave and get a hotel. The reviews were all 5 star raving about how beautiful, amazing, etc they were with 40-50 reviews each.

Has anyone else had this experience? It made us unable to trust the review system because in this case it was so clearly rigged somehow. And without being able to trust the review system AirBnB is next to useless.

I don't think the reviews are rigged per se. Here's what I think causes this. I was a superhost for about a year renting out a spare room.

Superhost status seems to increase your position in search results, and acts as an indication of high-performance/great accommodations leading to more renters being interested and you charging higher prices charged. Most hosts want to achieve this rating. Part of superhost status is maintaining an insanely good rating, I think > 4.5 avg for rolling 3 month periods. Renters seem to know this, and in fear of being somebody that gives low reviews, will inflate their reviews. I could be wrong, but I think my wife and I would review accounts and lease to renters who had given more positive reviews.

This may seem selfish but it only takes 1 3-star review from middle-aged people comparing you to a luxury hotel to learn.

Are you saying that I, as someone who needs a place to stay, am more likely to give a 5-star rating to a slum so that if I ever apply to stay with a superhost, they'll look at my rating history and be more likely to approve me?

"my wife and I would review accounts and lease to renters who had given more positive reviews"

That is exactly what he/she is saying. I'm not actually surprised by this.

5-star ratings are a poor means of actually ranking things as they are generally currently implemented - especially when there is no guidance as to what each star means.

Big issues include:

As per this post, if PartyA needs high ratings and can see all the ratings PartyB provides to other PartyA types, they will certainly favor those PartyB types who rate higher.

The "average" on most of these 1 to 5 star scales is not a 3. E.g. the average Uber driver rating is 4.7 (or something) stars. So what does that mean to the user? I need to remember 4.7 is ok but 4.8 is good? Shouldn't the app provide guidance to users? Say to the user, "if you had a good overall drive - rate this 3 stars".

Why doesn't the AirBnB app "curve" ratings as well? Meaning apply my ratings to a bell curve with the average being a 3 - i.e. if my average rating is 4.8 with a high of 5 and a low of 4.6 - why doesn't the app just translate my 4.6 a "1", my 5 a "5" and curve the rest of my ratings so my average fits on the scale? Then users would know that a "3" is average - which for AirBNB might mean "good"? And a 4.8 is truly exceptional?

And of course none of this addresses the problem where my "exceptional" does not match yours. Maybe I like I like eco-tourism and camping, and you like Ritz Carltons and gold martinis. Or maybe I like slow and safe drivers and you like fast drives who run yellow lights?

Regardless, I'm tired of all these meaningless inflations.

What's the rationale for allowing Airbnb hosts to see the reviews that a renter has given other rentals?

This is disgusting and probably illegal in parts of the world. This is like healthcare companies refusing service for the ones more likely to need more health assistance.

The first bait-and-switch apartment listed "Entire home/apt" with 4.5 stars rating is here: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/14489610

1 or 2 of my very nice people will be in the office upstairs to help with any questions during daytime. (the bathroom is shared on Mo, Wed, Fri during daytime)

How is this even legal?

> (the bathroom is shared on Mo, Wed, Fri during daytime)

What I'm more curious about is where the nice people that work upstairs go to the bathroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

They use AirPnP, of course.

In NYC its actually illegal to do a short term sublet of an entire apartment. So this is a common workaround so they can give you a short term sublet. They can claim that they just rented you some space from their office so they don't get fined for short term subletting. They can also tell you that the space is private (because by NYC standards it basically is private, you get desensitized to stuff like this when you live in close quarters with lots of people).

I'm thinking AirBNB should be enforcing the accepted definition of private, not NYC's.

When using Airbnb, the consumer should approach it as if they are taking on risk that some number of reservations will fail, and you'll have to pay a premium to find lodging. If your perceived expected value is greater when taking that risk, Airbnb is for you. If you're not willing to entertain that possibility, you should avoid it altogether.

I don't think Airbnb service handled this appropriately, but I find companies' service centers to be less than helpful most of the time.

I agree, but I also think Airbnb should have a very visible promipt, in your face that they really don't guarantee that you will get what you paid for.

To my knowledge they don't do this at the moment.

(Referring to the TOC is just lame when talking about such a primary risk.)

Yeah, but that's not how they market themselves- it's only learned through a poor experience

> the consumer should approach it as if they are taking on risk that some number of reservations will fail, and you'll have to pay a premium to find lodging.

While that may be true now, that's a pretty shitty deal to actually have to take as the norm. Having to always have a backup plan makes travel budgeting unpredictable for a lot of people.

I'd be curious to see what the rates are on reservations falling through, also compared to the same rates for the hotel industry.

> Since I don’t have a credit card, I asked my beloved mother to use hers.

You should never ever let other people use your credit card or ask to use other people's credit card. Credit card is called personal card for a reason. There is so much fraud, credit card theft going on that it is surprising that your transaction succeeded at all.

I'm amazed at the amount of victim blaming in the comments.

You book a private place you expect a private place. Anywhere else in the world except for the US thesr fine print tactics are considered void.

You can book over $1000 accommodations using Brazilian credit cards on other websites, it's clearly an Airbnb problem.

Finally, I'm disgusted to learn that hosts select guests based on how positive they are.

What I am always curious about are all these rentals on AirBnB owned by the people renting it out? As I am renting myself and my rental agreement clearly states I can't underlet it: "Not assign, underlet or part with or share possession of the whole or any part of the Property."

Ain't this a normal item in an agreement? How does this work? Are they just breaking their agreement?

A fair amount of them are breaking their lease agreement, or doing it in violation of local laws. Walking down the Mission in SF, you'll find a fair number of orange sheets taped to apartments from the San Francisco Office of Short Term Rentals, informing the tenant that they are in violation of the SF Administrative Code Chapter 41A.

Airbnb is for when you want to have an adventure. It's not going to be easy, it may not be clean, but if you are the type of person who likes meeting new people and having interesting new experiences then go for it. If you expect a traditional hotel that's probably just not going to happen.

Incorrect, Airbnb is for when you want to have an apartment to stay in.

This sounds like a case of someone not reading the fine print, not doing their due diligence, and then complaining about their outcome. Which is fine, that's how most people go through life. But it's not particularly illustrative of a fundamental issue with AirBNB.

Not really. In the first instance the fine print literally contradicted something that was said earlier, if it says in big letters at the top "Entire home/apartment" then having fine print that contradicts that isn't reasonable, it's just a lie. In the second instance the host just never responded which once again isn't a fine print issue.

This sounds like a case of someone not reading the fine print, not doing their due diligence, and then complaining about their outcome.

What if you bought some food at a restaurant listed under "Vegan" with large letters, then a second later you read the smaller print saying that it contains animal byproducts? I wouldn't think very highly of that restaurant. Then, if I were running a food ordering website and found that one of the restaurants was doing this, I might want to have a word with that restaurant.

Other benefits of hotels: * All the cleaning makes bedbugs less of a worry * the doors actually lock properly * less barking dogs

It's funny when I click on the JavaScript error image the page fails and has to reload.

Safari Mobile iPhone 7 plus 10.3.1

Sorry but if you want to function in the US, get a credit card. The rest of the stuff sucks but the lack of a CC is on you.

that would have changed nothing--ie, the $1,000 limit is AirBnB's rule for Brazilian credit cards used to book US properties, i inferred, plus he had access to credit cards provided by family, co-workers, et al.

unless you mean by "get a credit card", get a US credit card (which i suppose means a credit card issued by a US bank), then indeed, that would have solved the initial problem (of the $1,000 limit) and allowed him to book his first choice.

but is this reasonable? If a US citizen travels to Brazil should they have to get a credit card issued by a Brazilian bank?

No, all of it sucks. But there is admittedly a difference: the rest of the stuff you are picking up after AirBnB's failings, but for the CC you are mostly picking up after the failings of the international consumer electronic payments ecosystem.

In each case they are "on you" only to the extent that you could have researched known problems and lowered your expectations. In neither case could you have gone to a competitor, because there are none.

The point of view you put forward is the one you get to if you choose to regard AirBnB as a moral agent, but to regard the electronic payments infrastructure as a force of nature. Why not the other way round?

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