Ask HN: Dramatic decrease in AirBnb support quality?
In particular, the support always seemed fast, responsive, and on top of any scams that started to arise.
Until about... maybe this summer.
Has anyone else noticed this?
...
If anyone is interested in the details of a particular bad experience:
I booked a listing that had all of the features I needed, in the neighborhood I wanted. Great!
But when I arrived, the host provided check-in instructions to a completely different unit. I didn't even notice this at first - it was late at night and I was just happy to get myself and my 3-year old checked in.
The next day, I messaged the host and asked if there had been a mistake. The host said that they needed another day to get back to me.
When they did, they informed me that my unit was not available. So, I asked for a refund. From the AirBnb guidelines:
"our Guest Refund Policy will make sure you either get the listing you booked or receive a refund."
...so I opened a support request, left the unit, and booked a different AirBnb, for which I paid full price.
I assumed I was going to get a full refund.
Instead, I had a back-and-forth for quite a long time with AirBnb support to explain the situation (it seems that they weren't carefully reading the messages between myself and the host) and at the end of it, their "final decision" was that I had to pay for three nights (remember: I only stayed two nights, and never even set foot in the actual listing) plus the AirBnb fees - in total, for two nights at a hugely downgraded listing, I paid more than half of my original week-long price.
Prior to this, I had had a couple of other small hiccups (confusion with support, taking a long time to respond, etc) but things had always eventually been smoothed out. This is the first time I've ever been wholesale scammed out of hundreds of dollars.
I imagine I'm not alone here?