
Why Airbnb is dead to me - longwave
http://drupaler.drupalgardens.com/content/why-airbnb-dead-me
======
flippyhead
I continue to use AirBnb but have been pretty disappointed in their customer
service. I rent out a family cabin occasionally and someone who stayed there
scratched the floor accidentally wearing winter boots with spikes on them.
They admitted this, apologized and were generally totally awesome about it.

It took me __months __to get Airbnb to figure out how to deduct money from
their damage deposit. They first said I had to call the police and get a
police report, which I refused to do -- call the police on these nice tenants
who already explained it was their mistake and were 100% willing to pay!
Ridiculous.

Every few times we'd exchange support emails it seemed like some new person
would take over and never read the past emails so I had to repeat the same
stuff multiple time. Ultimately I ended up emailing the CEO after I found some
blog post where he said he wanted to personally hear from everyone and anyone.
He never replied but the problem magically got fixed soon thereafter.

I fear the day I end up with really terrible hosts like you did because I have
no faith AirBnb will actually be there for me.

Looking forward to trying housetrip, there really need to be a solid
alternative to AirBnb.

~~~
potatolicious
This seems like a theme with pretty much all internet companies, big and small
- undercut the competition by cutting corners on things that "don't matter",
until they matter.

Google for example has almost no way to reach customer service, even for their
paid products. When it works it works great, when it doesn't God Help You.

Ditto Uber/Lyft/other cab companies, where there seems to be no end of people
who were put in seriously unsafe situations and were unable to get any
attention to their issues until they blogged about it. Who knows how many
cases we haven't heard of because they weren't able to get their concerns to
the top of Reddit/HN/wherever.

This sort of thing happens in any low-margin business. Not only is there not
enough money to hire good customer service, but what little customer service
exists is not empowered to make things right for the customer, because thin
margins and $$$.

It turns out that keeping spare rooms on standby, generous
rescheduling/rebooking policies, and all the niceties we associate with hotels
are powered by the fatter margins they enjoy. The big innovation we've made in
the last few years is making low-margin low-rent business models seem boutique
and high-end.

~~~
mistermann
The older I get the more cynical I get, and the further I drift leftward
politically in favor of more government regulation, the underlying reason I
think being that generally speaking, most cultures (and especially "high
achievers" within) are fundamentally dishonest - like teenagers, they often
cannot be trusted with serious responsibility. They have highly potent skills,
but they don't have the corresponding maturity or morality to safely wield
those skills.

And this goes not only for small startups, it is applicable across huge blue
chip companies as well, the latest being VW (and now it appears other auto
manufacturers).

~~~
dandare
A guy from post communist country here: how is more government regulation
going to solve anything?

~~~
mistermann
By restricting what companies can and cannot do and forcing them to prove
certain risks are _genuinely_ covered before coming in and "disrupting" (aka
destroying) industries that have generally done a somewhat decent job of
things for decades.

I'm just getting tired of people advocating free market principles and
proclaiming that industries will police themselves, and then turning around
and lying and cheating, with next to no consequences. I'm saying this as a
pretty extreme economic right wing person - today's conservatives bear little
resemblance to traditional ones.

~~~
aianus
> to prove certain risks are genuinely covered

Why? I'm well aware of the risks of using AirBnB (or being a contractor
instead of an employee or whatever) and _choose_ to take them on because I
believe I come out ahead overall. Not everyone wants the nanny state watching
out for them at every opportunity.

~~~
mistermann
Not even reads Hacker News - feel free to link the location on AirBNB's
website that informs regular people about the nature of things that can go
wrong, and details on how they will handle that (or not, as the case may be).

~~~
mistermann
*Typo: Not everyone reads Hacker News...

------
davidhariri
I had a nightmare experience on vacation in Mexico that was word for word the
same response from Airbnb. Because I took my wife and I out of the potentially
dangerous rental, without first contacting Airbnb, they couldn't refund us
anything. I followed up with evidence that the rental was unfit and unsafe
with pictures, but nothing came of it. Needless to say, I'm never using Airbnb
again. Worst customer experience I've ever had. Airbnb is essentially enabling
any joe idiot to run a shit hotel anywhere in the world with zero
accountability. Oh also, over the time you email their customer experience
reps, they assign you a NEW customer rep each time so you have no relationship
with whoever you talk to next during a conversation. Some people are
understanding, others are a __holes. Such a terrible experience, overall. It
's a wonder they're as big as they are.

~~~
deveac
_> Airbnb is essentially enabling any joe idiot to run a shit hotel anywhere
in the world with zero accountability._

You did not leave a rating or review of your unfit rental on airbnb?

~~~
larrys
So that's great but then you are doing part of the work that airbnb should be
doing.

~~~
superuser2
>airbnb should be doing

According to you.

Paying in to something with zero or negative ratings on a reputation-based
market always carries risk; it should be priced accordingly.

------
deveac
_> Airbnb do not care about guests and their safety at all._

I don't know. It seems like it would be a nightmare to sort through a he-said
she-said after the fact when the offended party didn't even book a stay
(instead the room was booked by some other person that is insisting "no, it's
cool, I know them"), and furthermore didn't even report the apartment not
being available when the issue occurred.

It's nice that they were "all cool" with the host and decided to play musical
buildings instead of contacting Airbnb right there, but when they did that,
they went off the books and _severely limited Airbnb 's ability to quickly and
effectively_ sort through the issue. A customer that didn't even book a room
though the service had an issue and went with a "handshake" from the host to
resolve it instead.

Let's walk through the alternate scenario.

Customer desiring a room actually books a room through AirBnB.

Customer arrives and hosts tells them the apartment is no longer available.
Customer contacts AirBnB and the issue is dealt with right then and there, and
the host is sanctioned properly.

No driving around in a strange city to a place you've never set eyes on, and
if you want to book another apartment with the host, you do it on the books.

~~~
Elessar
Have you ever travelled to a foreign country where you don't speak the
language?

You really need to put yourself in the tourist's shoes. If I booked a tour and
the host drove me to a different place to stay, that's all I can do. You rely
on their ability to communicate, and if they're being kind and doing their
best to make your stay comfortable, then that's fantastic.

What you're suggesting is that you're going to start making international
calls with some website's support staff while you have luggage on the street,
no place to stay, in a foreign city and completely on your own. You're also
going to blow off the only person (the host) who cares at all about your
situation. Are you kidding me?

~~~
mikeash
I've traveled quite a bit, including to Barcelona. If you speak English (and
this person clearly does) then "don't speak the language" is not an issue
there, or indeed almost anywhere.

If I book a place for a certain period, then I'm staying for that whole
period. If the host suddenly changes their mind and tells me I have to move,
no way. I'm contacting the booking agency and having them tell the host to get
lost. If the booking agency doesn't help then I'm initiating a chargeback and
finding a hotel. At no point is it reasonable to just pack up, hop into a
complete stranger's car at their insistence, and be driven off to some place
where they won't even tell you where you're going.

Traveling _used to be_ pretty interesting when things went wrong. I got
stranded in the Beijing airport once with only a rudimentary command of
Mandarin because the airline canceled my flight and never told me, and I had
to hunt down an airline employee, borrow a phone so I could contact people,
etc. But now? Bring a smartphone and you're a few taps away from communicating
with anybody you need. Host is being obstinate? Call AirBnB. Still doesn't
work? Book a new place. You make a mistake taking a car with a stranger and he
takes you to a place where you don't even know where it is? Open up a maps app
and find out where you are. Can't talk to people? Google Translate to the
rescue.

You better believe that if the host refuses to honor our agreement and starts
trying to jerk me around, I'm going to blow them off and sit with my luggage
in the street while I resolve the problem myself. Relying on strangers to fix
your problems, when said strangers have already demonstrated that they don't
really care about you, is setting yourself up to be a victim.

~~~
yardie
You place far too much faith in AirBnB's customer service line. I've called it
before. I've sat outside the apartment I rented waiting on hold listening to
the same 3 damn songs forever (hey did you know the music they've selected is
produced by their employees?).

AirBnB wasn't reachable when I needed them the most. Sitting on the curb with
my wife and 4yo at 10PM without a place to go. Trying desperately to find any
hotel with a vacancy at the height of tourist season in a small tourist town.

That incident has soured my wife on me ever booking a sharing economy rental
again.

~~~
mikeash
I'm not placing _any_ faith in AirBnB. I laid out a chain of actions, one of
which is contacting AirBnB, and the next link in the chain is what to do if
that doesn't work.

No doubt you can get stuck in a crappy situation here. But you certainly have
choices that don't involve doing nothing while your host carts you off to some
undisclosed location.

~~~
yardie
I apologise. When I've retold the story other peoples' responses are simply
"contact AirBnB" as if that wasn't the first thing we did. We eventually found
a place for the night, resolved the issue with AirBnB (though weeks later),
and promised to do a little more forethought into our next rental.

~~~
mikeash
That's OK, and I'm glad you got your housing trouble figured out. AirBnB
definitely _should_ be prepared to handle problems like this right away, but I
can't say I'm too surprised that they don't.

------
protomyth
This is why hotel regulations popped up in the first place. If you don't want
the government to crack down, you really need to protect your customers. If
this happened to the son or daughter of a US Senator (I know it happened in
Spain, but kids do take trips) then I would expect a whole world of problems.

~~~
bachmeier
Welcome to the lemons problem. Information problems are very real in the hotel
industry. Most of the customers have limited information. Akerlof (husband of
Fed chair Janet Yellen) got the Nobel Prize for starting the literature.

No, I do not have plans to use Airbnb. It sounded like a really bad idea from
the start.

~~~
aianus
You're well-compensated for the risk you take on Airbnb, it's not like it
costs the same as the Four Seasons.

~~~
icebraining
And the risk is overrated - if the host seems dishonest or the place isn't as
described/shown, you can still check-in to an hotel.

I find it depressing how this will probably go away, and people like me who
can't afford to pay for a stay at an hotel will just lose the option of taking
the risk. Hurray for the infantilization of society! /s

~~~
mattdotc
> if the host seems dishonest or the place isn't as described/shown, you can
> still check-in to an hotel.

When I am traveling - for business or pleasure - the last thing I want to do
is scramble to figure out where I will sleep that night. I value my time too
much, especially for a pleasure trip, to go through that kind of ordeal.

Also, you can save money if you pay in advance for your hotel. You won't have
time to even comparison shop if you're rushing at the very very last minute.

So, I wouldn't say the risk is overrated, but instead that people can stomach
different amount of risk.

I like to be well prepared and have firm plans on my trips, but I know other
friends will just book the first things they find and figure out what they're
doing when they get there.

~~~
raisedbyninjas
Prices for last minute bookings can also be discounted. Check out the mobile
app Hotel Tonight.

~~~
dreaminvm
Aside from using HT when they gave out free credits, their rates have been
consistently more expensive than a comparable hotel on Priceline Express and
Hotwire.

------
scottmcdot
Just tonight, my mother checked into an Airbnb in Vienna, Austria. She sent me
photos of the bed which did not have new sheets, the towels which were not
fresh, a band aid on the floor and some rubbish bins full of cigarettes and
ash. The apartment was overall pretty dirty. The host's contact phone number
goes straight to message bank (I also tried many times) and the host is not
answering emails.

In this situation, what do you do?

She's travelling alone and in her 50s and as you can imagine, she's pretty
upset. I decided to get her a hotel and called her an Uber. I then called
Airbnb and they said they will attempt to contact the host and they will get
back to us.

She wouldn't know what to do without me and if I weren't available, she'd
probably end up wandering the streets at night looking for a hotel because
she'd be too upset to return to the Airbnb place.

I think for now, I will stop recommending Airbnb.

~~~
mikeash
Not defending the host's actions or AirBnB in any way here, but if you're not
capable of getting a hotel on your own, then you probably shouldn't be
traveling to foreign countries alone.

Edit: well, that was unpopular. Am I wrong, or just saying it inartfully?

~~~
josefresco
I'm 34, capable as the next guy and would probably have difficulty re-booking
a room, in a foreign country while also being "homeless". In fact, during
summer months I'd have difficulty booking a room 5 min from my house last
minute.

~~~
scottmcdot
I agree. It was 5pm and I had my laptop in front of me so I could quickly call
hotels in the area to see if they were available. By around the 8th ok-looking
hotel, I had found one that had a room available. This would be very difficult
for my mother on her slow iPhone 3GS.

~~~
secabeen
Interesting point. I think I'll be sure to carry a paper travel guide (Lonely
Planet, etc.) when travelling internationally just for the hotel reviews and
phone numbers in case of problems.

10 years ago, when travelling internationally, my first step when arriving in
a city was to park myself at a payphone in the train station and start calling
places.

------
outside1234
Its equally bad as a host. I have a place that rents very well in the summer
(its near the Ocean) and a group of people showed up, didn't like it for
whatever reason, and AirBNB canceled the reservation with no penalty despite
there being a super clear cancelation policy in place.

No recourse (customer service blew me off: "sorry, renter didn't like the
bed."), no way to rent it for a week on that short of notice, I lose $1000.
Really shitty experience - I prioritize Holiday Lettings now.

~~~
ghaff
But what _should_ Airbnb (or any company managing rentals) do under that
circumstance? The renter is doing the equivalent of a return for "item not as
described." I'm perfectly willing to believe that this renter had some
expectation or requirement that to your mind or mine was totally unreasonable.
Or maybe they found a better deal nearby at the last moment. But there's no
real way an Airbnb can start investigating the firmness of beds or other
property details. The only alternative is to tilt the other way and basically
make it impossible for renters to get a refund barring all but the most
obviously mis-advertised rentals.

~~~
josefresco
Day of arrival refunds don't work for any industry that relies on
reservations, appointments, or rigid scheduling. It doesn't need to be
"impossible" to get a refund, but being able to show up and say "no thanks"
(for seemingly any reason) when the result is the business losing substantial
revenue - is a bad situation for all.

~~~
ghaff
Well, it often does with hotels up to 6pm or so if guaranteed with a credit
card.

My point is that there is a very wide variance in properties. While some
walkaways will be for trivial or non-existent reasons in the minds of an
average person, others will be for much more substantial reasons. Property
ratings aside, it's really hard for the broker (Airbnb) to distinguish those
except in the most extreme cases. As a result, you probably need a sensible
default but that default is going to inherently favor either those renting or
those renting out the property in the case of a dispute.

~~~
josefresco
"hotels up to 6pm" maybe big city, high volume hotels which have no problem
re-booking. For smaller accommodation businesses with a limited stock, 24-48
hours is standard.

------
leoedin
This is a fundamental problem with online markets of any kind. There was a
period in the early 2000's when "eBay SUCKS" type websites would surface
regularly from angry users.

But then, as now, you see both kinds of story. Ones like this one, where the
seller / renter was anywhere from an outright fraud to unscrupulous, but also
the other way - stories of buyers who "returned" goods and got refunds, only
for the returned item turning out to be fake / faulty / nonexistent. I'm sure
AirBnB have equally large problems with people who have an uneventful stay,
leave and immediately lodge a complaint against the host.

It sounds like AirBnB could probably be nicer about this, but equally the
author of this post _did_ violate their terms of service (which aren't
unreasonable - letting people book for other people opens the door to agents
and unscrupulous 3rd parties who charge a fee without adding value).

It would be interesting to see the perspective of AirBnB support. I wonder how
many possibly fraudulent refund claims they deal with on a daily basis?

------
archagon
Wow, what a nightmare. I'd like to think that they'd have my back in this kind
of situation, but I guess not.

Personally, though, I've stayed in almost 40 different European Airbnb rentals
over the past year and didn't have any problems. It's not risk-free, but it's
certainly better than trawling through the local equivalent of Craigslist.
(Granted, I mostly stayed with people renting out a spare room, so there was
probably less of a chance of them being terrible or crazy.)

As with all booking services, I always engaged my sketchiness radar before
booking. Does the host sound conversational in their listing? Do the photos
have the Airbnb official photographer seal? (Or do they have lots of grainy
photos interspersed with unrelated photos of attractions in the city?) Do they
have a fleshed out profile with photos? Reviews? References? What do they
sound like when I message them? Even on a supposedly safe booking service like
Airbnb, it's important to assume that each listing is sketchy until proven
otherwise. You can usually tell if a host has good intentions by taking these
things into consideration.

~~~
frandroid
Renting a spare room is a key differentiator. All these bad experiences in the
thread here have one thing in common: they're all for a whole suite. That's
basically renting from all these real estate tycoon wannabes.

~~~
pavornyoh
@Fandroid, I don't know about that analysis. My experiences have been good and
bad. I rented a spare room and was kept up all night by the people in the next
room if you know what I mean ..:)

------
grishas
Several months ago, members of my team at work booked various Airbnbs for a
large conference in San Francisco.

We booked early to get a better deal, and I'm pretty sure a lot of Airbnb
hosts didn't know the conference was coming up (or was that big).

As we got closer to the conference time, pretty much all of us had our stays
canceled on us by the hosts. We were then forced to rebook at significantly
higher rates. In some instances, even THESE got canceled by the hosts.

We're 99% sure that the hosts were given better offers and made the deals
privately.

Having used Airbnb a few times now, I'm definitely seeing the benefits of
hotels for peace of mind.

~~~
jenno
If you cancel on a guest as a host, Airbnb _heavily_ penalizes your listings.
They will be outranked by pretty much every other listing for at least a
couple of months. (It happened to me and many other hosts I know.)

------
patja
Sounds like they may have gotten into the tough space where choices were few
and you take a Hobson's choice and get burned.

I've learned with Airbnb to be disciplined about ignoring any unreviewed
listings and really only looking at listings that have at least 15 reviews
over at least a year. It is clear that there are outright scammers using the
site, as well as perhaps the well meaning but incompetent or those who play a
little fast and loose, to be generous.

I almost booked a place in London for a Christmas stay 4 months out before I
discovered through my own sleuthing that 100% of the listing photos were from
a real estate listing for the flat and it was for sale.

------
kazinator
Regarding the comments below the blog post, what is the point of countering
him with anecdotes of good Airbnb experiences? Good experiences don't reveal
anything about Airbnb itself, because the dispute mechanism isn't invoked;
they are simply the result of a good host transacting with good guests
(incidentally, by way of Airbnb).

That's like saying, "I've had only good experiences with ABC Insurance; their
premiums are low, the coverage is great and their friendly staff answered all
my questions." (Wonderful; but did you ever try to collect on a claim?)

Only reports of experiences of invoking _the critical use-case_ are meaningful
and relevant. A black spot in that area obliterates a thousand glowing reports
about anything else.

------
xmlblog
I will never use Airbnb again, either. Booked a flat in London that looked
clean in the pictures, but was disgusting when we got there. Also wound up
paying walk-in rates at a Holiday Inn (which were astronomical, but at least
the room was immaculate and modern). Fortunately, I always book travel with my
American Express card—and _they_ sure know how to handle disputed charges.

------
aianus
You have completely the wrong expectation of how Airbnb works. The hosts are
randoms and Airbnb has no way to deliver a consistent quality experience like
a hotel. Airbnb is like eBay, not Amazon.

You need to realize that when you get the last apartment in a city at
conference-time (almost certainly not a superhost with good reviews), you're
obviously taking a big gamble that it doesn't work out in order to save a few
bucks.

> so we had to shell out 9 nights of walk-in rate hotel fees

So in this worst-case scenario you wound up in the same place as you would
have if Airbnb didn't exist? Cry me a river.

~~~
bachmeier
> So in this worst-case scenario you wound up in the same place as you would
> have if Airbnb didn't exist? Cry me a river.

Worst case scenario for this story is that the driver takes them out of town,
shoots them, and dumps their bodies into a river.

~~~
phaemon
This is Spain we're talking about. It has a homicide rate about one sixth of
the USA. It's a safe western European country.

------
autobahn
Seems like a common theme in "sharing economy" companies - start off with a
great concept and great execution, but once they become popular, some part of
them just falls apart.

For uber, it's the way they treat their drivers. The churn is incredible. But
as long as they continue to offer cheap rides and can lure new drivers in with
empty promises, they'll continue to exist.

~~~
brianwawok
A sharing economy works when you have a lot of like minded people in the same
social circle. Once you invite the masses and investors, you lose what made it
work...

~~~
drzaiusapelord
How can a driver be in the same social circle as a well off professional? At
the end of the day, very few industries are peers between worker and client.

~~~
brianwawok
Yah right... they can't.

Though the first drivers in Chicago were Hipster Musicans, which were fun..
similar culture to yuppie coders. But over time, it has moved to more and more
recent immigrants who do not speak English as a first language.

------
chopete
My ongoing first time experience forced me to create this basic question set.
The realization is airbnb is no different from craigslist. There are no
minimum standards/rules. There are awesome deals out there. Only people with a
good question set end up choosing a better deal and the rest get stuck with
bad deals.

Room 1\. Room size (width x length in ft) 2\. What lighting do you have?. Or
you have only one table lamp? 3\. Is there a table? 4\. Do you provide a
towel? 5\. Send me a picture of bed size and also the measurements. (width x
length in ft) Please don't just say queen or king. I need the width and
length. I have seen hosts mention the sizes incorrectly. 6\. Do your personal
belongins stay in the room?. Any don't touch belongings? 7\. Does the room
have a knob(inside) for privacy? 8\. Is there a fan? 9\. Total house built up
area in square footage? (excluding garage)

Sharing 1\. How many airbnb guests stay there? 2\. How many guests I share the
rest room with? 3\. Is there space in the fridge for me?. How much (approx)?
4\. What is the typical temperature maintained in the house?. Are there guests
with a requirement to keep the room warm despite me sweating?

Cleaning 1\. What is the cleaning schedule for house?. 1\. What is the
cleaning schedule for rest rooms?. 2\. Who do we call if the shared rest room
is soiled?.

Location 1\. Are there any loud sounds/noises from surroundings/roads at
night?

~~~
archagon
I quickly learned while traveling over the winter that my #1 question was: do
you have heating?! Apparently some people get by in 0 degree weather without
it somehow!

------
IanDrake
I'm not trying to blame the victim here, but rule of thumb...never use AirBnB
outside your own country and that goes double for Spain[1].

1) - Go to google, type in "AirBnB Spain", then look at the auto complete.

~~~
robbyking
I'm an American, and I used AirBNB a number of times in Italy this past
spring. I only booked rooms with 4.5/5.0 ratings, and only from hosts who have
hundreds -- or at least dozens -- of positive reviews. My experience could not
have been better.

~~~
archagon
All my Italian hosts were lovely!

------
hoopism
Customer service is a joke. I posted this on HN about a year ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9005200](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9005200)

They turned me from being an advocate for their service to never wanting to
use their service again. I travel frequently with kids, we use alternatives
now.

------
nikanj
This July, I went on a weekend trip to Victoria with my parents who I see two
or three times a year. About an hour before we should have arrived at the
accommodation, our hosts calls me and tells us his son needs the place so he
needs me to log on airbnb and cancel our reservation. He was _very_ persistent
and kept calling me and leaving messages, despite me telling him he needs to
tell airbnb himself. I guess he wanted us to take the heat for cancellation
instead.

I ended up spending most of my day communicating with airbnb, hotels and
motels. Around 8pm I managed to score the last two hotel rooms in the city,
and could finally join the rest of the family.

Airbnb did pay the difference between the hotel and our original reservation,
but I still lost an entire day with my family.

Nowadays I only make airbnb reservations in big cities where coming up with
on-the-spot backup is easy.

------
brianwawok
When I travel I don't have time for dealing with this crap. Hence, I overpay
for hotels. Not foolproof by any means, but the big chains will generally be
pretty legit and have the room you ask when you get there.

~~~
greg_harvey
I guess this is what I learned last week! :-(

------
whiddershins
I must say, anecdotally, I have friends who have had similar, very scary, air
bnb experiences, even in California. I stayed in an Air BNB in Baltimore with
a dog that genuinely tried to bite me. I'm great with dogs, this one was
crazy. And my girlfriend and I had a similar very uncomfortable experience in
Rome, being moved from place to place and having our rooms double-booked ... I
can't remember whether that particular reservation was booked through Air BNB
or not, but the feeling is very unsettling not to mention a time and money
drain.

I think the blog post is spot on, in that the customer and most vulnerable
person in many of these instances should be thought of as the renter. Of
course property damage to the host is a concern, but it can be seriously scary
to be stuck somewhere strange feeling unsafe and with nowhere to go.

Compare to Uber. With Uber, if a driver gets many negative ratings, they are
booted. Yet there are still many many drivers available here in NYC. I've
talked with drivers, and they expressed a lot of concern about their ratings
and how they are perceived.

Air BNB is failing to create a culture of accountability, and failing to step
in quickly to make things better for people who use their marketplace. If at
all possible, I think they should at least do more to address the edge cases.
Unhappy, scared, customers are not going to use the service.

I love Air BNB, they are not dead to me, but if they don't address this well I
am afraid competition or regulation might.

~~~
cwilkes
_in that the customer and most vulnerable person in many of these instances
should be thought of as the renter._

I tend to think of the people that have to live next to this modern day
flophouse. They didn't buy a space in a hotel, they didn't expect random
people to come in at all times of the day.

------
ermintrude
I had a bad stay with airbnb. I can't be bothered to repost the whole
situation but their customer service was fucking shit.

~~~
mkw5053
Same here. They still owe me $500 (which they claimed in emails) and have
since completely stopped responding to any emails.

------
matthewcanty
Shame there are no negative reviews on his apartment to cement this all
together.

I think I'm right in thinking that both parties must review one another before
it is published. Therefore why would he ever review your negative experience.

~~~
spatten
If you both review, then the reviews show up immediately. If only one of you
reviews, then the review shows up after a waiting period (I think it's ~2
weeks). So presumably the negative review will show up soon.

------
calbear81
As a host themselves, they afforded the other host too much of a courtesy
before reporting a bait and switch to AirBnB and letting them get involved.
Getting the AirBnB team involved is more about leverage as the host doesn't
want to get booted from the platform so they are more likely to not push you
around taking you from apartment to apartment.

Also, what was the reputation and reviews on the host used?

------
wehadfun
Unless you are 21 and looking for an adventure use Hyatt, Hilton, ... when
dealing with foreign countries especially if you don't speak the local
language.

~~~
ghaff
Eh. I'm no particular Airbnb enthusiast--indeed, I've never used it. However,
I have stayed at any of a number of non-chain places around the world from the
large to the tiny and I've rarely had a terrible experience. (And some of my
worst hotel experience were at large chains.)

Especially for business travel, I do like a degree of predictability but that
doesn't mean I feel a desire to restrict my travel to where I can stay in
business hotels.

~~~
mfringel
I think it's more about "governed by local hotel regulations."

~~~
ghaff
That's not what the parent wrote though. He named a couple of large
international chains. (Of course "local hotel regulations" may also not amount
to much in some places I've stayed but that goes with traveling.)

------
Beltiras
I just booked at AirBnB for the third time for an upcoming conference. The two
previous times were a very good experience for me. All three times I'm getting
prices way below alternative lodgings. I do take care to research the places
and make sure to only use well reviewed hosts. I think that rather than make a
dodgy AirBnB booking I'd pay more. I've booked hotel rooms that turned out to
be rather shitty. This is a horror story to be sure. I think AirBnB dropped
the ball but I can see their options narrow since the customer didn't complain
immediately. They should kick the host regardless.

------
ampersandy
The root of these bad host stories seem to be that the guests arrive and don't
immediately contact Airbnb about issues with the rental. Because of this,
Airbnb just denies any liability and puts the blame on the renters instead of
the host.

This seems trivial to solve -- Airbnb should make check-ins a mandatory part
of all stays, and any issues with the accommodations would obviously be
included in this initial check-in. There would be no chance for a host to move
you across Barcelona before realizing you've been totally screwed or before
Airbnb starts denying any and all responsibility for the problem.

~~~
patd
I've had an issue with Airbnb this summer. I contacted them within the first
24 hours (as it's the rule to get a refund) and contacted the host exclusively
through Airbnb so there would be a trace.

They told me that I should have left more chance to the host to fix the issue
(I left the place after 20 hours and tried to get ahold of the host multiple
times). They never fully refunded me even after countless mails and calls
where I quoted their own terms and conditions to prove that they needed to
refund me. In the end, the customer service told me that "refund" does not
mean "a total refund" but whatever they're willing to give.

The customer service lady was very nice but it seemed like her hands were tied
and she was not allowed to just fully refund me. I'll never use them in the
future.

------
malyk
Just because this thread is filled with negativity...

My wife and I have stayed in a bunch of airbnb's (Aptos CA, Oregon House CA,
Portland OR, Palo Alto, CA, San Diego CA, Princeville & Kapa'a HI, Seville &
Barcelona (Las Ramblas) Spain, Venice & Florence & Rome Italy, and maybe
another one or two that I'm forgetting) and the experience has been well above
average every single time and every one of them were cheaper than the hotel
alternatives.

No idea what we're doing differently, but we meticulously look through reviews
and make sure we exchange a few messages with each host before we book.

------
bouyoul420
This happens with registered hotels and Expedia too. I had to be in Paris for
a few days a couple of years ago so I chose a nice hotel on Expedia, and not
very expensive as well. However, when I showed up, the hotel had no trace of
the reservation. The manager didn't want to call Expedia because it would not
change anything (no space left, he claimed). Instead, he very nicely called
another hotel to find space for me. I even thanked him... However, the other
hotel was the shittiest hotel I have ever stayed at and would probably not
have survived a listing on the Internet. The manager there was crazy and the
hotel was so bad they couldn't even manage to track which rooms were occupied
by guests. And since it was a walk-in, I paid super high rates. While staying
at that hotel, I heard multiple guests with the same story as me so it was not
an isolated technical problem on the part of the local hotels (seems more than
one hotel was in on it). When I complained to Expedia, it turned out the first
hotel had cancelled the reservation right before I showed up so no foul for
them (despite my never being told about it before showing up at the hotel).
Expedia gave me a voucher in the end but the listing for that hotel stayed on
the site.

~~~
greg_harvey
Yup, Expedia are also terrible. I blacklisted them some years ago when they
had a hotel listed as 100m from the centre of Santiago De Compostela (also in
Spain) when it was actually 10km from the centre! Bit of a difference. I don't
mind a mistake, but Expedia basically tried to deny all responsibility and
blame the hotel. Had a real scrap to get a refund.

------
1024core
AirBnB's customer service is undergoing growing pains.

We rented a place via AirBnB that seemed to have good reviews. Upon checking
in, as soon as the lights were turned off, cockroaches came out and were
crawling over us! So at 3AM I called AirBnB and wanted to get out. They helped
me find another place, but I could not leave a review of the previous place!
No wonder they had such good reviews! It defeats the purpose of a review if
you can't leave really bad ones.

------
Quanticles
It looks like Airbnb is focused on keeping their costs low instead of keeping
their quality up. That's a good short-term strategy........

------
brador
This is the Groupon/Kickstarter/Ebay problem. Everything is awesome until
something goes wrong. Then the user leaves forever, and tells their friends.
Trust is broken.

Eventually the loses mount and the company crumbles from bad press.

Amazon fixes this with 10/10 customer service. The only known solution.

~~~
jprince
I once had a terrible experience with their kindles. They shipped me one that
was a dud, and when the screen went haywire in the first few days I called and
they admitted that this batch had issues. Unfortunately, they told me, I would
have to shell out 100$ for a new one, even though it was their fault.

Even Amazon screws up royally, too. I bought a Nook and never looked back, and
haven't bought a book from Amazon since.

------
cirenehc
I've had some horrible experience with Airbnb in LA. One place has close to
perfect reviews (the lowest scored category is 8/10 in cleanliness), but the
place is dirtier than a gas station's bathroom (smelly sheets, moldy showers,
dirty old floor and squeaky bed). I've never met the host in person and he ran
this thing like a refugee camp; there are about 50 people living in that
(fairly large) complex and no one seemed happy. I went back to hotels/hostels
after that experience.

------
vchamakkala
I think there are a handful of hosts that do not care about their guest'
experience and instead are mostly focused on the financial gain of renting out
their place. That being said, I'm an airbnb host who has rented out my 2nd
bedroom in nyc to some of the most amazing individuals I've ever met, and many
of them are some of my best friends now.

It really depends on the host. And I think that 90% are fantastic.

------
unKlever
A sample size of n=1 is an anecdote not data. Totally horrible experience but
seemed to hinge on a particularly bad actor with knowledge of how best to
exploit customers and airbnb. It is pretty shitty, I hope they make it right
because it sounds like you acted in good faith, but this seems like a really
complicated edge case.

I had a similar experience this week with Dashlane (a password mgnt app) where
i installed it and it corrupted >70 passwords locking me out of vital
accounts. This is why my HN UN is green for instance. Customer support was
totally shit for a while but I tweeted them and they responded and actually
read my responses. I ended up losing all the data but they[0] _eventually_
provided some time to look into the issue deeper as well as a free 12 month
account. Should they have helped me better up front, when the data may still
have been recoverable? I think NO, but want to say yes. I had a free account
and didnt had non-traditional settings. So while i would gladly trade the free
account for my credentials back I bear some responsibility. I AM NOT
INDICATING YOU(or the writer) ARE RESPONSIBLE. My point is that some
situations are really shitty and are not indicative of the experience/views of
an organization. If this occurs only very rarely, conpanies can still have a
great business and unfortunately some people will be casualties to
circumstance

[0]xavier, if you are reading this. Thanks for the account credit and making
things right, Cheers!

~~~
greg_harvey
Right, but an organisation is only as good as its response when something goes
wrong, no? And Airbnb's response was... well...

------
iamleppert
Serves you right for owning a Drupal IT Consultancy.

------
damian2000
My opinion is that when you're using something like AirBnB, you can't expect
hotel level service when things go wrong... instead of making last minute
decisions, research the place a bit - look through the comments, start up a
thread of conversation with the host to make sure they can communicate in your
language...

------
MaxScheiber
First, sorry to hear about your experience.

I wonder if you would have any luck escalating this to Chesky, Gebbia, et al.
The Airbnb founding team really seems to take pg's advice on start-ups
seriously. I'm sure that they're huge proponents of delighting their users,
which your experience obviously isn't an example of.

~~~
s73v3r
Doesn't sound like it, otherwise they'd prioritize customer service, and we
wouldn't be heading as many of these stories.

------
jbverschoor
Had a very bad experience with airbb support too.. Appartment was digusting
and not as advertised. airbnb refused to help. 1500 euro gone, as we moved to
something else.

I've had a bit too many bad experiences with the offerings of hosts and
service of airbnb.

I hope this unicorn will die, and will be replaced by something proper

------
pbreit
Sounds like a horrific experience but unfortunately, it's hard to assign much
credibility to the OP. Sounds very difficult to deal with. Like, no, a random
photo from a balcony in no way proves that you weren't staying somewhere else.

~~~
josefresco
That fact that they were even asked to provide "proof" is insane on so many
levels.

~~~
pbreit
Yeah, it's comically insane that a company like that would not bend over
backwards to appease its customers. First, make sure travelers have a place to
stay. Second, treat all parties as innocent (unless it's chronic). Third, try
to sort out what happened in an empathetic manner.

------
debacle
We had good luck with Airbnb in the past, but only because of good (great)
hosts. I have a feeling therein lies the rub - Airbnb's business model assumes
a good host and a good guest, and when that falls short everything falls
apart.

------
dmitrygr
One word: chargeback

Let AirBnB explain their idiotic policies to Amex/Visa/MC

------
renderfox
Not sure a bad Yelp review is really HN worthy...

------
LePetitDev
On a related note, Drupal is dead to me.

------
mschuster91
This, my friends, is why regulation does make sense. Unregulated markets end
up fucking people over.

~~~
josefresco
No too much! just enough.

------
suyash
Airbnb has the worst customer service, no one to respond emails etc.

------
pavornyoh
What a story. A bit scary especially in a foreign country.

------
spikels
This is an attempt to get a refund from AirBnB, right?

Has HN become a back channel customer service platform for YC companies?

Unfortunately since it seems to work so well. I expect we will see more of
this.

~~~
greg_harvey
Nope, it isn't. I didn't post it on HN. I didn't even have a HN account until
I decided to reply to a few comments (including this one). This is simply
someone so annoyed and frustrated with Airbnb's apparent indifference to bad
hosts they decided to blog it and tweet the blog post. Everything else was
beyond my control. And actually, the money is a side point. It was company
account, meh, who cares? The REAL point is there's someone gaming Airbnb, they
know this, but they're not removing this person from their listings. That's
what really pees me off.

------
randyrand
He instant booked without reading the reviews? Reviews are so important on
transactions like these. Basic interneting rules.

~~~
greg_harvey
Nope. "He" (me) read the reviews. They were OK. I can only assume the user has
only recently started using (gaming?) the Instant Book feature, because we're
the apparently the first to report a "bait and switch", but I doubt we'll be
the last.

------
warfangle
Hotel regulations are awful!

------
notlisted
Hmmm. I won't repeat my qualms with AirBnB. I'm afraid that this comment will
get downvoted/banned in a bit, and like any negative post/discussion about
AirBnB, the discussion will mysteriously disappear from the front page…

~~~
icebraining
Do you have any links to those previous discussions?

~~~
notlisted
I don't want to tick anyone off here, I enjoy HN, and have for a long time
(over 6 years). Perhaps I don't understand the ranking, but more than once
active discussions just went away, with low-vote/low-interaction topics
replacing them.

I only see articles in my comment history from over a year ago. Search here
isn't great, e.g. I can't find the article where PG himself commented on
something I said.

Here's a few where I participated
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7923849](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7923849)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7939414](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7939414)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8222687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8222687)

In this one I reacted to someone else with the same impression
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9332889](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9332889)
I asked for clarification on the policy, instead I got a downvote.

Since that time, I'm keeping quiet.

~~~
dang
I assume you mean
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7437357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7437357)?

I appreciate that you don't want to "tick anyone off here", and you haven't,
but you have said some things that aren't true. I think I've answered most of
them at [1], but there's at least one other. It isn't true that we single
anti-Airbnb stories out. We don't treat them any other way than comparable
stories about something else.

I think there's a general phenomenon affecting this. Once startups become
hyper-successful, there's a noticeable HN backlash against them. Perhaps this
is because they're no longer the underdog. Airbnb and Uber
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9933165](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9933165))
are clearly in this category, and we've noticed others.

The trouble with such backlashes is that the discussions they lead to are
super repetitive. Even more than the indignation, it's the repetitiveness that
makes them unsuitable for HN.

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10292239](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10292239)

------
RomanPushkin
For me it's the same as hotels, but with less service. I've relocated to SFBA
a year ago, and it was cheaper to rent Extended Stay America rather than
AirBnB with weird rules. We had a kid, and one guy was mentioning "no dogs or
kids" in his AD. That's ridiculous! DOGS OR KIDS! O-k-a-y. Will never never
never use AirBnB again.

~~~
ghaff
Any number of bed & breakfasts and other small properties that aren't Airbnb
are "no kids." And, of course, the majority of hotels are no dogs.

~~~
lotsofcows
I think he's complaining about the manner of writing. It's very reminiscent of
"No dogs, blacks or mexicans".

------
pi-err
TL;DR: friends had a bad experience once with Airbnb, will not use again.

This is not about Airbnb as a business strategy or work place or UX etc.

Speaking of UX, I do find that Airbnb does a pretty good job at managing
expectations and making sure people find their fit (I don't have any figure
though).

~~~
s73v3r
It is entirely about AirBnB's UX. Going to the rental is the largest part of
their UX. If that's a bad experience, why would anyone want to try it again.

