

Anyone else run into this AirBnB problem? - jspiral

I have been freelancing for a while now and it has been going well, so I decided to try a year on the road. I rented out my place, and headed to my first stop: Portland, OR. Great summer weather and the chance to work onsite with a client to smooth things along.<p>My plan was to rely heavily on AirBnB, and the first two bookings went great. Wonderful hosts, nice places just as represented, good price.<p>I make the third booking, and suddenly there are additional identity requirements. Ok, fine. I spend about an hour taking photos of my drivers license, and eventually the uploader accepts one of them. Great.<p>However, now my linkedin and facebook have become de-associated with my account for some reason, and my booking gets canceled.<p>I contact support, and they say I need to make a profile video, as a "workaround" since they are having trouble with linkedin and facebook connections?<p>First, that doesn't make much sense to me.<p>Second, I'm on the road, in a mediocre hotel that I booked at the last minute when my AirBnB reservation got canceled with no expanation. The room has typical ugly decor and bad lighting. I'm tired, not cheerful, and I really don't want to make a video. I'm not that video-genic anyway. My profile is great how it is, i'm 2/2 on hosts accepting me, the stays went great, so why not just leave well enough alone, airbnb?<p>Will this eventually heal by itself? Am I a dancing monkey, to be commanded to make videos for the entertainment of sadistic airBnB support staff? Is there an alternative travel site to use when seeing the world that won't suddenly introduce new profile requirements while i'm mid trip?
======
stephenr
I tried to use airbnb twice to book whole houses (ie no one else there) in
March/April during a 4 week trip back to Australia.

First place, the host accepted (so we were billed) but 20 minutes later she
sent a message to say she had to cancel because someone her husband knew died.
She _never_ cancelled the booking, it took several days of me complaining to
airbnb before they agreed to cancel it themselves, so we could get a refund.

Stupidly I didn't learn my lesson and tried to book another place through
airbnb later in our trip. It was only _after_ they had authorised my card for
$1100 for the stay that I got a message to say "you need to provide more
information" - I don't have a LinkedIn or Facebook account, so my only options
left were to upload a photo of my drivers licence add then they wanted to
verify me by my card, so they charged < $1 and said I needed to tell them how
much they charged (from my transaction history). They gave me 11 hours to do
this - my banks visa transactions are about 2-3 days delayed.

When I emailed them about this, they suggested I create a video.

I never did stay at any of their places. One of their phone support staff
tried to tell my refund was taking so long because "Austrlaian banks can't
believe we want to give your money back".

I will never (attempt to) use airbnb again. The fucking around is simply not
worth it.

Both times when airbnb let us down, we stayed in a short term rental,
organised directly with the owner over the phone, both times at late notice
because of airbnb.

The second time we stayed, he left a bottle of wine for us. It's not a huge
thing, and neither of us are big wine drinkers but it was enough to cement
that place as somewhere we will go back to whenever we are in Melbourne.

~~~
jspiral
thanks for sharing, the 11 hour countdown with no hope of fixing it seems to
be a standard move. Perhaps getting us to make videos is the real purpose of
this fiendish system?

~~~
stephenr
and yet somehow the actual result is for customers to look elsewhere.

------
brudgers
We had one of these in our neighborhood. It was a pain in the ass to get rid
of, but we did. People paying several hundred dollars a night felt entitled to
act as if they were staying in a hotel. They behaved as if we were staff and
our streets a motel parking lot.

There are two sides to these transactions. The vast majority are violations of
local laws and everyone knows it. The AirBnB model allows one jackass to force
jackasses and worse upon those living nearby.

I have no sympathy for anyone who struggles using their service. Stay in a
hotel. They are designed for that. My neighborhood isn't a place for you to
throw your party or sit on the hood of your car drinking at midnight or send
your brats outside to play throw rocks at cars so you can get some Sunday
morning booty on the sly.

------
boeroboy
I'm done with airbnb too. I applied for a place at its earliest opening - 2
months in the future. I saw the cancel policy was GREEN (full refund) up to
one day before checkin. After some messaging with the owner (who was gracious
and helpful) I had to cancel. This was about a half hour after my reservation
was accepted. Then I found out my card had been charged $2200 for the month
and they would refund all but their "processing charge" which was about $200.

So for 2 clicks during a half hour, and a cancellation 2 months in advance,
airbnb took $200. Then they offered to refund me $40 of their $200 to make
peace. No, airbnb. That's not how you keep customers. I'm done.

------
latchkey
I recently tried to book a place for my upcoming trip to Manhattan in June
using AirBnB. I've connected my FB account, had friends give me referrals,
have money in my bank account, etc. After a ton of research into places to
stay (mind you, in the $200-$350/night range!), I contacted about 10-12
places. I got _zero_ response. As far as I'm concerned, AirBnB is an utter
failure. I'd rather pay more for a hotel where I can rest assured that I've
got a place than risk my vacation on some third party that is flakey.

~~~
jspiral
Interesting, I'm guessing the Manhattan market functions differently than PDX.
My limited experience is that using the "% responded" and "time to responded"
metrics they give for hosts, you can get a feeling for which listings are dead
vs. active.

~~~
latchkey
During my 'ton of research', I choose all places that had people with good to
great response metrics. It also feels like there are at least a few scams or
spammers on the site too. You'd think that AirBnB would work harder to
identify and remove those listings in their major markets.

------
artas_bartas
I have been using AirBnB very actively during the last couple of years, mostly
in the Northern Europe and South East Asia, and my experience was nothing but
wonderful.

However, as some people in this thread have already pointed out, you need to
stick to certain rules of a thumb: a) always check response rate and average
response time to weed out any sloppy profiles; b) BEFORE you place a
reservation, write a host introducing yourself and telling a bit about the
purpose of your visit; c) after the host OKs you (or makes a special offer
through the system), go ahead an make the booking.

Of course, the optimal time to book is 1-2 weeks before you arrive, do it
earlier and hosts' plans might change, do it later and they might simply miss
your message.

------
ianpurton
I found AirBNB to be a pain in the arse. I was trying to book places in
London. Most of the time the places were unavailable but the host hadn't
updated the site. This meant I had to then contact another host and wait.

Turns out hotels were cheaper and less hassle.

------
10dpd
Please try and think of this from the perspective of someone who is letting
you into their home.

Obviously the issues with Facebook/LinkedIn should be resolved, but if these
were down it is absolutely 100% responsible of AirBnB to expect people to
verify their identity through whatever means necessary. If you are not happy
with that, use a hotel.

~~~
jspiral
People are happy to let me into their home so far based on my current profile.
I've complied with every form of verification requested. I'm happy with all of
that.

I don't understand how "make a video" is the solution to some technical
problem with AirBnB that causes the message "Your facebook account is already
being used to verify another account", when in fact it is my primary login
credential to the airBnB service.

------
jf22
This whole post seems pithy and extremely subjective by a cranky and unhappy
person. Whats with the dancing monkey comment? It really took you an hour to
take a single picture of your drivers license?

The person who's home you are staying in wants to know it safe to have you
there. Big deal?

~~~
jspiral
I tried to make it clear in my original post that I took many pictures of my
drivers license, but the submission process kept failing with non-informative
error messages. I suspect part of it is that Colorado drivers licenses have
some visual features that are intended to make them not photograph well, to
prevent duplication.

I think my account now showing up as having no facebook or linkedin is a red
flag and wish that could be addressed, but airbnb support was not willing to
help with that.

I don't see how me making a video is a substitute for fixing a technical
problem that has broken the connection between my airbnb account and my
linkedin and facebook accounts.

