Airbnb
Reviews and Complaints

We travelled to tel aviv with our two young children and have been thoroughly disappointed by the whole experience. The apartment we took in tel aviv was nothing like the pictures represented so we found the whole experience utterly misleading. Place was listed as 'designer', fully air conditioned, quiet street etc. Paint was peeling off the walls, wires exposed, unsealed flooring etc. There was no air conditioning in the bedrooms so we all suffered at night. Host offered extra fans but they're useless as they just circulate hot air. Airbnb response - host has dealt with it. We had an infestation of $#*!Roaches and slugs. Host offered to spray with insecticides but with what risk to us and the children? Host said it's safe and will only take a couple of hours but we didn't trust that information. Response from airbnb - host was willing to deal with it. Major construction was going on outside but the host failed to notify us. Response from airbnb - it's not going on inside the building so doesn't count. This was supposed to be a fab 2 week holiday but it has been utterly tainted by our accommodation. Beware - what you see is not necessarily what you are going to get. Will never use again.

Airbnb - a platform for cheaters
I am duped both by airbnb & the host. Airbnb just won't intervene when the host sneakily added a surcharge to my bill by calling it a discount and fees waived in a vague message at payment time. All because airbnb payment system billed me in a different currency (Euros) from the currency quoted ($) by the host thereby obscuring the total amount. Payment was also just a 1 page credit card confirmation without showing breakdowns, warning or any essential information. No breakdown is displayed on their bills or receipts.
When I discovered the discrepancy (1 day after payment) , airbnb insisted that it is my fault as i've paid up and refused to do anything even though all their email threads showed that the host has admitted to me of her false info and that info on listing was not consistent with what was charged. It does not matter to airbnb that the host has violated the critical airbnb's 'transparency' rule.
I'm trapped now (With thousands of $ of cancellation) as airbnb will uphold nothing fair for the guest but will uphold only the strict cancellation policy - in the interest of the host & themselves. Clearly, airbnb has no intention of enforcing their own 6-simple rules - at least not the rule for host's misbehavior or cheating ways. The rules are as good as window-mannequin to deceit first timers like me.
Now, even after my acceding to the host's new price, airbnb still claim they're unable to contact the host to effect the changes. (So much for communication between airbnb & the host). Come 1 day later from now, i'll b forced into the 0% no-refund timeline. I can't help but feel like the stupid fool who has unknowingly & gullibly stepped on a boobie-trap. & nbsp;
Cust service had only robotically cut&paste lines of their policies to bypass the issue that I brought up about the host and their system; and had only suggested the penalty cancellation as the only solution - that I take the rap for the host and airbnb mistake. From this experience, I can only conclude that airbnb had not taken (And would not take) an impartial stand before issues are sorted out. The concept of fairness for airbnb as a mediator has no central role in the mediation process. Airbnb is as good as the gangster on the streets.
I've never had such a harrowing experience with other booking system as airbnb - 2 weeks of constant daily emailing & follow-up, pushing both airbnb & host is exhausting.
U r better off going to other matured booking systems.
I'm writing this so that others do not have to go through my nitemare. A nitemare for a holiday is something u dun wanna have - although i'm still hoping this nitemare will end soon. And i've too much screen dumps to load here. Just need a rest for now, for another day of battle with them.
Be careful, be very careful!

What a pain in the neck! Where to start. First let me say that my experience is that AirBnB takes NO responsibility for their errors. Then there's their claim of 24/7 customer service. It's easier to find president Obama's home number than to navigate through the BS AirBnB puts you through just so you can send them an email. Can't blame them for doing this: the site is complete crap half the time (the other half of the time I'm using different sites now) so they'd probably get tons of complaints and they probably want to avoid that.

The only solution I found was to call their emergency number, where I'm yet to speak with a rep who's fluent in English.

And the glitches with the site. O.M.G.! The pricing for my listing mysteriously lowered itself and of course AirBnB wouldn't take responsibility for that. All they had to do was waive my fee and/or the guests' fee but they couldn't even be apologetic about the situation let alone take responsibility for it. And today a guest who was going to book backed out. I thought it was strange then I saw that the site had put in a special offer to the guest of 5 TIMES my asking price per night!

And their fees. Yeah, you'd think you could get some sort of service because they take in a crapload of fees from guest AND host.

Super disappointed. Hopefully the other sites where I'm registering are less crappy.

My first attempt at trying to reserve a villa for rent last year, resulted in having my credit card charged and then finding out that the host never agreed to my reservation, we finally (after 2 months) worked out the reservation to be placed and the villa was fantastic, along with the owner.

Now, I have 2 mis-reservations on their site. The first is a villa I thought I was inquiring about in Europe, turns out I booked it, and the host accepted it despite my sending an inquiry e-mail. I chalked it up to serendipity and since the hostest spoke another language, I was chagrinned to cancel. I have not yet travelled.

Now I have been WAITING for 2 days to hear back on an inquiry for next weekend at the same villa I booked checking and checking my inbox on airbnb, I saw no confirmation...so I went to their competition (which I highly recommend - vrbo.com, the reservation was easy and completed within an hour)...Today, after completing my booking on vrbo, I check my airbnb.com inbox to verify that I did indeed send an inquiry, there, right above my inquiry, in a little yellow box is a BIG green button that says ACCEPTED.

yeah, you just read the same thing I read...after stupidly sending an apologetic e-mail to the nice host, and a complaint to airbnb., airbnb customer service rep tells me the accepted is from my "PREVIOUS" reservation last year. ...really? thats your site's design?! No apologies, just a statement to why you have a confusing site.

With all the internet business and facebook postings, airbnb needs to put forth a little bit of design sense, yes your site is beautiful, but it also promotes alot of confusion and dissatisfied customers. You can do and you should in the internet age, fix these glitches! GO VRBO!