Why didn't the journalist contact Airbnb in the first place? Or after he arrived at the 2nd place and it wasn't the location listed/promised. (yes I can understand being tired, frustrated, etc)
Last minute host cancellation is the one thing they can actually something they help with since it ruins the marketplace for them.
As a host I've had my set of horror storied interacting with Airbnb. Most hosts do try really hard, but every marketplace has scams at some level, and I'm not sure how you could find them all once it's under some value/size.
Of course the scammers are good at "frog in the boiling water" level of scam, so it always seems like it will be easier and "I guess good enough" to just keep going.
But I don't think I would ever try to contact AirBnB "in the moment" (when I'm in a city not my own and need a place to sleep and trying to do whatever I'm in the city to do), since I've been trained to expect that any support from such companies is going to be very inconvenient, take lots of my energy, and take at a minimum hours (if not days) to resolve. Hours I don't have, when i'm trying to enjoy my vacation or whatever.
If AirBnB wants customers to contact the company immediately whenever anything looks fishy, they probably need to educate customers on that (with examples of what sorts of fishy things they'd like you to contact them asap about), as well as providing enough resources to customer support such that doing so actually helps instead of just adding more headache to an already painful situation. But I doubt AirBnB really wants customers to do that.
From the OP for instance:
> If a host asks a guest to stay at a property that’s different from the one they rented, Airbnb advises the guest to request a cancellation if they’re “not okay with the switch.” In both cases, the rules favor a would-be scammer and place the onus on guests who have just parachuted into an unfamiliar locale with their luggage and have nowhere else to stay that night.
I've been lucky (?) as a guest and never had a serious issue.
But friends have, and a phone call fixed the problem in the instance actually fixed the problem.
As a host I've had guests call airbnb and ask for exceptions for my cancelation policy (which is moderate) and have airbnb grant them and cancel booking at the last minute, or after check-in time and do 100% refunds. (or at least I get $0)
So while you might be trained that way, and it's understandable, they publish their number and make it pretty available to guests. Maybe the problem is labeling it an emergency number? (I take emergencies as huge deals so naturally avoid calling emergency numbers)
It's a shitty situation and I don't really want to blame the victim. I just really wanted to point out there's an number you can call for help and if you call it earlier they can help you. In case it helps someone nn the US its: +1-855-424-7262
>Why didn't the journalist contact Airbnb in the first place? Or after he arrived at the 2nd place and it wasn't the location listed/promised. (yes I can understand being tired, frustrated, etc)
She did:
>When I asked about the status of my refund, they ghosted, which led me to contact Airbnb. Though I had been moved to a flophouse and then told to leave early, Airbnb only refunded me $399 of my $1,221.20, and only did so after I badgered a number of case managers over the course of several days. The $399 didn’t even include the service fees Airbnb charged me for the pleasure of being thrown out on the street. But my power was nothing compared to that of a company valued this year at $35 billion, and I figured it was probably the best I could do.
The article details how much of a pain in the ass it is to get a refund from AirBnB:
>But Patterson didn’t care about that. She knew she had been scammed and wasn’t going to stand down until she received every penny back.
>“I’m an attorney, so I love to argue,” she said. “I just didn’t stop calling.”
>She eventually got her full refund, but it indeed came with a harsh review from Becky and Andrew for doing so. “We would NOT host or recommend her to the airbnb community!!” they wrote. Patterson couldn’t help but wonder how people with fewer resources and no place to crash would have fared in the same situation.
Sorry maybe I wasn't clear. Why didn't she contact airbnb immediately when the host suggested an alternate place that cost more. This is a big red flag, and a simple phone call probably would probably short circuited the article.
And yes this has happened to friends, showed up a place that wasn't as described/ready/etc. Called and complained and ended up having airbnb book them a hotel.
I've never read "I contacted AirBnb and they solved my problems!". It's always they dick you around and offer you very little of your money back to make you go away, happy that you got anything.
Last minute host cancellation is the one thing they can actually something they help with since it ruins the marketplace for them.
As a host I've had my set of horror storied interacting with Airbnb. Most hosts do try really hard, but every marketplace has scams at some level, and I'm not sure how you could find them all once it's under some value/size.