Along with Airbnb’s very weak response
I like this,
From the beginning, I wondered about scammers. I assumed Airbnb will back consumers and eat the loss if they have to. That’s the only way to stay in business. They are making a big mistake for not refunding the full amount.
They really need to address this issue better. I just stayed in an Airbnb in Chicago, and now feel lucky to have it go well. I think they support their hosts, but maybe less the paying customers.
Wow—I’ve never stayed at an AirBnB and now may never do so. Yuck! Very disturbing!
Both my wife and I have used them a large number of times, and my experiences have always been good. On the other hand, I would have been suspicious if that nice a place had been available in Chicago for $149 a night. I also avoid places which don’t have a decent number of reviews, and the vast majority are positive.
It’s also important what the negative ones look like. Often it’s things that are ridiculous, like expecting things that are not advertised, or expecting thing like “easy access to the beach” from an LA place which is advertised as being a mile from the beach. On the other hand, if it’s last minute cancellations and being offered a cheap one instead, I’d turn it down.
A complaint about a bait-and-switch would keep me from taking an Airbnb place. Also if the photos look too good, I will avoid it. People live there, and small bits of damage occur, or the stuff isn’t entirely arranged well, the furniture is used, etc. Perfectly stages photos for an Airbnb are always suspicious. I’ll now add “having another, much cheaper property”, to my list of red flags.
There were a lot of red flags for the author of that piece.
This indicates a serious problem. We have stayed at AirBnBs a few times (more than 3 years ago) and had great experiences. Very nice basement apartment in Georgetown (Washington D.C) that let us have our dog, and a beautiful apartment in Russian Hill (San Francisco) occupied by a single woman (out of town at that time) who kept it incredibly clean.
You can now book apartments on booking.com which is a bit friendlier to customers I think, at least easier to cancel and generally more reviews.
We are staying at our first one in a few weeks. H was very against it, and he is going to kill me if it doesn’t work out. Thanks to this thread I have at least verified via their county assessor’s site that it’s a real house and has an owner that is not a corporation/LLC etc. Also checked the crime map in the immediate and adjoining neighborhoods. Time will tell!
Yikes. This is scary. I immediately went to look up the place we are staying over the winter holidays, and fortunately (DIL set it up, but on my cr card at my request, to run up $$ towards travel on that card) the reservation is through one of the ski lodging companies, though I think we found it on airBNB. Thats a bit odd…
One drawback is that there is no hotel staff around to handle problems, major or minor. We rented a house in Colorado that was 2-3 miles off the main road, with many turns to get to it. Then we found out that the wifi was out and no one could come fix it until after we would have left. There was no house phone. Everything in the house directed you to call or email the owner if you had a question or problem but without wifi, service was nonexistent. I wondered if we would even be able to find out way back to the main road!
H sat on the floor and figured out what was wrong with the wifi, thank goodness! I sent the owners a list of suggestions and told them they should get a house phone, just in case. I never left a review and now I always take screenshots of essential information, including turn by turn directions for maps, because you can always pull photos up on your phone, even when you have no service.
That’s a terrible experience someone had. And a scam it appears. But it’s one incident? Have you never had a terrible hotel experience? A Hotwire or Priceline experience that was less than perfect?
We have used Airbnb. MANY friends use it. Our kids use it. You have to do your research! Read and read THOROUGHLY. ALL the reviews. Communicate with the potential rental owner a couple times before booking - ask questions - do you get a complete, detailed response quickly? Look for “superhosts”. Use Google maps if possible to check out the neighborhood.
I have had good experiences with Airbnb. When I search I filter by “Superhosts”. They are the ones that are supposed to be the higher rated hosts with a good track record.
I also have only had great experiences but only use superhosts. In fact, all my experiences have been in homes shared with the owner rather than in a larger property. I have a real problem with the way large AIrbnb managers are taking up housing stock, driving up prices for regular people trying to find an affordable place to live. I know a guy who owns 800 units in four different cities. Whole apartment complexes are being used for short-term rentals.
These owners seem to blackball any negative reports so people are scared to leave them. Just like Ebay, everything is supposed to be ‘perfect’ ‘shipped fast’ ‘more than I expected.’ I guess you have to be willing to pay for the ‘superhost’ designation.
In Denver, you can only rent out a room if you live in the house, so no renting out a former residence. You can rent out your whole house, but it has to be your main residence. The guy next door rents out the walk out basement (very residential neighborhood) and I’ve seen it, it’s nice. I don’t know if he puts on the website that he has a doberman that barks ALL THE TIME.
There is a reason our town now requires all short term rental operators have a property manager registered with the town and living within 15 miles. The house we bought was an Airbnb. One did not need to do a full blown inspection to see that there were serious problems with the place. Rat crap in the attic took the cake. And this was a “luxury” rental. Neighbors told me that the parties that happened here were “epic.” Granted, hotels can also have pest infestations, but not to THAT degree. Rat crap is long gone. Place is fixed up. No, we are not renting this place out. 
To me, the biggest problem here is how Airbnb handles complaints. Sure they need to show earnings to be able to hit NASDAQ with great fanfare, but that lack of customer service and attention will come back and bite them in the butt.
I thought reviews on Airbnb (and VRBO which I tend to use more) were double blind? You don’t see the other party’s review until you do your own.
I agree with others about carefully checking reviews, read between the lines. Reviews do tend to veer in the direction of too rosy. I’ve done vacation rentals for decades, long before Airbnb existed. For the most part, they’ve been stellar. We’ve had just a couple less than ideal experiences and unfortunately, 2 of them have been more recent. I think everyone and their uncle is jumping into the game. We had a rental 2 summers ago which was just okay, had some issues, and I left a 3 star review explaining pros and cons, stuff not as advertised. The husband of the owner got a real attitude when we contacted them upon arrival about some issues. I would have given them 4 out of 5 stars but bumped them down to 3 because this guy was just rude. When people leave overly positive reviews, it’s just not helpful to others looking at them. It’s like grade inflation. 
If you ever have a bad experience like what is described here or things not being as represented, contact Airbnb right away. Don’t wait. I have family members who are Super Hosts (agree with others to consider looking for those rentals). They had a bad experience when they showed up for a booking in New Zealand. Knowing the ins and outs, they contacted Airbnb and Airbnb took care of them, helping them find other accommodations and applying a refund. Don’t try to work these things out on your own. You’re paying service fees. Get your money’s worth.
Short term rentals are a cancer to the real estate market and are pricing people out of home ownership. I have no sympathy for people who continue to use them and have experiences like this. “Renter beware.”
And yet most of them stick with Airbnb? Why should the company respond otherwise? It’s acceptable to the scanned. A drop in bookings along with scathing letters, articles and complaints would stop this in its tracks. It’s not inconvenient enough to those scammed.
Getting less than adequate lodgings is nothing new. We used to rent through a realty company for beach vacations each year. Sometimes the places were not up to our standard despite descriptions stating otherwise. We ended up looking at places while at the beach for the next year’s rentals after a particularly bad mismatch. So this is not new.
Not complaining about the places d giving low ratings is what let’s these scammers thrive . Pictures of the actual or links to them should be permitted on feedback. I came upon some scammers on EBay who could thrive longer before switching accounts simply because people did not report their experiences. The mechanism was there to catch them, but scammed had to speak up. Today, it’s become easier than ever to affect a business with all of the forums and social media to make a loud noise.
I have friends that only do Airbnb and swear by it. I keep telling DH that we need to do it at least half the time in Europe to hold down costs. He doesn’t want to do it, and now I think I’m in agreement.
Thanks for the link.
I don’t travel much, but when I do, I look for an AirBnB.
Mostly, it’s been vacation homes/cabins in the boonies.
We have had great experiences. (Knock on wood.)
I understand the affordable housing argument and the hate towards short term rentals.
There is a down side to it, for sure.
On the other hand, I can think of two older women I know who are able to stay in their homes by renting out a room on AirBnB.