Bonnie Taube

Review of Airbnb

I booked a room in Austin for a week. The place ad...

I booked a room in Austin for a week. The place advertised that it was in a quiet apartment community, yet is was less than 100 feet from a six-lane freeway. It was a beautiful space with lovey hosts, but VERY loud. I canceled the reservation 20 minutes after arriving.

The hosts agreed that their ad copy was ambiguous and said that they would update their ad to better reflect the noise. According to the refund policy I would have only gotten a refund of $61, but the hosts agreed that I should get a full refund. They spent several days trying to reach an Airbnb customer service representative and navigating their website to refund my payment. They were eventually successful, and I got a refund for an additional $112.

However, even though I NEVER stayed at the property, Airbnb kept their exorbitant 12% service fees. Can you imagine canceling your hotel reservation with any hotel chain and still being charged the hotel service fees or cancelling your online shopping order and still being charged service or shipping fees?

Well, get used to it if you're going to use Airbnb. The photos, reviews, and property descriptions are rarely accurate, and you must pay in advance for your entire stay. If the property isn't what it says it is, it's your loss. Airbnb doesn't care, they get paid regardless!

Here's how Airbnb responded to my inquiry about refunding the fees because of the noise:

Hello Bonnie,

Warm greetings from Airbnb. I hope this message finds you well and you are having a great day!

My name is Trever a case manager and I will be happy to assist you anyway I can!

I am truly sorry to hear that your going through some ear pain. I can only imagine how that can be. I will be more than happy to help you out!

The only thing that I need to confirm this change is documentation of a Signed doctor s note with name of affected person and restricted travel dates. This will allow me to proceed with the full refund.

Please provide this documentation within 48 hours or the cancellations will retain penalty.

If there are any other questions or concerns you have regarding this please reply directly to this email and we will be happy to work together to come up with a solution!

Thank you for being an amazing part of Airbnb community and have a wonderful day.

Sincerely,

Trever

So let me see if I understand this correctly. I'm a responsible adult Airbnb customer, and you want me to spend more of my time and money to get a doctor s note with a diagnosis for ear pain, including "restricted travel dates," within 48 hours in order to get a refund for service fees for a property that I never used?

Please help me to understand how this makes any sense.

Btw, there's no customer service number on the Airbnb website. You have to Google to find it. Phone wait time is about 15 minutes with regular disconnects. You'll get sporadic responses to emails as well.

Consider paying extra for a hotel or find another property rental site that cares about its customers more than just the fees it collects.