AirbnbReviews 2,101

Nothing good to add to the list of grievances. I was an Airbnb host in Australia and expected the same level of consideration and service whilst travelling in Europe. I was shocked to find that hosts did not respond to messages, were "too busy" for check-in (after a long overseas flight, the last thing I needed was to be kept hanging around an airport for an hour because my host was running late) and were unable to access guaranteed WIFI access. I was told that it was my computer which was at fault for lack of access, then accused of being "passive aggressive" because I asked for the problem to be fixed! I find that the hosts charge expensive rates and that one could easily find hotels for less cost with the convenience of 24 hour reception and service. Airbnb do not seem to be interested and did not even respond to my emails. I will never again use this website. I am so disappointed in Airbnb.

Beware of the newly instituted "verification" system. It is an absolute nightmare. I've had one relatively pleasant (not exactly as advertised, but the host was very nice) stay with airbnb.

I tried to book another property, but couldn't because I absolutely refuse to send a copy of my personal information (drivers license or passport!) to keep on a "secure" website. As a former prosecutor and someone who has helped prosecute id theft, this is a really bad idea. Oh, and if your Facebook or Linkedin isn't adequate, then you also have to post a video of yourself that they keep on file. How convenient for hackers!

When I finally found a telephone number to call (since the on-line verfication system having to do with answering questions wasn't working) no one really cared or answered my questions. They lied and told me someone would call. In the meantime, they canceled my reservation because I hadn't "verified" in time-- because their system wasn't working!

I can only imagine the nightmare in dealing with people who don't return calls or e-mails if something were to go wrong at a property.

I will be using vrbo.com or Wimdu.com from now on. Thanks for wasting my time, Airbnb.

I recently booked a room in an apartment in Paris with check in at 2 pm. I requested for check in at midday, did not hear from my host for 4 days so decided to cancel and that listing was for strict cancellation, meaning only 50% refund even though the booking is in 5 wks time. I think this is ridiculous. In FAQ, we are supposed to be able to communicate with the host but not so in reality. When the $ is in their hands the moral drops

I have not taken my Paris vacation yet, which we have booked through Airbnb. But I can tell you that they charge the full amount at the time the rental is booked. Also, they charge a relatively large fee on top of that.

I asked Airbnb customer service to redeem the interest charges for the four months that they are holding a couple of thousand dollars of my money, and I got a rude answer back. So, their business practice is very unusual and I won't be using their site anymore.

We tried airbnb twice, once in Manhattan and once in Portland, Oregon. Both were a nightmare, "not as presented" or reviewed. There is no way the rave reviews could have been legitimate, with claims the dirty, unsafe, dark rentals with broken items and unchanged bed linens and dishes were, instead "Immaculate, stylish, with attentive host." The host lived in another state and was unresponsive, even abusive to our concerns. Two days pre-paid in advance were not refunded. Airbnb itself never responded at all.

I booked a place in Rome, so far no trouble with that one (I have yet to stay there). Then I tried to book a place in Paris after contacting the host, confirming the price & available dates. Am now trying to go through Airbnb's impossible verification process. They want me to verify a small charge they placed on my credit card, which is impossible to enter on their site, yet they have charged my credit card TWICE for the full price of place in Paris, which they have now cancelled (they gave me 12 hours to verify, then told me it can take up to 48 hours for the verification charge to show on my card statement, what?!), yet the charges remain. I have gotten at least 3 different "solutions" to the problem, which include video taping myself for their site, which I refuse to do. How does that verify who I am? Argh!

After checking into a studio in SF for 4 nights, during the 1st night i encountered bed mites continuous itching not able to sleep in the studio. Next morning took a hot shower and called host to explain i was uncomfortable and not staying any longer. Host could have cared less, he has his money. Never got support from airbnb, no refund for unstayed nights. Then I posted a review and it got deleted. No support for guests if any issues exist. Never using site again, beware and stay away from this site!

According to our host, Airbnb was all calls, photographer, bugging them, trying to get things set up, available, available, available... But at soon as he had a question or problem, they were unreachable. What's worse, after asking for our info, confirmations and MONEY WEEKS IN ADVANCE, we were in our vacation home (Europe) for 9 days when our host informed us that he still hadn't been paid! Airbnb kept the money & didn't pay it out to him until we emailed, emailed & finally called their emergency number. This company is a SCAM. Stay away for your own sake. Our host was finally paid, but only after much persistence and frustration on all our parts.
This company is untrustworthy.

Avoid the horror. Aside from the outrageous fees, the real problem with this "service" is that they do not use a third party to police complaints. We recently stayed at an establishment who claimed that we caused more than $350 in damage. As a clean professional couple with no history of such activities, we were shocked. Close inspection of the "damages" revealed that the hosts were just trying to give their place a facelift -- free of charge. Airbnb sided with the hosts for reasons that were never explained to us. Forget trying to talk to someone over the phone - they will not do it. Also, forget receiving meaningful emails - everything they send is boilerplate. Extremely high risk to save a few dollars.

This site is an awful joke. It makes you feel like you are part of a safe community of wonderful hosts who rent their beautiful places to you. The reality is as follows: my one and only host in sydney who had about 30 wonderful reviews ended up being a superficially smily at times but in realiy miserable and obnoxious incredibly stingy womAn who kept on annoying me with her comments how to save water and electricity and how not to wash the dryer but hang the clothes to dry outside. As if the $105Aus per night i paid was not enough to cover these costs and the tiny bedroom! She also kept on making hints about previous hosts who were helping themselves with her food and she once made a comment about how terrified she was with the amount of cereals I put in my breakfast bowl. I remind you, I was paying $105 pn for a tiny room. That person had 30 raving reviews which makes me think that airbnb deletes negative reviews. Avoid at all costs, a regular bob or a guesthouse is a much better option

Negative experience as a host.

We rented a Manhattan 2BR place for 6 nights to an SF couple.
While we were away on vacation, at the time of their checking in, we learnt with disbelief that the couple had complained about our place directly to AIRBNB and got full refund on the $1,400 rent.

They complained that there were no towels in the bedroom, we had notified them about this, and that the sheets were dirty, which was just wrong as we could prove with the laundry ticket of the day we left our place...
This is clearly a scammer's behavior. The guests just booked our place as a backup plan and cancelled it last minute.

Cancellation was done behind our back and AIRBNB would not hear anything from us, denying a fair treatment of the parties in the matter.

We rented our place via Craigslist several times before and it always went well, as we fortunately dealt with trustworthy people.

My advice is to avoid AIRBNB as a host. Obviously I will not try it either as a guest.

Airbnb run a site which generates a friendly trusted atmosphere of cheerful host welcoming wholesome guests. It does this while having in place very few concrete safeguards for either host or guest.

Any host thinking of renting their home would, under normal circumstances, take all sorts of precautions. Airbnb encourages a more relaxed attitude and offers some liability cover to ease any doubts.

Any guest booking from some random stranger via email would be very wary of handing over money. On airbnb you can be lulled by the community atmosphere into being less careful.

What airbnb really need to do is tighten up their systems to ensure hosts know what they may be getting into, and to guide guests in way that makes it very difficult for the dodgy hosts and outright scammers to operate.

Since being scammed via a fraudulent listing on the site I've seen numerous reports and reviews from other guests and hosts with similar experiences. There are two common themes:

1. I thought I was safe - the whole airbnb experience encourages this feeling
2. Airbnb customer service don't care - maybe they do if it's a simple wrinkle to iron out but if you have real problems be prepared for overwhelming indifference

Personally I'm avoiding airbnb until I see evidence that they take more serious care how they vet hosts. If I were considering hosting I'd do some serious research on protecting my property and would probably go with a local property management company.

Unless the negative news starts to damage the brand, airbnb will simply continue to operate a site with the aura of a community while providing all the protection of a car boot sale.

As a traveller, I would rather spend what little money I do have on seeing the world and the traveling itself than to spend it on fancy hotels and room service (or spending money on trying to make everything the way it is for me back home, which kinda defeats the purpose). Anyway, so for me airbnb has allowed me to travel places where I otherwise would not be able to go. For me that's not just "kind of good"... it's amazing. But I guess it depends on your priorities.

Recent outage costs $ for Airbnb and hosts. Why does Airbnb use Amazon Cloud as it's only server, what happened, why was there a lack of communication from Airbnb? Do you know Airbnb uses First Call Resolution Call Center for it's customer service? Did you know Airbnb did not tell First Call why it was having issues therefore the agents could not confidently give the customers a time frame or tell customers a good reason for the outage other than there is system maintenance?

I just stayed at 2 airbnb places in France (my first airbnb experiences), and I have to say that the pictures are pretty misleading, not only about the size but about the newness/cleanliness of the places. One place we stayed in was tiny and pretty old (it had cockroaches, the toilet gurgled every 20 minutes and sounded like it was going to explode!, the bathroom smelled of something unidentifiable but definitely gross, and the water heater was over the kitchen sink and leaked constantly into the sink.). But the pictures taken by airbnb photographers made it look like a large and new/clean place. The reviews were numerous and all positive (which makes me feel like airbnb deletes negative reviews because this place was definitely more than disappointing. And then when we went to our second airbnb place in another city (already booked, or else we would not have used them again), many of the same things happened (place much smaller than in pictures, not new or clean like in pictures, many issues like no curtain on window, smelled like mildew, tiny, many things didn't work in the apt.) I would not use airbnb again as my experience is that the pictures and reviews are not accurate, highly misleading. Buyer beware!