Airbnb

Have you had a disappointing experience with Airbnb that has cost you a lot of money?  I had a negative experience recently that I thought might be helpful to share.

I booked an 11 night stay in an apartment in Chicago and paid in full upfront.  Airbnb hold onto your money from the time of booking, until you check in at the apartment, after which they transfer the money to the host.

I kept checking back on the apartment I booked and reading reviews, which, much to my disappointment, kept getting worse.

The negative reviews for my host ranged from difficulty communicating with him, to the cable for the WIFI and television being cut because of an unpaid bill, to the actual address he gave for the apartment being wrong (it was actually an address around the corner) to people arriving and the host being completely uncontactable such that Airbnb had to put people up in hotels overnight until they could contact the host.

Given that I would be travelling with my mother who is in her mid-60s and we would have travelled 24 hours to get to Chicago, I was unhappy with the reviews, and wrote to the host seeking some comfort from him in terms of the actual address, the WIFI connectivity and arrangements for meeting up with him.

After over a week passed and I had no response, I cancelled the booking.  In the process, I lost 50% of the fee, given he had a 50% cancellation fee policy in place.

I wrote an email to Airbnb the same day, complaining and asking for their assistance.  That email went unanswered and later Airbnb said they never received it, despite Airbnb repeatedly communicating with me from that same email address later.

I rang and had a long conversation with a guy in the US, who repeatedly told me that there was nothing Airbnb could do, and that it was up to me to resolve it with the host.  The guy I spoke to at Airbnb had a problem understanding the concept that I could not resolve it with the host because he was uncommunicative.

At Airbnb’s insistence, I used their dispute resolution procedure, which led to no response from the host.  At the end of the dispute resolution process, Airbnb said there was nothing they could do because I had cancelled and forfeited the 50% and unless the host agreed to refund me, there was nothing they could do.  I ended communications with Airbnb in the US because I was getting nowhere.

Instead I did an ASIC search for Airbnb’s registered address in Australia and sent a letter of demand claiming breach of contract, misleading and deceptive conduct and false advertising.  I said that at all times Airbnb acted as the host’s agent.  They advertised his premises, made representations in relation to the premises, collected money from me, held it on his behalf, and presumably transferred the money to him upon cancellation, despite my concerns about the reviews on Airbnb’s website which I had communicated to them (or so I thought).

I said that Airbnb cannot avoid responsibility by telling me to keep trying to communicate with a host who is not communicating with me or Airbnb.

Legally I was unable to pursue the host because I did not know his full legal name, address, email address or telephone number.  The telephone number for him belonged to someone completely different in a different state (thanks Google).  The email address I had for him was an address via Airbnb.

I received no response to the letter of demand, so I rang the US number again and said if they did not respond to my letter that I was going to issue proceedings that day.  They said they had never received my letter and asked me to email it.  Shortly thereafter, the entire deposit was refunded to my account, including the service fee, usually kept by Airbnb.

Some weeks later the letter of demand and attachments were returned to me in the post, marked “not at this address”.   It seems that Airbnb aren’t known at their registered address in Australia.  ASIC has since been notified of that fact.