>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.
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.