I stopped using Airbnb after being scammed by it two times in a row. Both times the property rented was unliveable and completely different than the description. They said they couldn't do anything about it. I asked if I can at least review it so others don't fall into the trap. They said sure.
A few days after my review went online they removed it because "checkout didn't take place". It did take place and I am out several hundred Euros. I guess they wanted me to spend the night with the scammer in unliveable place.
The whole experience was refusal of cooperation by Airbnb and protecting the scammer. I think it's very likely they are on the scam themselves. Afterall the only person who is out of money is me and I am not even allowed to warn others (being left late in the day to find emergency accomodation in the high booking season is another small problem I had to deal with).
The whole process is designed to make it as difficult as possible to win a case vs dishonest host or even leave a review (ridiculous design like max 1000 words of review, no ability to go back if you make a typo and click next, several minutes of chatting with bots before you can get disinterested human the line etc.)
If you don't want to get scammed with no recourse don't use Airbnb. The reviews you see are heavily filtered to make hosts look better. Hotels are better and cheaper. Private apartments are way better via Booking as they take customer's side regularly (which is why many Airbnb hosts find Booking hard to work with).
A few days after my review went online they removed it because "checkout didn't take place". It did take place and I am out several hundred Euros. I guess they wanted me to spend the night with the scammer in unliveable place.
The whole experience was refusal of cooperation by Airbnb and protecting the scammer. I think it's very likely they are on the scam themselves. Afterall the only person who is out of money is me and I am not even allowed to warn others (being left late in the day to find emergency accomodation in the high booking season is another small problem I had to deal with).
The whole process is designed to make it as difficult as possible to win a case vs dishonest host or even leave a review (ridiculous design like max 1000 words of review, no ability to go back if you make a typo and click next, several minutes of chatting with bots before you can get disinterested human the line etc.)
If you don't want to get scammed with no recourse don't use Airbnb. The reviews you see are heavily filtered to make hosts look better. Hotels are better and cheaper. Private apartments are way better via Booking as they take customer's side regularly (which is why many Airbnb hosts find Booking hard to work with).