Airbnb is like the Netflix of holiday rentals: it doesn't care about its customer base anymore, and yet charges them evermore. I hope this will lead to its downfall, even if it has had a huge boost during Covid.
Scams are widespread on the website, despite demanding that you provide a picture and proof of identification. Here's an article I found describing just one scamming ring, where they've exploited Airbnb's lack of controls and anti-customer policies. God, I love Vice and investigative journalism.
For those who don't know, Airbnb operates a bit like a social media company: despite YOU paying THEM money, the host can rate YOU as well. It's ridiculous. It's been demonstrably proven that guests leave too nice reviews (we're psychologically less likely to leave a bad review of someone's house than a company). However, this is not the case in reverse: in my own experience and research, the host often writes a scathing review of the guest over nothing. What makes it worse? The bad review is often because the guest 'didn't do enough cleaning'… But we get charged a cleaning fee!
Why is this on antiwork? I fear this is the future of capitalism, and because LateStageCapitalism won't let me post there lol. The gig/sharing economy. The service provider being able to f*** you over five times over: buying up housing, charging you money to stay in it, making you take on the risk of being badly reviewed over anything, charging you for a service that you provide (cleaning), you taking on the safety risk, AND then lobbying against your local government to maintain status quo.
It's like traditional landlording (where you pay money to have house rules imposed on you), only they can review you as well! Imagine that. Imagine if you were denied housing because your last landlord hated you and wrote a bad review. Imagine if you were denied utilities because one company said you were 'troublesome'. A dystopian nightmare.
It's the libertarian dream.
My own experience of Airbnb: we've used it about 8 times. The first time we met with the woman to get the key. She stayed there for 3 hours after she said she'd leave. She was growing weird pickled things in jars. We left it as we found it, but she tried to write a scathing email to my mother (lol) that was ridiculously paternal (maternal, whatever), as if I was a naughty child. Essentially, she tried to say that I ruined her oven with 'bacon grease'. At the time, I had an eating disorder and would fast for months on end. I didn't cook or even eat while I was staying there.
For most of the other stays, we had a lock box to get in. We haven't had much trouble. We had one house that smelled of mould, but I was too polite to leave a bad review. I think that first host saw that I was a teenager, so she thought she could scam Airbnb or insurance out of money. The other hosts never knew my age, so they never got to impose their ageism on me. There have been studies that show people of colour face huge prejudice on Airbnb too.
…. And that leads me up until last Autumn: we stayed somewhere where they had not arranged cleaning. It was rated 4.4, so I foolishly didn't check the reviews. (It's obviously not made well-known that the reviews are generous). We turned up to rotting food in the fridge, and yet we had to pay a cleaning fee!! After all that, the host turned around and said that I had left the place in a mess!!! I hadn't even reviewed his place – I forgot to do so and get a refund in the allotted time.
I complained to Airbnb, showing them screenshots of a complaint BEFORE and AFTER we stayed, which had the same complaints. I showed them photos of the condition it was in upon arrival. I pointed out that they were lying about the sea view. And yet.. No refund, no consequences for the landlord, and his 'review' was not removed from my account..
I found out AFTER staying with Airbnb 8 times that, if you stay for even one night, you're incredibly unlikely to get a full refund. You should be made aware of this upfront. But if you leave and book a hotel, you're taking the risk of not getting a refund AND spending money on alternative accommodation. The entire system is set up to benefit the unprofessional leach landlords and the tech behemoth.
Goodbye, Airbnb!! I will never use you again. It's cheaper to use hotels for shorter stays, and cheaper to book by the week for longer stays, rather than per night. The first host I stayed with really messed with my head. I was 18, so I presumed that I had done something wrong. The last stay showed me how f***** up landlords and generation X are.