![]() “It would be hard to find a hotel without a smoke detector or a carbon monoxide detector.” But at an Airbnb, Fergusson points out that listings can have missing amenities. “For example, reputable hotel chains are not likely to be scamming people en masse or routinely canceling a reservation a few hours before the guest arrives,” says Fergusson. It’s important for users to understand renting an Airbnb is not the same as booking a hotel.”įergusson points out that hotels are highly regulated whereas short-term rentals have little oversight in most cities around the world. “Their customer service will often go silent or cite some obscure, confusingly worded terms of service when guests rightfully request refunds for services not rendered. “Countless Airbnb guest complaints we reviewed on Twitter suggested that the company is very good at circumventing responsibility,” says Fergusson. ![]() ![]() In publishing the report, Fergusson says he felt it was important that Airbnb users know what they’re getting themselves into when using the platform. “That experience opened our eyes to the many flaws and loopholes on the Airbnb platform.” “We had nowhere to stay and Airbnb support tried to ‘help us’ by suggesting a new place hosted by the same scammer who had just taken advantage of us,” says Fergusson. Fergusson says he was inspired to do the study after his family’s own bad Airbnb experience in 2017 when they experienced two back-to-back nightmares that left them stranded on the streets of Paris with their 10-month-old baby.
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