I don't think the interesting part of this article is that there are bad AirBnB hosts. I'm sure there are. I don't think they are the majority, and I'm basing that on my overwhelmingly positive experiences as a guest. So, that part of the article doesn't ring true to me.
The interesting part is how much of a hellish experience AirBnB support was. If you're staying in an AirBnB, you likely do not have the time to spend waiting for support to get back to you. Their customer service should help the customer immediately, and sort out the details later.
This. A bad AirBNB can affect a customers health and safety. How can they justify taking days to come to a resolution?
In this case I also wonder why the author didn’t take faster action themselves. Immediately move out into a new hotel or rental and sort out a refund later.
Probably the root cause to both inaction is money.
Airbnb doesn’t want to pay for a prompt help desk and for a customer friendly refund
Policy.
The customer doesn’t want to or can’t pay for a market rate hotel.
This makes me far less likely to trust airbnb for long term rentals myself, knowing you can’t trust that listings are authentic and that you can’t count on airbnb to help if you get duped.
Keep in mind that hindsight is 20/20. The author may have been able to pay for an airbnb or a hotel but not both at the same time, which is what they would’ve had to do in this situation.
The interesting part is how much of a hellish experience AirBnB support was. If you're staying in an AirBnB, you likely do not have the time to spend waiting for support to get back to you. Their customer service should help the customer immediately, and sort out the details later.