Whether it be a short-term rental or vacation rental, many people are using Airbnb to book their next stay.
[Ads /]
Raleigh resident Justin Miller has booked through Airbnb several times and said he's never had a problem, until his most recent stay.
His girlfriend booked two rentals next to each other in Nashville, Tennessee, to celebrate his birthday.
"The reason we chose this home, in the beginning, is because it had great reviews, great location, great set up," Miller said.
Stay on top of breaking news stories with the ABC11 News App
However, when Miller, his girlfriend, and heir friends arrived at the rental, they couldn't believe what they saw.
"It was really nasty," Miller said. "Bathrooms, toilets filled with fecal matter, condoms thrown in the home, food and drinks everywhere, sheets everywhere ..."
Miller said it looked as if the past renters had a bachelor or bachelorette party.
The group called the hosts of the two rentals right away.
[Ads /]
"The host said the cleaning people showed up and it was so dirty that they had to go get more cleaning equipment, and when they left, they got in an accident and are now in the hospital, and no one else can clean it."
Miller said they had to scramble to find another place to rent through Airbnb while in Nashville.
He said they found a new rental on their own, but it was in a completely different location than their original rental, plus it cost more money.
"Airbnb claimed they were making the situation right, but at the end of the day, they refunded the first unit and (we) had to pay for the second unit in its entirety which turned out to be 30 percent more for the two nights versus the first unit," Miller explained.
It's a difference of $800.00, plus Miller said they spent a lot of money on transportation costs since the new rental was not walkable to the locations with the original rental.
Miller said they tried to make the best of the situation while in Nashville, but it made for a frustrating birthday celebration.
"We just spent thousands of dollars on a stay that was everything we didn't want," he said. "We had to go through this nightmare of hours and hours spent dealing with this situation, and it's a short trip anyway and now its cut even shorter because of all the chaos and headaches we were dealing with."
[Ads /]
Upset, Miller got in touch with us, and we reached out to Airbnb.
A representative issued this statement:
More than 2 million people a night stay in homes listed on Airbnb and negative experiences are extremely rare. If anything goes wrong, Airbnb's global Customer Service and Trust and Safety teams are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week in 11 different languages to help make things right with rebooking assistance, as well as refunds, reimbursements, and insurance programs. If, for instance, you arrive at a listing and it's not clean or not as advertised, all you need to do is reach out to our team as we are here to help. In this case, we supported our guests with a full refund of their reservation and a travel coupon for future use on the site. We strive to ensure every host and guest has a great experience on Airbnb, and our team works hard to make it right when things don't go as planned.
After our involvement, Airbnb issued a full refund on both rentals plus a travel coupon for future use.
Miller told ABC11 the company also sent his girlfriend a generous gift card to a local restaurant and sent him a handwritten apology note along with a basket that included several goods and a spa gift card.
While the Raleigh resident said he appreciates all of Airbnb's efforts, he said all they had to do from the beginning was make it right.