Got robbed while travelling and Airbnb support refused to help for hours [Spain]
We were at the beach in a smaller city in Spain. We got locked out of our Airbnb after our stuff was stolen. We had left our phones and valuables in the apartment (to avoid being stolen) but we lost our keys and had no access to our phones or apps. Walked 45 minutes to the National Police station, explained the situation, and then spent HOURS calling Airbnb support from borrowed phones.
The first two agents were at least nice, but both closed the ticket because I “wasn’t responding in the app” despite me repeatedly explaining I did not have access to the app!!! First agent explicitly told me he understood the situation and would call back when he heard from the host.
Third agent was genuinely unbelievable. Asked me to login to the app over and over again, refused to transfer me to a supervisor or another agent. Said there was nothing he could do without logging in to the app. He was incredibly rude and refused to provide a full name or employee number. If you’re in an emergency situation with AirBnB their (presumably contracted and subcontracted) staff are not accountable in any way.
All three agents told me completely different things, none actually helped, but all agreed they were not going to just give me the host’s number, no matter how much I asked.
At this point it had been hours, and the police officers told us they were prepared to break down the door to the apartment because my girlfriend was stuck at the police station in her bikini at night and nobody from Airbnb would actually help us. One of the police officers even tried contacting Spanish Airbnb support herself and eventually gave up and started swearing about how useless they were.
We are about to go with the police to force entry into the apartment, but we decide to try calling one last time. On the FOURTH call, a different Airbnb support worker simply gives me the host’s phone number. I call him. He answers on the FIRST RING. Comes immediately and lets us in. Bless him.
And here’s the best part: the host tells us Airbnb had NEVER contacted him. Not once. The previous agents had all implied they either couldn’t contact him or were trying to. So I suppose they were all either incorrect or lying.
So apparently the simple solution existed the entire time and we just had to roulette-spin support agents until we found one willing or able to do the most obvious thing imaginable. That we had asked for over and over again.
I genuinely do not understand how a company built around travel accommodation has no functioning protocol for what to do if you lose access to your keys and your phone.
Never using this stupid app again. Back to hotels.
Has anybody had any success getting restitution for things like this from AirBnB? If I complain enough? I would love some amount of accountability for forcing my girlfriend to sit half naked wrapped in a blanket in a police station for hours.
EDIT: Couldn’t access my Airbnb account from another device because I needed my phone for 2FA.