Airbnb said that there was nothing that they could do.
An Airbnb customer in Washington DC, United States, was shocked after they found out their belongings, including their passport, had been thrown on the streets by their host after they confused the check-out date, as per a report in The Guardian. The guest, identified as PM, stated that the owner asked them to leave since "someone else had booked that night". The bags and documents were dumped on the street in grocery bags so that the room could be cleaned for the next guest.
However, it was midnight and her booking confirmation showed that the check-out date was 11 am the next morning. "Eerily, the apartment had been cleaned. The host arrived and told me I had to leave since someone else had booked that night. By then it was midnight. I showed my booking confirmation stating checkout was 11 am the following morning, and she looked sheepish."
However, PM stated they were allowed to return and stay the night but the owner refused any compensation. "No guest materialised, since the host had clearly muddled her dates, and I was allowed to stay the night," they told the outlet. The customer complained that Airbnb was unresponsive and did not help till 3 am. The company kept telling them that there was nothing that they could do.
"I tried to contact Airbnb and discovered that, in an emergency, you are given just three options: phone the police, contact your host, or ask your host for a partial refund. There is no phone number to call - instead, you can only request a callback. It didn't call me until 3 am (when, mercifully, I had made it to bed). It had been told by the host I had "refused" to check out. I had to remind Airbnb of my booking dates," PM said.
Jake Shuter-Ross, Airbnb spokesperson, told Insider that issues were "rare." In a statement, he said, "Our original handling of this case did not meet our high standards, and we have issued a refund and additional compensation to the guest to help make amends. By which it means you received half the cost of the stay on to your card, and half as a credit against a future booking While we believe this was a genuine misunderstanding, we have warned the Host about their management of the situation.".
He went on to say that the host was a "Superhost" who had never received complaints "of this kind." Without providing any details, he stated that the company had been in touch with the guest "to help make things right".