AirBnb deletes negative reviews. I stayed at an AirBnb and had a disappointing stay, which I put into a review. The AirBnb host contacted me and insulted both my wife and I. Also, our negative review was not present on the listing for this particular room (our stay and review was on my customer site, but not on the host's site). I contacted AirBnb HQ about this and the negative review was put back - for about a week - after which the stay was totally removed from my account. I again contacted HQ about this and was told that since there was no record of my stay, they couldn't do anything about it.

Where's Roger? This is a Roger bit.

Rented a room in a house for two years until the landlord started secretly using three of the bedrooms as AirBnB rooms. Hard to consider somewhere home with random middle aged, unvetted men just coming and going all the time.

AirBnB is death to small scenic towns. The area I live is drowning in AirBnB options but you can't find an actual place to rent for a reasonable rate. The result is a slow strangulation on the local renting populations ability to live in the area... What the fuck?

*_Aye Air BnB is horrid because I have yet to find any drugs in the homes I've been renting... What a waste..._*

Ultimately the problem with Airbnb is the same as the problem with Uber: designed as a way for people to get a little extra scratch by renting out something they're not using anyway (Airbnb=house when they're out of town, Uber=car when they don't have somewhere else to go) hijacked by people turning it into a full time job.

Aaahhh it's like Uber for apartments.

Its all about making money...and in exchange you get a low quality service. Selfishness in people is driving the world towards the end faster than you can imagine.

Seems like Cracked has a problem with everything

Used it once a few weeks ago, it was great. Much better than any other non-bankrupcy-inducing stay. We also had a kickass bondage orgy.

Absolutely agree. I was a host for 4 years beginning in late 2008 and it started great and ended horribly with guests bringing cats that pissed all over my house and cost me $3000 in damages that Airbnb sided with the guest and gave me only $472. I had NUMEROUS damages like this. Then as a Guest i was kicked out of an Airbnb because I have a Service Animal. I've had him for 9 years and the Host didn't want dogs, so Airbnb forced me to go to a hotel which they paid for. But that is essentially allowing discrimination with the hopes that I would not use Airbnb again. Everything about Airbnb has gone down hill since the the first two years. In Brasil we had our Apartment robbed and $8000 in items stolen. Airbnb demanded we get receipts for everything and customs reports that we possessed it. Of course we didn't have that in the middle of a vacation. In the end, after months of fighting we got $1500 from Airbnb because we had $3000 in receipts and they depreciated the values of all of our items. The host is still a host. It was legal robbery. My gf had a guest who came from Ohio to Sunnyvale and immediately found a new boyfriend to stay with so she wanted to cancel her month stay, because he was cheaper or free. She refused because renting the room out that quickly would be hard and would result in a loss of income. So the girl called Airbnb and claimed that her other roommate was a sex offender and they immediately let her leave and gave her all the money. We provided evidence that he was not a sex offender (guilty until proven innocent) and still got nothing from Airbnb. Now they are complicated to manage, they punish you for canceling for any reason at all, they have driven DOWN the prices of your houses and rooms with "SMart Pricing" and in most places in California they are as much as a Hotel. Who is winning here? Airbnb. They take 12% from the Host and 7% from the guest. Wow, 20% just for existing? If you use Airbnb, you get what you deserve. Simple as that.

Rent is too damn high!!!

Still trying to figure out why there is an extra set of Great Lakes in Nevada, Northern Arizona and California's High Desert on the map behind Alex.

Ya, you definitely shouldn't rent out your spare room, because you never know what your tenant will do. However, if you open up a licensed motel, the tenants will be great!

My building has 36 condos and only 7 of us are owners/long term renters. All of the other units have been turned into full time Airbnb apartments. My home turned into a hotel in less than a year. This is what happens without regulations. People abuse the system, and push out people living in spaces that used to have a sense of community.

Hotels were out of touch with their customers. They even raised prices during recessions. People very much want to travel, but the hotel industry didn’t seem to understand or listen to what they did want. Just like the music industry made a poor decision when they introduced CDs but decided to charge about triple the price of the cassette, and that paved the way for Napster, the taxi and hotel industries were very much doing business as usual without even considering that the customer did not want to pay $200 a night but was willing to pay about $100 a night. So, Uber and Airbnb exist because the people have to create a free market where one doesn’t exist.

I remember a time of bouncing around Airbnb rentals for over a year. Almost all of the people we met using Airbnb were using Airbnb and endlessly searching for a home. Many had decided they had to move away.

Kind of like an episode of Breaking Bad. Just rent the house and cook up some meth, maybe film some porn, or deal in stolen guns?... What could go wrong? Right?

This actually changed my opinion. I've always liked AirBnb, because the times I've used it as a guest, I've stayed with some wonderful people and only had good experiences. But you're right - it's got to be enormously bad for housing prices and availability. Good food for thought - thank you!

He sounds like a great person concerned so much for the good of the established business practices. such a caring guy.

THANK YOU for creating this. As a constant traveler, I always avoid Airbnb. Hosts are not trained in hospitality. They never buy nice mattresses no matter how high the price point of their listing. The furniture is always cheap IKEA crap.

I don't get the complaint about Uber wanting to go driverless at the end. Driverless cars are _demonstrably safer_ AND a sound business choice. Or are you going to complain that there isn't any work for horses anymore?

I tried air b n b while traveling in Europe last summer. I have to say I wasn't impressed. Many of the places I stayed in were not as described or even pictured. The prices people charged for even small, studio apartments were as high if not higher than hotels in the surrounding area. Like the poster from Lisbon - it also drove rent prices in my area up really high, now property owners would like to rent to tourists rather than residents. Its a scam. They have no accountability and no safety standards. You have no idea who you're renting to or renting from. Many of the listings are fake and no safety standards are in place. Hotels, which are licensed, bonded, insured and taxed are much more reliable and professional. I like Booking.com, I found much better deals for hotels than air b n b.

If my neighbor rented out his apartment on Air Bnb I would be pissed! It's just plain inconsiderate and rude to effectively invite strangers into a building without supervision, and just party and get up to all kinds of mayhem. That's a safety and quality of life issue, and airbnb is just another manifestation of the selfishness infesting Society

Love how he talks about Sydney while showing an article about Victoria. Nicely done.

So now cracked is Last Week Tonight with not John Oliver.

When pre roll ad is for "How to make money from Airbnb without owning property" Damn😂

I went to an AirBnB room once. The pictures they took intentionally made it so that it looked good, but in reality was in the ghetto part of Statton Island where my friend and I almost got mugged. We rented a hotel in Manhattan after that.

This was pretty great, I hope it becomes a permanent show. Its like John Oliver albeit ore internet focused

Is this the longest video Cracked has ever made??

I also had bad experience with Airbnb. The host was insulting us because we parked like a foot into her drive. She screamed at our door like a crazy maniac when we were sleeping peacefully "WHO? WHO PARKED IN MY DRIVEWAY? IS IT YOU!? WHOOOOOOOO IT IS YOUUUUU!" She was provocative asking if our parents don't teach us any manner and proceed to throw tantrums at us. We left immediately (in fact, we ran immediately) We couldn't believe that she only has hundred of good reviews and not a single negative one. It's not like we don't have money to stay at a hotel. Airbnb sucks and we will never use it again. We're the customer with money, and they're the seller that wants money, not the other way around. I don't get why Airbnb sides with bad hosts. They will eventually lose good customers.

In NYC it's rampant. Preventing people in East Harlem to find housing so the government has become involved. Uber is in trouble here too.

you should rent out your channel to random vid makers for twice what the ads net you.

A huge rant about government not regulating a service that people choose to use while fully knowing the risks? Why does it need to be regulated?

Things are what they are, not what people say they are. Uber is a taxi company, Airbnb is an international hotel company, and they should be subjected to all regulations, taxes and responsibilities.

I wouldn't be surprised if our universe is a shared universe of shows and movies taking place on Earth and possibly other places

So, did I get this right: Airbnb=bad; Couchsurfing=good

I think if hotels are priced correctly, Airbnb wouldn't have become so big. Personally, the part that I don't like about Airbnb is that the host can back out after booking confirmation.

This makes me even happier that I rage quit AirBnB before I even used it. It's a pity that small time people get hurt by this system when people like me refuse to use the app.

Loads of thanks for the up...Cracked:)

I feel like a lot of people are missing the point of this video. The video isn't attacking AirBnB for providing alternatives to hotels, it's attacking them for not caring enough about their facilitation to protect the renters. Regulation CAN be a good thing, especially if it holds people accountable, but the only ones accountable in this situation are the illegal renters or people who rent and don't take care of their property, and AirBnB walks away saying "Oh well, not my fault" despite the fact that they allowed that listing on their site. Moreover, it's not helping the housing shortage if everyone in your neighborhood would rather rent out 20 apartments than put them up for lease. However, they are NOT saying that the people who are renting legally on the site are bad at all.

Without air B&B all my films would be shot in my bedroom. It's great for getting locations when on a low ass budget

My neighbours house is an Airbnb and I hate it so much. They litter, I'm constanly finding their garbage in my yard. The landlords never clean in between renters and they still have the "squeaky clean" badge on that rental property.

“Everything bad that can happen has happened in an airbnb”

Cracked: Surprise! We Are Annoyed At A New Thing! (Next up: 6 Things We Are Annoyed With)

This is the first time I have ever heard of Airbnb, and after reading the title I thought it was some sort of plane uber.

this is my favorite kind of video you guys make because you're not super angry or shitting on people but you're still getting the facts across in an interesting way, which I really appreciate.

AirBnb is a minority in the problem of why housing costs are so high, there are so many things that make housing costs go up

Yeah, not sure how this is the worst thing ever...

17 minutes? Lordy. Is cracked a comedy site or a documentary publisher?

i keep on using airbnb because i can't afford hotels

I will never use Airbnb again after getting into a dispute with a "host" who kept me up most of the night. Although I had rented "the whole place," it was a cobbled together basement in-law and the loud hosts were over my head, running around, shouting, and playing video games into the night. Also, even though she'd been called a "super host," the place was filthy. I messaged the host and asked them to keep it down (how awkward is that?) and they didn't. I then messaged them that I'd be canceling my 2nd and 3rd nights. Her husband stupidly messaged me that they'd refund those nights... but then they strung me out for weeks until it was too late for me to post a negative review and refused to refund me. Airbnb did step in and get me my 2nd and 3rd nights back when they saw the messages and the photos I took. Horrible experience. I have traveled twice since and have booked real hotels where I'll be treated like a guest. I'll never go back to Airbnb.

Who else went to look up AirBnB listings and plan a trip immediately after this video?

I've never heard of this thing, I don't even know if it's in my country, let alone if it's regulated.

Headlines we'd like to read: FOUNDER OF AIRBNB MISSING IN UBER ABDUCTION. AIRBNB CEILING COLAPSES ON FOUNDER OF UBER.

Im all for encouraging the entrepreneur but they really have had a huge part to play in why many of us can't afford to live where we grew up. So they move away from the cities they can't afford to live in or do business in which is gradually eroding the reasons ppl want to go to a city, all the shops aren't in one place anymore and there are far fewer ppl there to create a city atmosphere.

Usually when Cracked does an informative video, they make it funny. This was not one of those cases.

Government is not the only source of accountability. I wonder which hotel chain funded this video...

Super random/unrelated: what the hell is with the weirdo-fictional “larger-than-Great-Lakes” bodies of water over in the western United States portion of the map displayed behind him throughout this video..? Is anyone else bothered by this..? Are those supposed to exaggerated rivers? What the hells going on there?

I lived beneath a condo that was an AirBNB for "tech bros" and it was a MISERABLE existence. The "guests" blocked open security doors to let in their friends, thought the hallways and elevators were a great place to throw trash, and that 3 am was a perfectly reasonable time to throw a loud party. There's a place for that kind of behavior: it's called a "hotel".

I got gradually disappointed with airbnb (although have been using it quite often in more than 10 countries now), and am choosing regular hotels during both my work and vacation trips when it's possible. The reason to that is in most big cities, from London to Moscow, the prices are relatively equal to decent hotel prices. Take London as an example - if you want a decent-size studio flat in central london, we're talking 150-200 gbp per night, even more if you are renting it last moment (that "last moment" is one month ahead). Now, I can book a decent 3-star hotel with that price, which will include service, a reception that works 24/7, maybe free breakfast, and other perks of hotels. Yes, staying in a basement flat in bangkok may be romantic or cool if you are a 20-year-old hipster traveling with your girlfriend on your gap year, but if you're a frequent traveler due to your work, and you don't really have time and nerves to play the "hope-the-owner-is-not-a-total-douche" gamble every time you rent on airbnb, good old hotel is your choice.

Holy shit this is so in-depth. Bravo. That's some goddamn journalism shit right there

GREAT video guys loving these!!!

13:50 "The rents in the last ten years have skyrocketed." So they're 'supplementing' their income with AirBbB. Which caused the rents to skyrocket, and will continue to skyrocket them further.

brilliant. higher journalistic standards and better fact checking than most...

Perhaps some motel owners should just close their hotel, move in, call it their 50+ room house, and then use AirBNB to rent out the rooms? That way they can avoid government regulation too! The thing this video misses is that it's the REGULATIONS that are the problem, not AirBNB.

Watching while staying at a place I booked through airbnb 😂

We need an economy where you can work harder/more to get nicer things, and you can make a living on on limited hours. Our goal should be as much free time to enjoy family, friends, and life as possible. Robotics will slowly displace workers. We have to find solutions to deal with dwindling opportunities beyond the "I got mine" attitude. Reducing the population, fewer hours with more pay, etc. It's a complicated issue that we need to consider now instead of waiting till we're well into the problem before admitting the problem even exists.

I know Ari Teman -- the guy with the orgy in his room -- personally. The episode put him on a rental blacklist in NYC. You'll never meet a more hardcore foe of Airbnb.

America may have to do a "brexit" with the "share economy." Honestly, in a Democracy we shouldn't simply have the privilege to deeply sigh and lose faith in our government's ability to empathize with the common man, we should be able to do something (like this video) and more. Also, don't all super villains believe they are a "force of nature," and are simply "honoring some 'invisible hand.'" That should be considered a mental disorder in the DSM. Good content.

9:18 Great point. Very insightful video.

Trust me I would rather stay at a Hampton Inn and get Hilton Honors Points.

How is possible that "Airbnb helped double rent prices in 13 years" in the small Texas town? It was founded in 2008.

So if Government can't tax it, that makes it bad?

Excellent video!👍

Where is a new video at y’all?? I’ve watched them all and need more please.

10:00 there is even a site called "airbnbvsberlin" which shows how they effect prices

The problem at its root is that hotels charge an arm and a leg. If hotels were more affordable then we wouldnt need homes to replace them for temporary housing.

Bravo. Great Essay. A change of music could suit your style more. And without a laptop in front of you is a good fit :) Hope this keeps going. Its nice.

Agree. I had some really bad Airbnb experiences and finally realise a simple fact, that if you were dealing with an unregulated & illegal business, there's nothing you can do when things go wrong, especially when it comes to safety. Risking your life and health for a few nights of cheap stay just dosen't make sense. BTW the ones I stayed in has really high scores and positive reviews.

People making money on their own??? STOP THE EVIL!

I don't think Airbnb is gonna kill hotels. I much prefer hotels to any other temporary housing.

You seem nice enough. If you ever need to crash in Lancaster, PA, let me know! Haha! Love these videos!

Clicked on this and emediatly got an Airbnb ad 😂

... This is my first time hearing of Airbnb.

Please get a better map for your background. I am triggered by the image of a giant lake system in the southwestern United States.

During Irma, my house was completely destroyed and my family took refuge in an Airbnb. Little did we know it was a crack house. Literally a crack house, there were crack spoons, smoke marks, bullet holes...but it was the only place with running water and electricity. Someone actually attempted to get in while we were there. Luckily the gate lock withstood the beating. We were forced to stay there and when I spoke to Airbnb about the uninhabitable state, they said sorry and they are within regulations/the requirements of Airbnb. Airbnb is fucked up.

Watching this in 2020: Is AirBnB even around anymore due to the covids

Not even 3 Minutes in and I'm bored to death...

The real reason no one leaves bad reviews on Airbnb is because both the host and guest get to rate each other... It's mutually assured destruction of each other's public credibility. So thumbs up all round.

drinking game : every time he says "airbnb" you have to drink. every time he says "regulation" you have to take a shot.

This was a great video, but please consider toning down the music. :) Very informative though thanks!

If most of this is true why aren't hotels lowering their insanely high rates to compete?

You keep saying "in thirteen years" - Airbnb was founded in 2008...

Nice informative vid. What's the music in the background?

Why did i get an airbnb add

New guy is like a beautiful John Oliver, but with more facts and less annoying audience laughter.

Really well done. With a few more laughs, John Oliver would have been proud.

I wouldn't be happy if Japan got rid of Air bnb there. For one they don't have the commercial hotel market like we have in the US. A lot of the hotels I saw were marketed as love hotels, ones where you pay by the night or by the hr. I also stayed in capsule hotels for around $70 a night for my three foot by seven foot "room." Sure there are traditional inns but at around $200 a night on up isn't affordable for some. I can rent out someone's house for $40 a night and I get a nice bed and in some cases a full house.

All I could see during this video was the huge lake and river system someone had drawn on the Rocky Mountains. Very funny dork!