An Airbnb guest said their host threw out all their stuff, even their passport, after mixing up the checkout date

01.11.2023 - 16:34 / insider.com / Monica Humphries / An Airbnb

An Airbnb customer was told there was nothing the company could do after a host mixed up their leaving dates and dumped all of their belongings out on the street, The Guardian reported.

The paper also said the company offered compensation to the customer only after the case was raised by its reporter.

The customer, identified only as "PM," told the British newspaper they were on the last night of their stay in Washington, DC, when they returned to the property late in the evening.

They told the paper that the apartment had been cleaned and that they found their belongings, including their passport, dumped in the street in grocery bags.

The customer added that after reaching out to the host, they were told that they had overstayed and that a new guest was coming in the morning.

"I showed my booking confirmation stating checkout was 11 a.m. the following morning, and she looked sheepish," the customer told The Guardian of their interaction with the host.

They said that they were ultimately allowed to return to the apartment for the night but that the host refused to offer any compensation.

The customer said Airbnb didn't respond until 3 a.m. and "repeatedly" told them it couldn't help.

Jake Shuter-Ross, a company spokesperson, told Insider in a statement that issues were "rare."

"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," he said.

The Guardian reported that the compensation eventually offered to the customer consisted of half the money returned and half of it in credit toward a future stay.

Shuter-Ross also said: "While we believe this was a genuine misunderstanding, we have warned the Host about their management of the situation."

He added that the host was a "Superhost" who had never had complaints "of this nature" before.

He said the company had reached out to the guest "to help make things right" without offering specifics.

This isn't the first time Airbnb has been accused of being slow to respond to public concerns.

Jeff Palkevich, whose Los Angeles home was falsely listed as an Airbnb for months starting in April 2022, tried for more than a year to alert the company, which only took action after Insider's Monica Humphries contacted it.

It emerged that Palkevich's property was probably being used in a "bait-and-switch" scam. The company has since removed the false listing.

And in 2018, Airbnb took several months to compensate a couple whose host smashed through their window in a frenzy.

Though the company promised the couple a refund of $708, the money came through only after The Boston Globe made inquiries.

Airbnb declined to pay the couple the $5,000 compensation they requested,