CouchsurfingReviews of couchsurfing.com

What once was an amazing platform, downgraded themselves as being a scamming artist for scamming me out 56 euros out of my pocket. Hope you are happy with it guys!

Used couchsurfing.com a lot in the past. Loved it. Amazing. This was before AirBnB, possibly where AirBnB got their inspiration from. So, like many other things online, the power of couchsurfing.com comes from the number of people who use it. And like everything online, as soon as you charge people to even sign up and simply login, never mind a small fee, to, say, for example, arrange a couch surf. It used to be free, but now, you have to pay to even log in, even just to change your email in the account settings, nobody can do anything without first paying. Name any of the most popular dating apps, social media accounts, chat apps, search engines, hotel booking website that charge you to even simply make and use your account? None, why because all the free ones are where all the people go to, the platforms where everyone is at, is what brings the most value. Couchsurfing.com should find ways to make money once people are on their platform, not charge a fee simply to signup and use the platform. I have no problem paying £2.50 per month, but the fact you have to pay, even if you want to host, especially in many developing countries where they may not easily have easy abilities to pay, just drops all confidence in the number of users on couch surfing, so essentially, the payment method they have created now, means, you are paying for a service that has and will become worst that it was because there simply won't be the number of users that there used to be. The pandemic ended 2 years ago but still on their main page they are pleading for the monthly feee due to a pandemic. It's clear the CEO and management want to extract as much cash as possible from this before watching it fail to competition which has already begun. My opinion is, either sack the CEO and make a better business model out of it, I would happily pay for every couch surf I successfully do. Or watch this cherished app fail over the coming years.

In a time where cooling-off periods and transparency are common practices, it's surprising that I wasn't given any prior notice of the impending charge. This departure from what I've come to expect from Couchsurfing makes it seem like profit has taken precedence over community support.

They ask for you CC details for "verification" but small letters make you agree to an annual subscription and they immediately deduct this. No refund after getting in touch. Contact your credit company for the refund!

My "profile has been removed due to a Terms of Use violation", so the support says. They did't proactively tell, no, I had to ask them by email what has happened. They first forwarded my request to a "specialist who will get back ... as soon as possible" and then they told me, I had violated their terms and "that is all the information we can provide due to privacy reasons". So they claim that I have violated the terms, but they cannot prove it. When I asked about where, when, with what action I violated anything, they did not respond any more. To be clear: Violations happen and it is good that they try to ban people for that, but not being able to tell you how you did the violation, is called arbitrariness and censorship. In that case, they even don't have a virtual householder's right, at least German judicature says they don't. They then refunded me 2.89 EUR which is a joke to the "verification" fee and all the time that I invested into writing to travellers and hosts, where in 95% of cases people do not respond and about 50% respond when you remind them of their antisocial behaviour. Because not responding to a friendly message while you can is not social. I am close to calling Couchsurfing professional fraudsters.

I registered because I was really struggling to find accommodation in Australia. I create my profile, and I see that you have better luck by checking your email or your phone number, there are only two options. I click on the phone, and I am asked for my bank details in addition to the number. I told myself that it was to check more and that this was definitely a serious site. I validated, and suddenly I noticed that there is a third button for payment. My bank did not need to validate and they took €56 from me without it being indicated. I immediately contacted customer service, they did not want to know anything despite the law which protects consumers. They haven't responded to me since. Plus on couchsurfing only men who don't seem serious, I didn't find what I was looking for and what's more I was scammed out of €56.

i was also scammed by couchsurfing payments. deleted my account, they kept the prenumeration on stripe. contacted support which asked me for a bunch of information i mostly already had provided, then had the nerve to say that cancelled accounts don't get charged. yeah, how come you are charging me anyways? it is in my account balance! instructed my bank to deny payment to couch suffering.

I logged back on after several years absence having pre-knowledge of the awaiting charge. The problem is Couchsurfing refuses to give access to the site therefore cannot view whether it’s changed better or worse. Big red flag banning access without payment and after read many reviews I won’t be back. In its day (many years past) Couchsurfing was a great experience. Happy memories I refuse to have clogged up by negative and greedy site owners.