CouchsurfingReviews of couchsurfing.com

They want me to subscrube to unsuscribe from their spam mail. What a joke. I will just use Gmails inbuilt spam filter to block you out. Also, since when do you force people to pay to use couchsurfing? What a scam.

Capitalism is taking over yet again...

Similar to what everyone else is saying below. The verification charge is not made clear. This is what is considered a dark UX practice - "When the users get to the last step of the checkout process, only to discover some unexpected charges have appeared" Google it, these practices benefit the company rather than the user. It is not made clear at all that this charge is being made, the verification process is made to look like it's using your card to verify your identity rather than charging you something, like many other sites do. The payment gateway is incomplete in the fact that it takes you straight to payment without asking if the charge is ok. The actual cost is in very small greyed-out text that you would barely notice. It's also displayed as if this is an optional donation you can make after you've been verified. The verification process has been made like this either to trick people into paying or the web/UX designers/engineers have completely overlooked this and not tested the system before release. I've pressed the support team but they say that they don't offer out any refunds as of the 14th of May 2020 with no context given as to why. Currently, I'm disputing this with my credit card provider to get the money back but I'm also going to pursue other means of exposing this issue. These dark UX practices are something I can't stand for, I work in the industry myself, and these patterns are unethical. It should be made much more clear what you are being charged.

Sucks that couchsurfing was taken over by a company that decided to destroy such a great community, just so the directors can take home a big pay package. Now I am required to pay, even to let a traveller stay in my house. I refuse to give into their greed and will look for alternative websites to host travellers who want to explore my city. It's a sad day when even couchsurfing has been rinsed by the suits.

This platform is nothing without it´s users. So the decision to kick everyone out who doesn´t want to pay, ended couchsurfing. You can´t even access your profile anymore, so couchsurfing pretends to have thousands of potential hosts that are not even able to answer a hosting request. I reveived a couple requests recently and I´m not able to answer these or change my profile to show I´m not hosting. If couchsurfing restricts someone´s profile, the least they can do is not show you as a potential host anymore and make people think they actually get anything in return for paying the membership fee.

Même expérience que les précédents messages : prélèvement de 58,80€ (à croire que ça a augmenté) sans avoir été prévenue. Soit disant il faut "valider notre profil" ... Mais à aucun moment la somme n'apparaît, aucune demande de validation sur l'application de la banque, rien ! Ils auraient pu me prélever 10000€ de la même manière ! Bien entendu la demande de remboursement n'a pas abouti ! Quel scandale de tels agissements ! Sans compter qu'il a fallut verser déjà une petite somme (2€ par mois je crois) pour accéder aux offres ! Et bien entendu, suite aux dizaines de demandes d'hébergement envoyées, aucune ne m'a permis de trouver un logement. Donc merci couchsurfing pour votre vol et votre inefficacité ! Vous aviez une bien belle image, mais c'est à croire que tout à une fin.

I paid for LIFETIME use. After pandemic, they are asking money again We paid for LIFETIME use before ! You have no right to deactive our accounts and ask monthly or annual money for this Activate my account now, or refund my payment !

Over a decade ago I paid about $25 for a verified Couchsurfing.org "lifetime membership" and NOW I'm supposed to pay more to even access my account. No thanks! I NEVER actually couchsurfed (slept on a stranger's couch) via the website BUT I used it to meet a lot of people. This used to be a real social network (as opposed to the anti-social networks of the current year), but it appears to have devolved in just another credit card scam front. But capitalism is doing its thing; Google "couchsurfing alternatives" and you may find some options out there...