CouchsurfingReviews of couchsurfing.com

Last week I received a message that CS platform needs help (donations). I see many negative comments regarding that on the internet, and I really dont understand people writing those comments. I became part of the CS 5 years ago and I travelled 10+ countries staying with locals. I saw local life that westerners-tourists usually do not see. CS didn't charge anything. For example, Workaway.info and Backpackers have initial fees that every user must pay every year (it was smth about 30 or 40 usd several years ago, I dont remember exactly). And everybody is okay with that, nobody complains that they are "commercial" (well, they are NOT commercial, this fees go for the platform maintainence, not for profit). I highly recommend CS and wish the platform can overcome this difficult time.

Since Couchsurfing was sold their focus is more and more on earning money. Don't want to be a part of it anymore

It's dead. Try BeWelcome or Trustroots.

Stay away from them. I have been a member since 2004 and Since CS became a for profit organisation, they have only taken arbitrary actions such as using our information for their benefit, blocking users that publicly expressed their disagreement and deleting profiles that would be against this. Now they are using the covid19 situation to blackmail people about paying for their accounts as they are clearly looking to make more money. I get a for profit company's priority is to make money, however, we as hosts, receive people in our houses for free, give our effort, time, space and sometimes even money to the travellers at no charge and they still expect us to pay for doing thay?! Also, the quality of members is constantly going downhill, there are more freeloaders and people that dont really care about the whole core of what CS should be, due to this there have been lots of cases from new members stealing from / harassing others .. Have CS listened to the people affected by it? Never and by constatly blocking members and deleting their profiles instead of opening a dialogue they are clearly showing how willing the are to listen. Members are their clients, as a company you care about your clients and listen to them... well CS dont.

Achtung Abzocke. Vormals kostenlos jetzt muss bezahlt werden auch um seine alten Daten einzusehen.

Couchsurfing isn't what is used to be anymore. Now it's a company that steals your personal data and denies you the access to it + kicks you out unless you pay. What the heck? Do not sign up for this website. We're all leaving the place.

Remember Orkut? Maybe you guys should google them... you're heading down the same road to oblivion. For my part, as longtime active member and someone that has had some incredible experiences on the platform before you guys wrecked it, it's very sad. Lifetime verification should mean LIFETIME. Not one years grace from your new monthly 'subscription fee'. No one asked for facebook synchronisation and NO ONE has asked for 'couchsurfing supports blah blah blah' facebook posts. Your recent bit of hollow virtue signalling around the Black Lives Matter movement is particularly disheartening. Seriously, If nothing else - fire your social media promotional guy. Personally, I am very supportive of the movement and take great offense of your transparently corporate appropriation of what those protestors are trying to achieve. The cut and paste responses to the comments in following your BLM post were SO bad, I'm almost looking forward to the one you will post replying to this review - should be a beauty. RIP CS

Use blackmailing techniques in order to squeeze money out of users.