Half of users find faults in ‘sharing economy’

More than half of people who have used a “sharing economy” business such as Airbnb or Blablacar have reported problems with the quality of the service received, a European study has found.

The report, from the European Commission, said that 55 per cent of people had experienced an issue with a service over the past year. It found that almost half of the people who had experienced problems did not take any action, either because they felt it was not worth the effort or because the amount they had paid for the service was small enough that it was not worth pursuing.

The researchers said that consumers see coming across problems as “part of the game” of the sector, in exchange for the opportunity to save money, and because most transactions are relatively low value.