I have a couple of blog posts about Airbnb here: why is it needed, how to register correctly, and quite a few reviews of how I lived in this or that apartment. And I have never had such a negative experience that happened in the last month. Straight in general, trash, almost settled in a den for drunks, while paying a good price. And my question is, why the hell, Airbnb doesn’t remove such ads from its database and doesn’t ban such negligent owners, not to say, specific bastards who breed travelers in the hope that they can get away with it..
The content of the article
- one Foreword
- 2 Apartment in Togliatti, scam or hangout
- 3 Apartment in Krasnogorsk, rudeness and incompetence
Foreword
Just in case, here are the Airbnb technical support contacts, otherwise they have hidden them very far: the contact form by the link and the phone number +7(495)465-8090.
You know, this is how it happens when you advise everyone on certain booking algorithms, but you don't do it yourself. Here you need to put a smiley «hand on forehead». But this will be a lesson to me. Still, even if there is one bad one for 20 apartments, then probably it is not worth doing this..
- First of all, we are talking about NOT renting apartments without reviews. Yes, they are also not a 100% guarantee, but if they are not there, then this is generally a pig in a poke.
- The second important point is that the cancellation rules are very desirable to be «Flexible», especially if there are no reviews, or there are very few of them, they are indistinct, old.
And lately I scored on the first point ... I traveled around Russia for 2 months and everything was fine. But, then I ran into 2 times at once. I'll tell you about this..
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Nevertheless, the mice cried, injected themselves, but continued to eat the cactus. I will continue to use the service, even though they are in the crown now (technical support is not always prompt and has heavily hidden feedback), there is still no alternative. For 6 years of use (somewhere since 2012 I know about it) I saved a lot of money, because when you go with children, then I have no options - I need a larger area and a kitchen. Such apartments in a hotel are much more expensive, especially when traveling around Russia. Alternatively, look for apartments on Booking.
Apartment in Togliatti, scam or hangout
Waiting VS Reality
I have never seen such a trash. Okay, sometimes it is not entirely clean, or some dishes are missing, they forgot to put toilet paper. But when the apartment is so shitty, it’s just not good at all. And it cost for a minute, 2000 rubles per day and looked pretty decent in the photos.
The first thing that caught my eye (or rather in the nose) was the smokiness. We smoked right in the apartment. The sofa is so stained that I am at a loss to guess what was done on it or with it. Of course, it is carefully covered with a blanket so that it cannot be seen. The second sofa is in white spots, I don't even want to think about what they are. Windowsills with rusty circles, curtains also stained. The stove is as if a chubby man in a shabby T-shirt has been frying pork chops on it for many years.
The bathroom is another story - the type was almost completed. And the rugs for the feet, lying near the bath, were apparently taken from the common entrance. It felt like a hangout for drunks and a dating room for addicts. For me, this is a specific scam, a fraud, it can be calculated for those who beat it up and just move out, having lost money for the first night..
And now what turned out to be in reality.
See for yourself that I am not a major and I am not imagining.
How the issue was resolved
The owner left before I could understand the scale of the whole tragedy. Was out of the way and very tired. But 15 minutes of walking around the apartment and the impressions of the bathroom quickly sobered me up. I wrote to the owner, he said without a single emotion (apparently a common situation) that move out and leave the key in the mailbox. But he cannot cancel, like he does not have such a function. And if I cancel, then I lose the cost of the first night - at least something, but not very much, since I only booked for 3 nights.
Then I wrote to Airbnb. He wrote in Russian, just as it is, and attached the most juicy photographs. Then he went to the hotel. In the morning, technical support answered that the apartment did not meet Airbnb standards and we canceled your booking. A little later, I received a letter in the mail that the owner canceled the reservation due to renovation. Yeah, repair, he's going to do it, 10 times. Apparently they knocked on the head of the owner, although I would have blocked such people at once. The announcement, by the way, is still hanging, and for some reason it seems to me that everything in the apartment remains the same.
In principle, everything was settled without problems. Therefore, the case, although unpleasant, ended normally. Apart from the fact that I had to go urgently to the first hotel I came across and spend money and time on it.
Apartment in Krasnogorsk, rudeness and incompetence
Waiting VS Reality
With the other apartment, the situation was somewhat different. According to the pictures, she is generally a fire, although the price is 1,740 rubles per day. For Moscow-Moscow region, it is quite inexpensive, and already here it was necessary to think, given that there were zero reviews. The second point is that the owners live in this apartment and periodically rent it out, so there are other people's things everywhere. I do not like this, there is no feeling of emptiness and minimalism, all the more you do not come to visit your friends. Although this may be a plus, since the apartment was made for myself (for example, in Hong Kong I rented luxury apartments).
In fact, the apartment has really good equipment, sometime good repairs, but ... Either the pigs live there, or the previous guests actually dirtied it. Moreover, these guests lived there for several months, it seems. Otherwise, I just can't imagine how you can live in this.
The story is the same with the sofa, the spots are covered with a blanket. With the ironing board, it's not at all clear what they were doing. On the children's bed, in addition to the mattress, there are some other rags pissing and smelling of urine. The refrigerator has not been washed for a long time, the dill on the walls looks like. There is hair and dirt on the floor in the bathtub. The floor throughout the apartment is in chewing gum, and in the kitchen there is a feeling that everything was just thrown off the table on the floor.
And the last one. Instead of the landlord, his parents settled me there. When I pointed to the dirt, they just poured a tub of slops on me: a milk sucker, came here from Israel in white socks (I foolishly showed as proof that in a few minutes my white socks turned black), go to your abroad, they say, here you Russia, well, and so on. More specifically, they were naughty specifically. The sediment still remains.
Upon arrival, everything turned out to be far from as good as in the pictures.
And how, after such dirt, could you run over me and send me back abroad? Well, it's true, srach specific.
How the issue was resolved
A similar scheme turned out: I arrived, looked, could not persuade myself to stay, even after the owner promised to call the cleaner the next day. I didn't even want to spend one night there. The children's bed just finished.
But then the situation unfolded differently. The owner apologized and said he would try to cancel and refund the money. I still wrote to Airbnb, they answered a day later, but after that they no longer got in touch and did not say what would happen next. The owner also wrote to technical support (he threw off a screenshot) that he wanted to return the money to the guest. Apparently he came up with some reason not to spoil his rating (if any). And after 2 days he was transferred the amount for the booking and he just threw it to me on a Russian card.
It doesn't look like a scam, so it remains a mystery to me why the apartment is so dirty. Although I was not calm before the owner returned the money, suddenly it would be a scam on his part. After all, he told me every day that he would transfer it tomorrow, while the number of days that I could still cancel was decreasing.
With such a refund, the commission that the service takes for itself was lost, I received 10 thousand rubles instead of 12 thousand.I want to note right away that the cancellation conditions were «Flexible», but if I canceled myself, I would have lost more. However, all this time, while the host corresponded with Airbnb, no one canceled the reservation, so after I received the money on the card, I canceled the reservation myself and received the cost of one remaining night back from Airbnb. As a result, almost everyone returned the money..
P.S. Still using Airbnb? Was there a negative experience, tell us! So far, I have only 3 negative experiences in total for all the years and everything was decided in the end.
