Beware of those smooth-talking strikers at Dubai Airport

Do you want to see Dubai free of charge? That will be music in your ears when you have some time to spare upon landing in Dubai, the city of glitz and glamour.

There is not a shortage of smartly dressed men and women who throw you this offer once you clear passport control and head for the exit.

They are the kind of people we call strikers in Lagos. They aren’t so versatile in the use of the English language, but they understand and speak enough to communicate and are quite glib. They are on the payroll of all manner of companies including tour operators, property developers and so on. Their job is to get some of the millions of travellers who use this airport to visit their companies in town for business.

Seriously, you shouldn’t pay them any attention. They are time wasters.  When you get to their offices in town, you are going to be disappointed.

The freebies they promise always have a catch that wouldn’t enable you take advantage of them while your visit lasts.

More seriously, some of them work for advanced fee fraud syndicates. They will try to convince you to invest in some hotel property deal that is guaranteed to yield you thousands of dollars in profit after recouping your investment in a couple of years.

Hello! If you fall for that in a foreign land, you don’t deserve to be called a Nigerian. We are smarter than that.

How Airbnb promotes scam, my experience

Staircase 

A door opening to a hideous recess.

I had heard a lot about Airbnb before I decided to try them out in March when I was planning a vacation in the United States. It turned out to be a huge mistake.

The search

I spent days scouring Airbnb for a suitable apartment I could stay in with my wife for 10 days and finally shortlisted two; one in Queens because it was close to JFK International Airport where we were coming in through, and Brooklyn, because it was close to the areas we were keen to see. The Brooklyn apartment was going to win until we noticed it was a basement.

Queens won

We settled for the one the host described as Rosedale Private residential (SMOKE FREE) in Queens. The winning description in the ad was ‘an entire bungalow’. It was costlier, but we thought it was worth it.

Rude shock

We flew thousands of miles to this destination and discovered the listing was misrepresented. It was not a bungalow, but a basement apartment. That was a big deal for me because apart from the nice Brooklyn apartment, I had seen and ruled out many other basements with better prices and reviews because we were apprehensive of the problems associated with basements, such as dampness, flooding and mould.

To make matters worse, this apartment we opted for was so disappointing that we left almost immediately and looked for a hotel to stay to search for another apartment, into which we moved the next day to spend the rest of the vacation.

Apart from the lie of the actual nature of the apartment, we also found that the sofa in the living room was old; the reading table in the room had seen better days and looked like it would fall apart. The apartment was apparently furnished with what the host discarded from the main building.

We arrived after a rain. Consequently, I stepped into a puddle of water in the master bedroom. The big cooker was rusty. The kitchen was cluttered with stuff used in the main apartment uptairs. A padlocked freezer, ostensibly containing stored food of the host, took up a part of the apartment.

A staircase descends from the main apartment directly into the lobby of this listing. At the top of the stairs, there is a door that is locked with a key from the main apartment. Apart from this, there were at least three other doors that were locked, one with a padlock. Another unlocked door opens to a dark hideous recess.

The tiles bore water marks, signposting possible flooding episodes in the past. Sounds of water running in some pipes within the walls were persistent. Overall, there was a mismatch between the cost and the value of this listing.

Confrontation

I called the host and confronted him with my findings and expressed my disappointment that he misrepresented his apartment. He was quiet for some time and then the line went dead. I tried again and it went into voicemail.

 I called Airbnb and complained. The customer care person who first picked the call sounded sympathetic and requested that I sent evidence of what I was claiming. That took me some time to do, as I had to find a better apartment.

I finally sent the evidence required the following day, when apparently somebody else, a lady had taken over the case. She later reverted that they could not refund me the entire money I paid because I did not stay in the apartment to sort out the issue with the owner, as Airbnb's policy demanded.

I found that odd. If it was a question of toiletry not being provided or a faulty TV or something, I would understand, because those could be fixed. But this was a case of somebody lying about the very nature of his apartment, calling it a bungalow when in actual fact it was a basement. How could he have fixed that?

A more honest host in the same Queens neighbourhood described his own apartment as ‘An Independent Basement’. But this one fraudulently called his own ‘bungalow’. He took nice pictures of the bed, a long shot of the big cooker, and not a single shot of the two staircases in the apartment, one outside, the other right inside the apartment. His whole intention was to mislead people who hate basements into booking it. 

I told them there was nothing that the host could have done to make it right. For me it was a case of deception. With deception, trust is damaged. If I couldn’t trust what you say, how could I stay under your roof overnight?

The review

Even though I didn’t like Airbnb’s decision, I decided to move on. However, when they prompted me to leave a review for the listing a few days later, I described what I saw.

I went back to the listing many times thereafter to see my review. It was not there. I lost interest. A week or two later, I remembered to check again and found that it had been published and the host had responded. The host carefully avoided tackling the issues I raised, but instead made an attempt to damage my credibility by concocting lies that had no bearing on the issues I raised.

I brought this to the attention of Airbnb again and they promised to investigate. It took them over 24 hours to get back. We exchanged a few more mails. Their final decision was that they could not remove the host’s response without removing my review. I told them I would not remove my review because that was the only way prospective guests could know what to expect.

Blackmail

Further scrutiny of the listing in question showed that the host had a habit of concocting lies against guests who wrote critical reviews. I saw a review by a gentleman who described himself as a pilot. The man stayed in the apartment in March just before me, but his review had not been posted by Airbnb by the time we were considering the apartment. If it had been posted, I would definitely not have paid for the listing. The man raised most of the issues I highlighted in my review.

Now, Airbnb has a policy of obtaining reviews from both the host and the guest. The host doesn’t get to see the review of the guest until he has given his own review. Now, this particular host left a very good review for this pilot, not knowing the pilot had left a critical review for his apartment. The moment he realised this, he rushed back to comment that the pilot was actually not a good guest. He described him as a drunk and said he was sorry for whoever boarded a plane he was piloting! Airbnb allowed the comment.

In the circumstances, the option for the pilot was to either allow the impugnation on his professional competence to remain on Airbnb site or to ask that it be taken down together with his own review. This is apparently how this guy blackmails guests from leaving a critical review for his listing.

Until Airbnb reviews this policy, by at least allowing guests to respond to any lies against them, many hosts will continue to exploit this loophole and smile to the bank.

Misleading claim

I took Airbnb up on the misleading claim made by the host. Initially, one Airbnb customer care agent promised they would get the host to correctly represent his listing. Another one I engaged on the issue later said other guests had made similar complaint against the man and Airbnb's trust committee investigated and found that the host was doing nothing wrong.

That was odd, but I believe they came to that conclusion because they never visited the apartment and relied on the host's claims. I was in the apartment. The building hosting the listing is a storey building. The apartment is in the basement, below the street level. The host lived on the two floors above the listing. 

Conclusion

Airbnb apparently means well. However, they need to look at their policies again with a view to giving more protection to the consumer. 

How I was abducted, raped inside the forest – Rivers lecturer

A female lecturer in one of the tertiary institutions in Rivers state has narrated how she was kidnapped and raped inside a forest in the state.

According to The Nation, the victim narrated her experience at the 6 Division of the Nigerian army in Port Harcourt.

The woman spoke of how kidnappers invaded her residence in the state capital two weeks ago. She said they came for her husband but since they could not find him in the house, she became the target.

Accompanied by her husband, the victim narrated how she suffered in the forest of Emohua local government area of the state before she finally escaped.

“I was in my house in Port Harcourt on April 30, 2019. I was alone with my children and my husband’s cousin. They were sleeping in the room. I was washing with machine at the balcony.

“Since it was around 8pm, there was a programme I always watched on Zee World. As I was washing my clothes, I was watching the programme. The main gate was locked, but the protector was open, since I had to go downstairs to get water.

“I was in the living room, when I noticed that the protector opened slightly. I was wondering, because if my husband returned from work, he would hoot and I would have to go and open the main gate for him. I was wondering who was there. The other person who was supposed to come back from work was sleeping. The next thing I saw was the key to the main door opened.

“Then I saw two guys first pointing a gun at me. One of them cocked the gun and he asked after my husband, but I said he had not closed from work. He then angrily asked why he had not closed from work at that time. I told him I wouldn’t know. He asked me to cooperate, otherwise they would finish me, saying they were not playing with me.

“He asked for my ATM card and PIN. I gave him. He asked if I had money in the house, I said no, but I had gold, which could be sold for N50,000, but they rejected it. One person took our television, another took the laptop. I was tying a wrapper with spaghetti top, since I was in my house. They then asked me to follow them. One of them asked me to get a dress, but they did not let me leave the living room.”

The woman said after giving her a dress to put on, they requested her car keys and she handed over to them after which she was taken away in a commando style.

“They put me in my vehicle and as they were about to drive out, they found it difficult, because of the space we share with our neighbour and they were hitting my neighbour’s fence. My neighbour came out and I said I was in trouble,” she said.

“Maybe he did not see me. The kidnappers put my head under the car’s seat and they drove off. I did not know the direction they followed. We then got to a place that was not motorable. So, we had to come down.

Journey Inside The Bush
“That was how we started the journey inside the bush. I asked them what I did, but they did not respond. That day, they paid me salary. I told them to let me give them the salary that was transferred to me. One of them then gave me an account number, which I forwarded my salary, N59,000 to. As we were still going inside the bush, he called someone to confirm if the person had received the alert. We later saw river that got to my knees. The leader pulled his trousers, but I had to carry my dress up.

That night, we spent about two hours in the bush, just moving around and I was barefooted, because they did not allow me to wear slippers, thereby giving me injuries. They later blindfolded me and we got to a place where they said that was where we would stay that night.

‘How I Was Raped’
I slept on bare ground in the open forest. The next morning, out of the two of them that followed me inside the bush, one of them left, remaining one, who told me that if I did not cooperate with him, to allow him to sleep with me, that four other persons would come in the afternoon and they would have me, but if I allowed him to sleep with me, he would let me go. I told him I would not be able to do it. Where I was still sitting on the floor, he masked himself with his dress and he raped me. Later in the afternoon, I stood there and I cried. If I shouted, I would not have received help. It was indeed a bush. Although, I could hear the sound of passing vehicles. When it rained heavily, we were all under the rain. I was completely wet.

They removed their clothes and had only their boxer shorts. After the rain, they cleaned themselves and wore their clothes. That was the only dress I had and I could not go naked. I was so cold. Later in the day, another one came and he asked me if I would eat, but I said I was not hungry. He said I should eat, in order not to die in the forest. He said if I died, they would still collect the ransom. They later brought packed food: fried rice with two fried meat, and sachet water with orange juice for me, but I could not eat, because I did not have appetite. I just managed to take the sachet water and the two pieces of meat.

The elderly one that came seemed nicer. He said they would never rape their victims, but I told him the other one had already raped me. He was surprised and went back to ask him. He confirmed raping me. He said in their culture, it was forbidden and that before they would let me go, they would do something. I told them I am a Christian and I would not be part of it. I said I had forgiven him and left him to God. He said when they got to our house, if they had seen N500,000, they would not have carried me.

N5m Ransom Slashed To N3m
He said teachers’ money (ransom) was N5 million, but if my husband could raise N3 million, they would let me go. Around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, they asked of what I would eat, but I said I was not hungry, but I asked them to call my people. They then called my husband, but he was calm and he said he had no money again, since they had collected the over N100,000 he had, with the ATM card.

That was when I knew that they had collected the money. I begged them to let me go, but they asked me to shut up, claiming that I was talking too much. When they noticed that I was very cold, they said they would take me to where I could warm myself. We then went further into the bush. We slept on three benches overnight. Early the next morning, we left the place. As we were about changing location, one of them said he was not comfortable with where he was going. We then went back to where we were on Wednesday.

While we were there, I had strength and I knew that members of my church were praying for me. I knew that my God would not let me down. I told God that after all my suffering, the kidnappers would not take the requested N3 million from my husband. They said my husband promised to call them before 12 noon on that day to drop the ransom. So, they were happy.

The ‘Long Walk To Freedom’
One went to sleep, while the other took his phone and went away. I waited for a while, the one that went to make call was not coming,. I did as if I wanted to urinate but the one that was sleeping did not ask me to come back. I saw it as an opportunity to escape. That was how I ran away. God helped me in the bush and I was following the sun, but I was seriously injured and bleeding. I later came out of the bush and I saw a road. I did not know where I was. I was stopping vehicles, but the dress I wore was so dirty. So, no vehicle was stopping for me.

I then saw two guys in a vehicle, they helped me. By that time, the soldiers were already looking for me. They stationed a check point by Choba Bridge (near UNIPORT). The soldiers saw me and put me in their vehicle and brought me to Bori Camp (the base of 6 Division of Nigerian Army) in Port Harcourt. They subsequently embarked on investigation . That is my story.”

Three of the arrested suspects were identified as Uche Iberi, 21, an indigene of Rumuakwude in Emohua LGA of Rivers; Destiny Kemka, 21, also from Rumuakwude; and Chile Worlu, 36, from Emohua LGA.

They were later arrested by soldiers of 6 Division, Nigerian Army, Port Harcourt and handed over to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

The lecturer was able to identity the one who raped her.