 |
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.
