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Staircase
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| 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?
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.
