By: Sal

Sal — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 12:06:55 +0000

“The pictures on the website are not at all how that establishment looks like and I believe they just want to take people’s money. They refuse to refund us, even though they said they would provide one in full.” This is what 90 percent of airbnb listings are about. Sometimes you’ll get a place that is at least livable, but they’re still only letting you stay there for money. Yes I know, you’ll say “of course they’re only letting you stay there for money”, but you’re missing the point. For every person that sets up a place for ‘guests’ and the place is fair and ok, there are 4 or 5 that are setting up what you experienced in your description. If you travel to another country, where of course you have no realistic chance of going somewhere else to avoid the bad place, especially if you’ve already given all your funds to the ‘host’ of the bad place, you’re screwed. There are no laws to protect you, nobody will care, the ‘host’ will keep your money and airbnb will ignore you. People like ‘David Aaron’ will tell you you were a fool for failing to take notice of the ‘reviews’ (think: are there any bad reviews on airbnb?). The place you describe: what would you have done when you went out? If you’d left anything in your room the least that would have happened is that it would have been searched. Most likely your things would have disappeared entirely. airbnb (and the sites that have been set up to ride the same train, which after all contain the exact same ‘hosts’) is not a safe place to book places to stay. It’s the modern day equivalent of those nigerian scammers that 10 years ago used to phone people and ask them to send money to get money. Please people, do not use it. Especially to book places in another country, where you will be in a very bad position if the ‘host’ turns out to be a scammer. Use legit hotels instead. If you can’t afford them, stay at home. Do not believe the reviews on airbnb, not even in many cases the photos (especially in places like africa and india). Until sites like airbnb allow guests to post photos, and prevent ‘hosts’ leaving comments in reply to guest comments, all the reviews are useless. Think: you or I could set up a listing right now with photos we’ve downloaded from the internet, lie our heads off about the place, use our (real) id to ‘verify’ ourselves, then wait for someone to book. So what on earth prevents someone doing the exact same thing in Johannesburg? That’s what you got. You were scammed. You were lucky you weren’t harmed. airbnb is unsafe. Period.

By: David Aaron

David Aaron — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 23:13:21 +0000

Did this place have reviews?

Comments on: Total Dump on Airbnb Leaves Guests with no Privacy

By: Sal

By: David Aaron