Last year as I was checking out of an Airbnb in Kyiv I dropped my late grandmother’s bracelet in the bedroom of the Airbnb I was staying in, but could not find it. - It was not incredibly valuable, but extremely precious to me.
The cleaner didn’t want me looking for it one minute beyond check out, so I reached out to the host (who lives in the US and manages her place through various cleaners) to let her know the bracelet was in the bedroom room and that I would be happy to come back to collect it once the cleaner located it, as I was still in Kyiv for a few months more.
Two months after I returned to Canada from Kyiv the host contacted me to the cleaner located it (and sent me a photo to confirm) and she promised to post it I if I paid for one of two options:
(a) Regular registered mail which would be approximately 12 to 25 USD (Plus a 10 USD tip).
(b) Professional couriering service
I confirmed agreement to the first option, explaining I am a student and cannot afford to courier it, and asked her to let know me the exact amount, which I would send to her upon notice.
After waiting several months for news from the host, I contacted her again to gently remind her to send me the bracelet and let me know the shipping price, at that point she explained that in order to get my property back I had to pay money in advance directly to her cleaner’s personal account in Ukraine in the amount of 12 to 25 USD plus a 10 USD tip - (not sure how to know the exact amount to pay).
Note bank transfers to personal US accounts cost me approx. $50, to Ukraine significantly more, so my preference was to give it to host through Airbnb, but I did not make an issue if this as my priority is to get the release of my grandmother’s bracelet.
At that point the Host decided that if I wanted my bracelet back, I now needed to arrange a professional courier to collect it from the home of her cleaner in Kyiv. Again I acquiesced, because I need the bracelet back.
I tried several times to confirm the cleaner’s address, which your host eventually responded to, but added new condition that I now could also only get it back if I found a courier that could pick it up between 9 and 11:30 am on 21 MAR.
If you have ever had something couriered you will know the practice of courier companies not to agree to “time” of collection, only “day” of collection (for obvious liability and logistical reasons). All courier companies I contacted confirmed this, and I explained it to the host which only made her dig in her heels about this being a firm condition of me getting the bracelet back.
I have spent hundreds of dollars and about 28 hours (of critical study time) calling couriers (note I do not speak Ukrainian), setting up accounts, and making elaborate arrangements to meet her conditions and to work around the fact that her elderly cleaner didn’t have a means of receiving and generating electronic shipping waybill labels with bar codes required for shipping.
Through the good will of someone at UPS, I got once off assistance to make this happen on 21 MAR. I sent a detailed email to the host’s personal and Airbnb mail with all of the possible shipping information she would need for her cleaner to send me the bangle, and every possible detail worked out (down to the weight of the bangle!).
All the Host needed to do was ask her cleaner to contact UPS Kyiv at the direct number I provided, give them the account number I set up and provided (plus my postal code, which I provided), confirm the cleaner would be present at the address during the narrow time of 9:00 to 11:30 on 21 MAR, then when UPS arrived help the courier fill out a manual waybill with the very small bit of information needed (I could not do it for her).
In spite of putting me to extraordinary lengths to meet her conditions to release my property, the 21 MAR date came and went, the Host did not respond to my email, send me a tracking number, and my UPS account has no record of any attempt at a shipment.
It seems to me the host is intentionally trying to make this as difficult as possible, and the situation is so acrimonious that I cannot deal with this host any longer – I have pleaded with Airbnb to escalate the matter and to intervene to get me my property, to no avail.
Can anyone recommend ways to get meaningful support from Airbnb? (Even means of external pressure... useful blogs… twitter feeds… I am still waiting to hear back from the BBB, which I would be glad to withdraw if I got my bracelet)
PS – In spite of this place being one of the dirtiest and coldest places I have ever had the displeasure of staying (and receiving some rather strange treatment from the host during my stay) when I checked-out I even opted not to warn others witih a negative review in the hopes that the host would not retaliate by refusing to give me back my grandmother’s bracelet.
