We used Lavanda last year for less than a month, and in this time they managed to not notice damage to our property (a great big hole in the wall), they did not check people in, instead letting them pick keys up at a local off licence, cleaners charged for several hours when they only stayed for one (proven by CCTV) and the list goes on. When we raised these issues with the company, the founder decided to call us all the names under the sun, and was stupid enough to cc us in on the conversation. They refused to return our keys to us, and we then contacted their PR company - which is when we discovered that they had actually lost our keys. It was diabolical. We did the hosting ourselves after this, with Hostmaker providing the ad hoc cleaning and linen services, which worked out fine until permanent tenants moved in after 86 days of hosting. It went well, with 5 star reviews.
This year we chose Hostmaker to manage for us, all the bookings were made before their involvement, however, as we had opened up the calendar. They now do the whole management, no longer providing the ad hoc, which was fine, as we were busier this time around. At the first booking they provided bedlinen with a thumbsized hole on the top, which they tried to cover up with a towel. I had to get in touch with them to replace. The second (and last) booking they managed, they sent the guests to the wrong property, and then abandoned them, making them fetch correct keys at the local corner shop and then try and make their way to the correct property. In the dark and the rain. With little kids. Luckily we live very close by, and we could let them into the property. Hostmaker promised to give them a refund for some of their stay and send them a gift. We sacked them, however, as they were obviously utterly incompetent. So far they had a 100% failure rate, and according to these guests they had barely responded to any of their messages.
Now, just a couple of days later I discover that they have not refunded me the amount of the discount that has already come out of my AirBnB account, and that there is damage to my flat that they have not discovered. I also discover that the 2nd booking was for 4 adults only, not 4 adults and 2 kids. I had no idea if any of this had been changed, as they had taken over my account and their greeter had "checked them in" before abandoning them in the rain, as Hostmaker confirmed to us that they had done. So they do not even to a body count of the people they are letting into the property. Further, they had deleted most of my listing, just leaving "2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms", removing all the information about the fittings, original character and details etc etc.
Finally, this evening, I noticed that they had sent 4 invitations to "friends" to host, all of these "friends" joined since they took over the account, and have on their profiles that their properties are being "managed by an award winning company", so the same rubbish they had written on my profile. They are obviously acting as if I know these people and are recommending them personally. If and when these people host successfully, they would have send an amount into my account, which I undoubtedly would never have seen, as Hostmaker had changed all the payout details to their own account. It is pretty clear that these "hosts" are all Hostmaker clients already, and these "referrals" were all totally fraudulent. And done in my name. I have contacted AirBnB about this, but they did not seem to understand. I have asked the to email me back. Hostmaker is a big company. If this is what they do with their clients accounts, this fraud could be widespread.
I am just speechless.
We have now found a small company, who has done a clean today and supplied the linens. So far they seem really pretty good. We are now back to managing this ourselves again.