Letsgetsmart Airbnb management company

Darren161
Level 2
Gloucester, United Kingdom

Letsgetsmart Airbnb management company

I am posting a warning for any property owners considering using this company.

They are currently withholding payment for recent bookings and one of my keys. I disagree with their invoice plus the damage and loss of personal items/art during their management of my flat.

The customer service is horrendous. I have never known a company owner shout at and bully a customer before. Don’t expect transparency either, I have asked for evidence of a guest complaint and maintenance issue without response. You won’t hsve access to a proper portal to see what is going on with your property whilst being managed, just a google calendar!

Avoid this firm at all cost 

10 Replies 10
Cormac0
Level 10
Kraków, Poland

@Darren161 

 

 

I’m not aware that Airbnb manage listings on behalf of clients, I think you have a third-party masquerading as Airbnb employee.

Airbnb lists your property and handles payments, managing properties and holding key no!.

@Cormac0 

Oh it's gone way, waaay past Airbnb managing listings on behalf of clients! Following on from their $200 million investment in Oyo Rooms, and the acquisitions of Hotel Tonight and French property management company, Luckey Homes, Airbnb recently led a $160 million Series B round of funding for San Francisco based mega-host Lyric.

 

Lyric currently lists several hundred properties on Airbnb, under a number of different accounts - for example, the company has one account with 97 listings coverng Houston/Charlotte/Minneapolis, an account with 165 listings in Dallas/Pittsburgh/Philadelphia, another with 69 listings in Orlando/Austin/New Orleans, and so on. 

 

With the latest investment round bringing their total funding to $185 million, Airbnb's generous cash injection has now catapulted Lyric into  prime position as one of the highest-funded venture capital-backed "hosts" on the platform, blazing them way ahead of the likes of other mega-host property-management competitors such as Stay Alfred ($47 million), and Sonder ($135 million) The company plans to expand its operation by 2500 units in new markets in the coming months, with overseas expansion to follow. 

 

Meanwhile, Airbnb continues to force regular hosts to compete for bookings (and battle for survival) with the big players, by refusing to separate and clearly identify the huge commercial entities from the small individual hosts on the platform. (Indeed, Lyric's offerings feature prominently in searches for every Airbnb market in which it operates)

 

The inevitable result, of course, is that small hosts, are being (deliberately) pushed out of the game altogether by the "Pros", by corporate interests, and now - blatantly - by Airbnb itself. Airbnb is literally now in competition with its own hosts. "Conflict of interests" doesn't begin to describe it. (Abuse of dominant position, would be closer to the mark) Anyone who still believes that this company still has (or ever had) small hosts' best interests in mind, is sadly mistaken. 

 

https://skift.com/2019/04/17/airbnb-leads-new-160-million-funding-for-short-term-rental-brand-lyric/

Paul1255
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Yikes @Darren161 

 

Doesn't sound like a good experience at all.

 

Their website looks good, as do their listings but I guess as you have found, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 

Paul.

Darren161
Level 2
Gloucester, United Kingdom

Avoid them like the plague, don’t judge a book by its cover 

Paul1255
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Oh I would never use them @Darren161  I run my own professional co-hosting business :))

Darren161
Level 2
Gloucester, United Kingdom

What else have you heard about them Paul?

feel really aggrieved as they are still holding my keys and I have lost art and valuables under their management, and been ripped off with ‘bills’

Do you know any channels to raise complaints to  Airbnb? 

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

Hello @Darren161 

 

I am sorry you are having a negative experience with this airbnb management company you chose to manage your listing. Did you take up references from other hosts before engaging them?

 

However I am rather confused by your comment that you don't have access to your listing as it clearly shows you as the main host on your profile (I wonder if you set up a new listing under your own profile after having problems with this company?).

 

If you feel the management company broke the terms of your contract I would suggest you take them to small claims court.

 

 

 

 

Darren161
Level 2
Gloucester, United Kingdom

I went on their testimonials and their sale patter...mistake!

Just don’t want other property owners falling foul of them.

They  won’t even release my keys to me!!

I have set up my own listing now, and yes I think the only way I will recover money is through the courts...as for Airbnb helping out!!

Kenneth12
Level 10
Chicago, IL

Hmm.   Sorry to hear about this.

Some thoughts,   after a dismal experience with Airsorted as a guest:

First,  you have to tak responsibility for your business/listing and outsourcing that to another company that does not have the same interests in mind seems a recipie for disaster.

Ditto allowing a 3rd party to step in between you and payments and thus have the significant leverage of control of your cash flow.  

In Airsorted's case,   they did not reply (other than pointless form replies) to concerns such as "there are no linens,  for this thing you advertized as a bed but isn't a bed,  and it's stained to boot,  mate" and "there's no hot water."   They failed to reply to my filing in the Resolution Center as well-- guess when it's someone else's dime,  why bother?

Good luck in getting your situation sorted out,  so to speak-- I'm not sure if there are any good management companies?-- and personally would avoid listings that seem to be "corporate" or not have a personal host paying attention,  from previous negative experiences.

Steven395
Level 1
London, United Kingdom

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.