Landlord disappeared with deposit

[Mohmed1]

I have used Airbnb for a few days stay in a flat in London. Before arrival the landlord asked for £350 as a deposit, but clearly stated in the message that the deposit is for breaking house rules regarding having additional guests or neighbours complaining about noise, none of which has happened. In the message the landlord said the deposit is not for damages (although no damages caused either).

The deposit was supposed to be refunded 1 to 2 working days from checkout, but it has been almost 2 weeks with daily messages to airbnb and to the landlord with no success. Today we received a message from airbnb saying the deposit is with the landlord and they can do nothing about it and that I need to negotiate with him to get it back, and they simply closed the resolution case.

I was shocked honestly when airbnb said the money is in the landlord bank account, as I made the payment through www.airbnb.com/resolutions. I thought the deposit (as is typically the case) is kept securely with a third party.

I of course know that the landlord is trying to punish me because I left a review on their listed. The reason for that is I booked the place for our honeymoon and I messaged the landlord asking if the place is suitable for the occasion. They said yes, but when we arrived I found the place is in a basement underground with damp smell and lots of noise from the street above, plus a load of other issues with the listing. All of which is of course omitted from the listing description.

I have asked airbnb to reopen the case and do their job to mediate between me and the landlord to get my money back. The landlord's only excuse for the delay is that they are waiting for the cleaner to go and check the flat, but why do they need to check the flat when the deposit is only for additional guests and noise during the stay anyway.

For £1500 for 4 nights I would have expected a better experience and I really trusted Airbnb platform to be safe and secure which is obviously not the case. The first disappointment is with the landlord attitude but the main one is with the lack of support I have seen from airbnb. Now I have to spend my own time for almost 2 weeks and go through all of this stress to get my own money back which in my view completely unfair!

[Sarah977]

@Mohmed1  No, I have never heard of Airbnb altering reviews, aside from blocking out personal information, swear words, etc. Are you sure the part that you say is missing wasn't in the private feedback section you filled out?

Something else that is odd is that I can't see this host's listings (I wanted to check on how they describe the place). The main listing photos don't show up and if you click on them, it just takes you to the Airbnb main page. Like she had her listings suspended.

But just reading through the first page of her reviews, there are tons of bad ones. So if you ignored this, you have to shoulder part if the blame for your  experience. Other guests  warned you.

As an aside, as Andrew pointed out, sharing a bad or challenging situation with a partner is often not a bad thing. Guests who have the attitude that their holiday was "ruined"  because something didn't work out, will find that travel is more challenging and less enjoyable than people who take adversity in stride and try to make the best of it. 

There can be things happen that are outside a host's control, like an area-wide power outage. Some guests will simply light candles, go buy a block of ice so their food doesn't go bad, play cards by candlelight, and remember it as an unexpected, but not unpleasant time. Other guests will be totally disgruntled and say it ruined their holiday. Who do you think are happier people?

It's a matter of attitude- is your glass half full or half empty?

A couple I knew once went on a camping trip, and it started raining right after they left and rained the entire time. We felt sorry for them, imagining them drenched and cold, and stuck in the tent all day. When they got back and we offered sympathy and asked how it went, the woman got a huge grin and said "Fantastic!"  They stayed in the tent, and made love all day every day.

FYI you can leave a response to the host's review.

[Mohmed1]

@Sarah977 I fully agree with every word you said and yes of course we tried to make the most out of it. We both travelled from different countries to meet for this honeymoon and we had 2 difficult years to get there due to covid and other issues. We were very disappointed with the misleading advertisement and although we managed at the end, it felt really unfair to spend all that money and time looking and end up in this place (I have photos but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post them here!).

I always go out of my way not to leave negative reviews to anyone and I know it could affect someone's business, but this review is really due as the listing is so misleading. 

I wouldn't have been so harsh if the landlord was a bit more responsive and sympathic but it was the exact opposite. We actually wasted most of the first day trying to reason with them to just refund us our money and let us go but until the night they refused, then around 20:00 they said you can pay for the first night and leave tomorrow. It was too late then and we didn't want to waste the 2nd day looking for a new place so had to accept our fate.

Anyhow now I just need to challenge this negative review or just delete airbnb account and not use it in future. 

[Anonymous]

@Mohmed1   This is the review that is attributed to you on the host's profile:

'don't get me wrong the flat is not too bad but we thought dropping the basement location from the description mislead us and even after informing the landlord it is for our honeymoon we would have appreciated if this was highlighted to us. as soon as we checked in we asked for our money back and after a lot of arguments and a few hours and lots of fighting the landlord agreed to charge only the first night. this was too late for us to find a new place, even at double our budget. we were forced to stay the 4 nighys but we felt our honeymoon was ruined by this.'

This doesn't look like a redacted review to me - there's no glaring absence of a sentence or break in the flow. It's also not Airbnb's policy to selectively edit reviews;  if they decide that the content breaks their code, they just delete the whole thing. So I'm guessing that you wrote this in the heat of the moment and maybe forgot which details you included.

Anyway, here are some quotes from other previous guests' reviews of this host:

"AVOID AT ALL COSTS any listings Zoe or alias Leila have. "

"I would strongly advise anyone thinking of booking this property to find somewhere else, the listing of the property is in-accurate"

"Awful."

"WARNING! DO NOT STAY HERE! Be ready to be disappointed and ripped off."

"Unfortunately had to get Airbnb to cancel our stay at this apartment. "

"DO NOT STAY. We had an absolutely terrible experience with this Airbnb, I was electrocuted [sic] by the cable running out of the window and spent my night in hospital"

"Pics did not represent actual Wasnt ready for check in on regular time, let alone the early checkin we requested. Bathroom was pretty bad, seriously needs an upgrade."

"DO NOT STAY HERE! photos look nothing like the actual place. It’s a dive. "

"Zoe is absolutely rude and horrible"

"this is just pure unorganisation which has unfortunately completely ruined our trip. Very dissatisfied.

 at quite a high price there were definitely a few things that could have been better."

"Well.. this was my first air bnb experience and I doubt I would do it again….. there was things listed on this property that weren’t delivered"

"Do not stay here if you want a clean and well equipped property. "

"I do not feel I can recommend this flat"

"Disappointed as we was due to check in but 45 minutes before they relocated us to a different home that looked nothing like what we had paid the money for."

"Its very small , worn and old. Unpleasant smell throughout the property and main building - It is very tired and requires to be freshened up to be able to be as per the pictures advertised."

"might have to rethink the next stay.."

"Avoid booking this place - terrible stay, very dirty overall "

"Do not stay in this place the place advertised is not the same as the place we stayed and looked more like a council flat than a stylish apartment. "

Bro, each one of those 18 comments comes from a different review of this host from this year, and it's just the tip of the iceberg. It's amazing how this host has been able to keep operating - if you offer a cheap flat with a jacuzzi in Shoreditch, apparently there's an endless supply of suckers who haven't yet figured out that if something seems to good to be true, it probably is. And who didn't bother looking at the reviews before they booked. But everything you needed to know about this place was right there under your nose all along, so your new wife has earned the right to give you a firm spanking over this one. Hope you both enjoy it!

[Mohmed1]

@Anonymous none of these comments are related to the property I booked. It appears as a new listing with one review that was positive. Maybe it was my fault to go chase the landlords other listing are reviews but still this doesn't change the fact that there is very little you can do once you book through airbnb and face an issue. Their support was next to none. On the day we checked in it took them 4 hours to get in touch with the landlord and after all they came back empty handed saying there is nothing they could do.

[Anonymous]

@Mohmed1 Well, now you know - it's not enough to just check the listing's reviews, you also have to click to the host's profile to check their other reviews. When a listing has a bad rating score, a dodgy host just deletes it and makes a new one. 

This really is an embarrassment and an outrage to all the hosts who genuinely want their guests to be happy, like all the ones who contribute to forums like this. We  hate that people like your lousy landlord give us all a bad name. But we also know that behind all the slick branding, Airbnb is basically just Craigslist plus graphics, so it's frustrating to see even tech-savvy youngsters putting too much trust into it. You're right, it's totally unregulated peer-to-peer commerce, and there is a lot that can go horribly wrong if you're asleep at the wheel. But OK, you survived one bad experience and learned from it. So now you can plan a second honeymoon, but this time look to the reviews and make no assumptions about what your host thinks you mean by "honeymoon" (spoiler: the two people having it are the only ones who care how special it is).

And even if you're on a tight budget, don't try to save money by booking somewhere that's just improbably cheap in a super-expensive city. Instead, go for a more affordable, less touristy destination where your money goes farther - it's better for you and also for the local economy.

[Mohmed1]

Also just to confirm, the review has been completely rewritten and all the specific details were left out. I know because luckily I kept a copy of it in my notes, as we do 😉. Airbnb are investigating how and why the review was changed. 

[Mohmed1]

And no I didn't go for something cheap. The photos looked very nice and the description too and I sent a messag to the landlord to ask them if the place is suitable for a honeymoon and if the photos are accurate and they confirmed  but that had nothing to do with the reality.

I also dont know what you call cheap but £1500 for 4 night is not that cheap to me. I lived in London for a few years before myself and I know the area very well and that's why I booked there. I was prepared to double my budget on the day to get another place if thry let me cancel but they didn't. After all in a situation like this money becomes the last concern.

Don't get me wrong the idea behind airbnb is great but until they tighten their regulations to protect the customers it will be always a hit and mess. If I learnt anything from this experience is that airbnb are 100% biased and only look after their landlords. Not much different from your typical letting agent!

[Sarah977]

@Mohmed1  If that is what you took away from this experience, that's unfortunate, as it's completely false. Spend  some time reading through posts in the Hosting and Help sections to see how hosts get shafted by Airbnb in favor of guests, on a daily basis.

It is true that Airbnb takes a different approach  with property managers who have tons of listings- they tend to let them get away with things other hosts can't because they bring in so much money in Airbnb service fees.

But small-time hosts get their listings suspended if a guest calls and makes up lies about bedbugs, cameras, the place being dirty, etc. And Airbnb refuses to remove guest reviews filled with lies, which are referred to as revenge reviews. The guest gets their knickers in a knot over being called out for bad behavior during the stay, then retaliates by leaving a scathing review. And if you know how to read through reviews, it's obvious the guest is lying- the host will have 100 reviews saying the place was immaculately clean and the revenge reviewer claims it was a filthy dump.

[Anonymous]

@Mohmed1   Heh. When Airbnb says "we are investigating," they mean the same thing as someone from Texas saying "bless your heart."

[Mohmed1]

The last update from airbnb confirms they were not supposed to rewrite my review. Let's see what their investigation comes back with!

"Now, rewriting a review on behalf of our user is not possible here. Airbnb cannot write or rewrite a review even if we get approval from our users.

I'm not sure how it happened that your review has been modified, but I'll take a good look at that one as well.".

[Mohmed1]

The final verdict from airbnb is that they didn't rewrite my review which is a blatant lie. I know exactly what I wrote and I know what they published on my behalf.

My take from this case is that never to trust reviews on airbnb.