Can a Customer Get Refund from Airbnb for Bad Neighborhood?
There have been too many complaints raised against the company Airbnb recently for providing accommodations in bad locality. The customers are claiming that getting refund from the company is becoming a mountain sized task for them. In spite of the repeated follow ups through phone calls and mail they are not being responded back properly. The customers had to literally fight over the phone to get the customer care people respond them back.
House took on rental for summer internship in Texas
In Texas a house was taken for rental through Airbnb for two months by a student for a summer internship. The house was located in a bad locality and all of a sudden one day the car of the student and their friend’s was broken into by some local guys. Their primary motive of breaking into cars is to steal the electronic items in the car like musical system, etc., When similar incident happened to the neighbor’s car also the students witnessed the guys running away into a nearby construction site, which means the guys are nowhere from outside and they belong to the same locality and the possibility of them to come again is relatively high.
The moment they decided to search for a new home and cancel this contract of theirs with Airbnb. From then on the students are trying to get the refund from the company through various mails and calls to the customer care. After filing the case with the police with all the valid proof the company agreed to pay a refund of about two thousand dollars. However Airbnb argued in the court stating that such mistakes are purely not because of the owner and it involves external factors but at the end it was stated that it is company’s responsibility to protect their customers from such bad experiences.
The students hold proof for paying about $5500 as rent for the house for two months in prior and they filled a case demanding for a refund of $2700 which would be their second month’s rent that they did not use. After the company has agreed to pay about two thousand dollars the students are trying to reach out to them to negotiate but couldn’t. They could have escalated it to higher officials in Airbnb by sending mails for better results.
How to know whether the rental is safe to stay?
A question may arise that, ‘Isnt Airbnb’s responsibility to have a check of the neighborhood before signing in a contract with the owner?’. Ethically, Yes! But it never happens which means there is no guarantee for the customer that the rental is safe.
Hence it is always advisable for the customer to check the locality before booking for the rental. However the company would be able to check only whether the apartment or house is crime-free and it could not afford taking a complete survey for each locality.
Even though the house is of trouble-free there may be chances for local guys around to break into the cars. Along with this Airbnb also offers some safety tips for would-be guests on its site itself which can be given a read before taking the house for rent through them. The link is as follows https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/241/i-m-a-guest–what-are-some-safety-tips-i-can-follow.
Points to be taken care while booking a rental. After deciding the location research about the city and the neighbourhood by taking help of the locals or online tools like trip advisor to get the actual picture of the area. By getting attracted to the offers displayed online never book the accommodation through Airbnb in a hurry. Take enough time and proceed doing it. It is the responsibility of the individual to find a location which has easier access to restaurants, super markets and other essential shops though walk so that there might not be any need to take cab everytime one has to go out.
Google Street View can also be used to check the locality to know how it looks like and how far the other places are from the rental house.
Even hotels are worth giving a try inspite of the relatively higher cost for some kind of reasons like safety, convenience, etc.,
It is upto the individual to check whether the neighborhood is safe from theft even by coming down on their own once or twice to get a clear picture as Airbnb would be ready only to call their place as habitable which doesn’t mean it is free from theft and all.
Before booking the accommodation they can speak to the locals or non-Airbnb residents near by and check with them the living condition prevalent over the locality.
Author Bio : Anand Rajendran is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zoplay,a best android apps development company in Chennai. As a digital marketer, his main objective is to create new apps with latest coding scripts. Renters Script available from his company is mainly meant for Ios and Android users which is also Airbnb clone script.