Dear,
In June 2023, we stayed six nights in an Airbnb apartment in Paris and it was a problem from the beginning. The electricity was defective, forcing my children to use a lens to climb a steep stairway and the Wi-Fi did not work, demanding that we spend about $ 200 on international data. In order for workers to come to correct the Wi-Fi, we were instructed to leave the key in a lock box. (The lights were never fixed.) Two days later, we returned in the afternoon to find that our apartment had robbed, with a laptop, clothes and other missing items. It is not clear how the thief had access to the building – it would have to pass through two gates with key codes – but we think we know how it got to the door. We found a key to the apartment under the Doormat! We spent two days to report reports with the police, who were very thorough and ended up catching the thief. (He was sentenced to six months in prison.) But although Airbnb advertises its insurance coverage in its area, its agents had run us in circles before finally advising us that they would not compensate us. Our security finally paid us about $ 4,000 for our lost goods, but we believe that Airbnb should be responsible and that the company should believe us for our destructive stay and pay us back for the data. Can you help? Cindy, Roslyn, New York
Dear Cindy,
I am sorry that your trip to Paris was so frustrating, I am glad that your safety returns to you for lost objects and I agree that Airbnb should have acted faster and efficiently to help. After my intervention, your company returned $ 3,029 for your stay and $ 200 for internet access.
I am impressed with Paris in the police and keeping your files, which always makes my job easier. It was a smart move by keeping all the communications in writing as well.
An Airbnb spokesman, Javier Hernandez, hastened to answer my questions with a statement and email answers.
“The overwhelming majority of Airbnb stays are happening without a problem and we offer protections to visitors and hosts to the rare event that is not going as planned,” the statement began.
As a regular Airbnb user and journalist who follows the company professionally, I have no quibble with this first part. It is true that most Airbnb stays occur without a problem, just like most restaurant meals appear without food poisoning and most walks at the end of the park without squirrel attacks.
But the actual test for travel companies is how they respond when something goes wrong.
Note that in his statement, Mr Hernandez writes that the company offers protections to both “visitors and hosts”. It is a good reminder to travelers that they are not the only Airbnb customers (both VRBO and all their competitors). As intermediaries, these companies are obliged to perform an act of balancing visitors’ protection while still having their host backs. (Anyone who wants to see the error in action can read through Airbnb’s separate policies for visitors and hosts online.)
Mr Hernandez noted that “the protection of Airbnb’s host responsibility provides up to $ 1 million in coverage if the items of a visitor are stolen or damaged during a stay and the host is considered responsible.”
Airbnb is working with Crawford and Company, a Atlanta -based claim management company to determine responsibility in such cases. For 10 months – 10 months! – You went back and back with a Crawford employee who had sent you documents and photos and repeatedly explaining your situation.
Despite the extensive front and rear and the general courtesy of its messages, its final email to you on April 29, 2024, was an unexpected rejection:
“Unfortunately we can do nothing because the host denies that there were double keys,” he wrote. “A photo under the mat is not proof to us. Therefore, I am obliged to close your request.”
After reading your correspondence with her, as well as the report of the French Police and the court ruling, I am willing to disagree. Initially, why does the regulator just believe that the denial of the host?
(A Crawford spokesman said that with an agreement with the company’s customers, “all the information on claims is confidential.”)
It wasn’t just your photo of a key under a mat. Police did a thorough investigation, you said, including dusting fingerprints and confirming that the key under the matte opened the door). You also sent Airbnb (and I) a judicial document that showed that the burglar had been convicted and that he had used “a hidden set of keys” to enter and rob the apartment.
I can imagine a scenario in which the host would not be responsible: perhaps the burglar was a foreign spy and the lock driver who disarm the gates and forged a key to the apartment door, stole your son’s laptop and nintendo console Believing that it contained a secret situation, and then left the key under the mat as a telephone card. But the fact that your son’s credit card was used minutes later in a neighborhood butcher shop and the local shoe store makes the script unlikely. (The issuer of the credit card returned these expenses.)
It is likely that the repairers who came to correct the Wi-Fi made a copy of the keys and their partner stole you a few days later. This scenario will clear the host of the immediate error. In any case, it is difficult to imagine any situation where you could do better than presenting a judicial document that supports your story and photos.
A travelers lesson can get from your experience is to copy everything you did correctly: contact the police, host and Airbnb itself – that the latter one key step many visitors omit – and keep all the documentation and follow . Even then, the backup insurance proved to be your savior.
Another lesson is that no matter how much protection of Airbnb and competitors they offer, leaving a hotel and holiday rental comes with more exposure to the real conditions of the destination you visit. In the “overwhelming majority” of cases, this is what makes it wonderful. But sometimes the sites reveal their dark side and in many places, the local justice system will be much less helpful and effective than the French have turned out.
The apartment, you will be happy to know, no longer listed on Airbnb. So, in order to try to get the sides of the host of the story, I tried the same Whatsapp number you used, but, as I discovered, no longer belongs to the host’s spokesman. Instead, the image of today’s owner’s profile shows a woman with confidence, who does not appear in the picture. In our brief exchange the person had no idea what I was talking about.
If you need tips on a better travel plan that went wrong, Send an email to trippenup@nytimes.com.
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