Air BNB scam - what should I do?

No kidding. I haven't accepted anything yet.

 

It's a bummer all the way around. Good luck with your resolution.

 

I don't have advice for you, just wanted to relay we had some bad experiences with VRBO and rental owners. The last one was on the Big Island of Hawaii. We started in Kona for a few days at a hotel and then went to the East side for a few weeks. In Hilo we rented a house that was bordering a park and the ocean. Billed as a house with an ocean view. We were to receive the door passcode at 1pm on the day we checked out of the hotel in Kona. Around 5pm we still hadn't gotten it, were in Kona for 6 hours after checking out of the hotel (11am checkout) and wondering what the hell to do - drive over to Hilo at night with the chance we wouldn't have a place to stay or get a room in the hotel we just checked out of.

We had dinner and finally the passcode was sent. Over to Hilo we drove that evening and got to the rental house after dark. Without going into a loooong rant I'll summarize -

*Bugs everywhere. I have pictures of the ceiling with dozens of I-don't-know-what bugs crawling around. This is the tropics, so you expect some bugs, but this was excess. Other reviews, some from islanders, mention this was excessive.

*Mildew build-up around fixtures and urine smell at both toilets was nauseating.

*Horizontal surfaces (tabletops, kitchen counters, etc.) were clean, but vertical surfaces (cabinet doors, side of coffee table, etc.) were tacky/sticky. Quick pass with damp paper towel showed a thick accumulation of grime.

*The floors throughout the house were sticky (tile). We couldn't walk barefoot as it felt like a theater floor. There was this weird tearing sound when you walked barefoot as you skin stuck slightly and peeled away from the floor as you lifted up.

*The sheets on the bed were black and you could see all kinds of hair and who knows what on them, and towels were dark brown, couldn’t tell if they were clean. Who has black sheets?! Had to run them all through the wash the evening we arrived, just to be sure. We ended up going to Target and buying new sheets the next day.

*We spent most of a day cleaning the toilets, mopping the floors, wash the shower curtain twice (a lot of mold on this) and other cleaning tasks.

*The shower stall floor had over a 12-inch drop from the rest of the bathroom floor with no grab bars. If you have mobility problems or bad knees or hips, this was a real hazard.

*There is a half-inch gap under the front door, so anything could crawl in at any time.

*It was not a stand-alone house as advertised; it is a duplex with a tenant whose unit faces the beach.

We contacted the owner, told them about the conditions, mentioned we had pictures of everything, and asked to have the cleaner come back (if they even came before) and address the issues. The cleaning fee charged was hefty, larger than what you might consider normal. No reply. Sent another communication. No reply. We contacted VRBO and got no help. Looking at the reviews we see others have had the same issues. This experience burned us on the whole rentals from owners who have no experience, or desire, to run a business well and just want to make $.

 

I'm surprised the other reviews didn't scare you away. Hopefully an accumulation of negative reviews will help others.

 

Just walk away. Lessons learned and don't do it again. It's interesting when people say go to court sue people do this according to this do that in court. Its current state of affairs people.

 

I hope you challenged the charge to your credit card.

Made me nauseated just reading what you wrote

 

TBH my other half was having a major meltdown. We went to the next place (different part of the island) after that and it was the complete opposite; perfect in every way. At that point revisiting that shitshow of an experience was last on my list. Even after we got back I had to balance fighting it and bringing up/unleashing the bad feelings (and mood) in her vs letting it go and having some peace. I chose peace.

The perfect place after the grime house - off grid and rural, where the only man made sound we heard in a week was a dog bark once and a chainsaw far off once. Amazing. The Ohana was put together, furnished and stocked like it was a clean, well cared for home.

So we have had mixed success with VRBO type rentals, but I guess that also happens with hotels. The nice thing about house rentals is washing machines, kitchens and, sometimes, privacy and space.

 

Airbnb wont help?

 

I entirely agree with this. They should have the power to reverse a review and refund a guest of their money if their experience was very poor and not accurate to what the original ad listed.

I feel like Airbnb has really gone downhill in the recent times. They used to be better priced as well, now it's almost better to stay in a hotel.

 

Had a few similar experiences so we did this

 

My biggest issue with ABNB is that they never list the full price in the search list.
They already know the additional charges so why not list them right away.
You see a great offer and once the service fees are added it is just not even worth considering.

 

Geckos aint doin thier jobs!

 

We did have house Geckos in both places, which we were cool with. I guess at the grimy house there were too many, or they weren't tasty. There were at least a dozen of these (1st pic) on the ceiling at any one time. We'd get rid of them, then not long after more would come.

At the perfect house, we would sit outside on the lanai in the morning with our coffee. 2 house Geckos would jump from the peak of the roof onto the clear roof of the lanai with loud thumps (Lanai in the pic I posted above). It startled us the first time, mostly because it was so quiet, but not after that. We'd watch them go down the roof and jump into the bushes to go get breakfast. They didn't mind having their picture taken.

 

Well no centipedes. I slippah slapped a foot long and it turned around and chased me!

 

Lol! I remember reading a post from a guy in Puna. He had to use BBQ tongs to grab one of those and dispose of it as it kept coming at him.

There are a number of things that are hard to believe about the Big Island: 1) parts of the east side average 22ft of rain in a year, and 2) giant fracking centipedes will run you down and give you a painful (poisonous?) bite!