Scammed on Airbnb ? It happened to us! Arnaqués sur Airbnb ? Nous aussi!

by Alice
Cozy in the new (the "friend"'s) place!

Scammed on Airbnb? It happened to us too! –
Arnaqués sur Airbnb ? Nous aussi !

Have you ever been scammed on Airbnb? We have.
In this post, you’ll find out the story of what happened to us, but first what you should do if you get scammed on Airbnb and how we dealt with it.

Vous vous êtes déjà fait arnaquer sur Airbnb ? Nous, oui.
Dans cette article vous pourrez lire ce que nous est arrivé, mais d’abord nous vous dirons quoi faire si ça vous arrive

You got scammed? Here’s what to do – Vous vous êtes fait arnaquer ? Voici quoi faire


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First, don’t panic – D’abord, pas de panique 

It happens, you’re not alone, it will get fixed.
If you can, take some pictures of the place (if the place exist), and of course try to reach the host if it applies in your case.
Do not cancel the booking! If you already did, don’t panic. You can probably work it out anyway with Airbnb, some people that I’ve talked to have. But we understood that it’s best if you don’t cancel your booking and do nothing until you’ve reached Airbnb. It will make everything easier.

Ca arrive, vous n’êtes pas tout seul, ça va s’arranger.
Si vous pouvez, pensez à prendre quelques photos du lieu (si le lieu existe), et bien sûr tentez de joindre le propriétaire s’il n’est pas là.
N’annulez pas votre réservation ! Si vous l’avez déjà fait, pas de panique. Vous pourrez sûrement régler quand même le problème avec Airbnb. J’ai parlé à des gens qui l’avaient fait. Mais on a compris que c’était mieux de ne pas annuler et d’attendre que Airbnb s’en charge. Ca facilitera les choses.

Next, reach Airbnb by any means necessary – Ensuite, il vous faut joindre Airbnb par n’importe quel moyen

By that, I mean their telephone numbers according to your location(go in the help section of the website, and at some point you’ll find a telephone sign with “Emergency” written, click and all the numbers will appear), their website by filling a complaint, and Twitter (Twitter is generally a fast and efficient way to reach them so that they can call you).

Par ça, j’entends par leurs numéros de téléphone en privilégiant celle qui correspond à la zone qui vous trouvez (ou la zone France si vous ne parlez pas anglais – vous trouverez la liste en allant dans Contact > Aide > Urgence). Vous pouvez aussi essayer de les joindre sur leur site internet, et sur Twitter (ce qui est souvent un moyen simple, rapide et efficace de les joindre, et ils vous rappellerons ensuite). 

Finally, negotiate – Enfin, négociez

Once you’ve reached Airbnb, they will do their best to help you relocate, or cancel and get a refund. But sometimes, you’ll need to negotiate a little. We were on a super-tight budget and there was nothing on our price (the price of the original booking) in the area. We ended up booking something farther from the center, and Airbnb gave us a voucher to cover 3/4 of the price difference. We only had to pay 40€ more than on the original booking.

Next time? Follow that guide on how to book a good place on Airbnb!

Une fois que vous aurez réussi à joindre Airbnb, ils feront de leur mieux pour vous aider à trouver un nouvel endroit, ou vous rembourseront si vous décidez d’annuler complètement et de ne pas faire une nouvelle réservation sur Airbnb. Mais parfois, vous aurez aussi besoin de négocier un peu. Nous avions un budget extrêmement serré, et il ne restait aucun endroit dans nos prix (le prix de l’endroit que nous avions réservé). On a fini par réserver quelque chose plus loin du centre ville, et Airbnb nous a fourni un bon de réduction couvrant les 3/4 de la différence de prix. Nous avons seulement eu à payer 40€ de plus que sur notre première réservation.

The story of how we got scammed on Airbnb – Ce qui nous est arrivé

Airbnb scam – Arnaque Airbnb

Our favorite Airbnb in Belfast was not available after the only night we had booked. Brigid, the owner, let us stay around until the time of our check-in and asked us if we were sure the person of the next place would be there to greet us, as it was a very cold day. How I wished we had listened to Brigid and called the host… But we didn’t. We jumped on a Uber and 10minutes later, we were in front of a creepy place, with a « to let » sign above the door. It didn’t feel like a Airbnb… We rang the door, but no one answered and there was no light filtering from the windows. So we called the host, and it appeared that « Catherine » had no idea why her name and number were listed on Airbnb and told us she was living in England.
Time to panic!!! Keep in mind that it was freezing and we had all of our bags as we’re moving to Belfast and we’re waiting for our apartment to be ready at the end of the month. To be honest, it took us a few minutes to realize and accept that we had indeed been scammed… It felt so unreal!!
So Simone tried to reach Airbnb by phone, to no avail.

Notre Airbnb préféré à Belfast était complet après l’unique nuit que nous avions réservée. Brigid, la propriétaire, nous avait laissé rester chez elle en attendant l’heure du check-in de notre prochain Airbnb. Avant qu’on parte, elle nous a demandé si on avait contacté les propriétaires pour être sûrs qu’ils soient là à notre arrivée comme il faisait un froid glacial. Bien sûr, nous ne l’avons pas fait ! Je regrette bien de ne pas l’avoir écoutée…. On est monté dans un Uber et 10 minutes plus tard nous étions devant la porte d’un endroit un peu flippant, avec une pancarte « à louer » au-dessus de la porte… On a sonné mais pas de réponse, et aucune lumière visible par la fenêtre. On a donc appelé la propriétaire, qui s’est révélée ne pas être au courant que son numéro et son nom étaient sur Airbnb, et déclarant vivre en Angleterre… Ok, maintenant on peut paniquer !! Dites-vous bien qu’il faisait vraiment très froid et que nous avions tous nos sacs comme nous emménageons dans un appart à Belfast à la fin du mois.
Pour être totalement honnête, il nous a fallu un moment avant de réaliser et d’accepter qu’on s’était fait avoir… C’était tellement surréaliste!! 
Donc Simone a essayé de joindre Airbnb au téléphone, sans succès.

Simone trying to figure out what to do after we got scammed on Airbnb

Simone trying to figure out what to do after we got scammed on Airbnb

Dealing with the situation – Gérer la situation

As we were being transformed into icicles, we decided to try and find a warm place to deal with this new situation for us. After walking a while in a quite desolated part of the city, we found a café…. that was closing a few minutes before we came in. At 4pm. Anyway, we found another place 100m farther, that would close at 6pm. That left us some time to try to reach Airbnb and find a solution.
Once in the second café, I sent messages to the Airbnb « hotline » on Twitter, and also got the support of some amazing travel bloggers and girls who travel, who really helped we keep my sanity!! I’m super grateful for their help, and some of them even retweeted my message to Airbnb or sent tweets to Airbnb themselves to help me out!

Comme on se les gelait vraiment, on a décidé de se bouger pour trouver un endroit chaud où gérer cette situation critique et totalement inédite pour nous. Après un bon moment de marche dans cette partie de la ville franchement déprimante, nous avons trouvé un café… qui fermait quelques minutes après notre arrivée. A 16h. Bref. On a ensuite trouvé un autre café 100m plus loin, qui lui fermait à 18h. Ca nous laissait un peu de temps pour essayer de joindre Airbnb pour trouver une solution.
Une fois au chaud, j’ai envoyé des messages à Airbnb sur Twitter, et j’ai eu le soutien de travel bloggeuses et de voyageuses géniales qui m’ont vraiment aidée à garder mon calme ! Je suis super reconnaissante de leur aide, et certaines ont même retweeté mes messages ou en ont directement envoyé à Airbnb pour m’aider…

Walking around to find a place to deal with the situation

Walking around to find a place to deal with the situation

Airbnb’s help – le coup de main de Airbnb

Finally, Simone managed to reach Airbnb by phone, but it so happened that they had technical issues that day. Talk about bad karma……. They couldn’t transfer us to the right technical team, so we had to wait for them to call us back. After a while they finally did, and sent us a list of Aibnbs in the area, that we had to message to see if they had some availability to host us for the week.
At that point, we had to pack our things because it was 6pm already and the café was closing. Fortunately, there was a bar 5 min away that had free wifi, so we went there and had a glass of wine for our troubles!!
On the list Airbnb sent us, only three fitted our criterion, so we messaged them. Only one of them had immediate availability, and also for the whole week we had booked. We messaged back Airbnb and told them that we could go there, but couldn’t afford the price surge compared to our first booking.
They called us back saying that they would give us a substantial voucher that would cover most of the price difference. We just had to wait to receive it in our account and wait for them to cancel themselves the first booking (the scam one) before rebooking with the new person.
We did that and everything worked out perfectly, we only had to add 40€ to match the price difference after the Airbnb voucher.
We are quite happy of how Airbnb dealt with that and helped us relocate and match the price difference!

Simone a finalement réussi à joindre Airbnb au téléphone, mais ils avaient (évidemment) un problème technique ce jour-là. C’est ça d’avoir un karma pourri !! Ils ne pouvaient pas nous passer le service compétent, et on a donc du attendre qu’ils nous rappellent. Une fois fait, ils nous ont envoyé une liste des endroits dispo à Belfast, avec pour mission d’envoyer des messages aux propriétaires pour voir s’ils pouvaient nous héberger. Seulement 3 annonces entraient dans nos critères, donc nous leur avons écrit. Une seule personne était prête à nous recevoir le soir même et pour la semaine entière que nous avions réservée. Nous avons donc envoyé un message à Airbnb pour leur dire que cet endroit était disponible, mais que nous ne pouvions pas payer la différence de prix qui était vraiment importante. Ils (Airbnb) nous ont rappelés immédiatement pour nous informer qu’ils nous faisaient parvenir un bon de réduction substantiel qui permettrait de couvrir presque toute la différence de prix. Au final, nous n’avons payé que 40€ de plus. Nous avons donc attendu d’avoir le bon et que Airbnb annulent d’eux-mêmes la première réservation afin de faire la nouvelle avec la réduction.
Nous sommes vraiment satisfaits de la façon dont Airbnb a géré le problème et nous a aidé d’un point de vue pratique et financier à régler la situation.

Unfortunately, it was not over… – Malheureusement, ça n’est pas terminé… 

The non-available availability – La disponibilité indisponible

You can imagine that at that point, we only just wanted to get into a warm place, take a shower and sleep. Our whole day had been wasted, and we were incredibly tense. Even though neither Simone nor I lost our temper at any moment during this ordeal, which surprises me, to be honest! I would have expected myself to lose my shit at some point, but nope. Maybe I’m getting better at travelling issues. Or maybe I still haven’t registered we got scammed on Airbnb.
Anyway, once we had booked with the new host, she sent us a message saying that she had made a mistake and didn’t have space for us for the night (can you believe this??), but that she would send us to a friend’s place and we would be able to check in the next day. At that point we just wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, so we agreed (what were we to do, anyway?!). The place seems farther than this one already was, but the house was nice and our room was great, so not complaining on that part.

Vous imaginez bien qu’après tout ça, on voulait juste un endroit chaud où se poser, prendre une douche chaude et aller se coucher ! Notre journée entière a été gâchée, et nous étions vraiment tendus. Même si ni Simone ni moi n’avons perdu notre sang froid pendant tout ça, ce qui me surprend, pour être honnête. J’aurais imaginé péter un câble, mais non. Peut-être que je deviens meilleure dans la gestion des galères de voyage ? Ou peut-être que je n’ai toujours pas réalisé ce qui s’est passé ! 
Bref, une fois qu’on a réservé avec le nouvel endroit, la propriétaire nous a envoyé un message comme quoi elle avait fait une erreur et n’avait pas de chambre pour nous pour cette nuit-là (la blague……….), mais qu’elle nous envoyait chez une amie et qu’on pourrait retourner chez elle le lendemain. A ce moment-là on était tellement au bout du rouleau qu’on voulait juste aller quelque part, donc nous avons accepté (qu’est-ce qu’on aurait pu faire d’autre, de toute façon ?!). La maison de « l’amie » semblait encore plus éloigné, mais la maison était sympa et notre chambre vraiment chouette, donc on se plaint pas de se côté-là.

Finally arrived at the official place... before we had to move again

Finally arrived at the official place… before we had to move again

All over again – Et rebelote 

The next morning however, we received another message from the official host, stating that she had made another mistake, and still couldn’t host us for the second night either. You can probably imagine how well we received that news (clue: not well)…
In the end, we decided to stay in the place we’ve spent the night, as it seemed more likely to be more reliable. Also Simone started work the next day, so moving around every day and checking-in and out of places wasn’t optimal… The place, although a bit further from the center, was really nice and the host was great.

Mais le lendemain matin, on a reçu un nouveau message de notre hôte officielle nous disant qu’elle s’était encore trompée (ou plutôt qu’elle se fout de notre poire), et ne pouvait toujours pas nous héberger avant la nuit suivante. Vous avez sûrement une idée de la façon dont on a reçu la nouvelle au petit-déj (indice : mal)… 
Au final, nous avons décidé de rester pour toute la semaine là où nous avons passé la première nuit, comme il semblait que compter sur l’endroit officiel ne soit pas une option. En plus Simone commençait à travailler le lendemain, donc on ne pouvait pas passer notre temps à bouger d’Airbnb tous les jours… Le nouvel endroit, bien que plus éloigné du centre ville, s’est révélé vraiment chouette, tout comme l’hôte!


If you don’t feel like staying in a place through Airbnb because you don’t want that to happen or you’re more of hotel kind of person, know that the rest of our accommodations are usually booked through Booking.com. If that’s more your cup of tea, head on to this great guide on how to get the best prices on Booking.com!



Booking.com

Cozy in the new (the "friend"'s) place!

Cozy in the new (the “friend”‘s) place!


Pin for later Airbnb

Pin for later 🙂

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43 comments

cochet michelle 13 February 2017 - 18 h 33 min

c’est la galère l’IRLANDE !!!!bon courage les jeunes !!!!tout va s’arranger !!!les gens ne sont pas sérieux bisous

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Alice Cardy 13 February 2017 - 18 h 36 min

Je ne sais pas si c’est l’Irlande, mais c’est la galère !! Normalement ça devrait être bon, là… Bisous!
Alice.

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Kevin's Travel Diary 16 February 2017 - 1 h 26 min

Omg what a story, such a shame that people scam people. It really annoys me. I really hope things get better from now on. Enjoy the rest of your trip.

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Alice Cardy 17 February 2017 - 19 h 52 min

Yes it’s really frustrating but at least it makes for a good story 😉 Thanks!

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Thomas 16 February 2017 - 10 h 55 min

What a nightmare! We had the same situation in Russia and had to find something else at 10pm. Hope everything worked out well in the end?

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Alice Cardy 17 February 2017 - 19 h 52 min

Oh my… It mustn’t have been fun either!! It worked out pretty fine so far, fingers crossed!

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Erica Coffman 16 February 2017 - 17 h 32 min

Oh no! What a nightmare! I’m sorry you had to deal with that!

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Alice Cardy 17 February 2017 - 19 h 53 min

Thanks for your concern Erica 🙂 Now it’s all better!

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Travelingaddress 17 February 2017 - 11 h 06 min

Incroyable! Heureusement ça ne nous est jamais arrivé! Heureusement qu’Airbnb a été efficace et que vous avez trouvé un autre lieu d’hébergement ..

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Alice Cardy 17 February 2017 - 19 h 53 min

Oui, Airbnb a vraiment bien géré tout ça, heureusement!

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Jen Morrow 17 February 2017 - 18 h 13 min

That is terrible! Calling ahead to confirm is so critical. I have stayed in VRBO vacation rentals (never AirBNB) and I am so worried about scams. I hope this is resolved for you soon.

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Alice Cardy 17 February 2017 - 19 h 54 min

Yes now we’ll make sure to have a contact with the host before going! It’s pretty resolved now so fingers crossed for next time!

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Kari (Happy Coconuts Travel Blog) 17 February 2017 - 18 h 26 min

How frustrating!! I can only imagine…but in my experience these inconvenient traveler tales are always the most fun to write about or tell stories about. I mean how boring would our blogs/books/stories be if everything worked out perfectly all the time? Better luck on your next spot and Happy Travels! 🙂

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Alice Cardy 17 February 2017 - 19 h 55 min

Exactly, Kari! I mean I wasn’t too thrilled when it happened, but it made everything a little less boring 😉 It felt like a crazy adventure that doesn’t happen too often and now it’s fun to talk about! Thank you and happy travels to you too!

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Carol @ Get There | Get Lost 17 February 2017 - 18 h 42 min

That’s terrible. There are always people that ruin experiences for others, no? Sorry you had to go through that!

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Alice Cardy 17 February 2017 - 19 h 56 min

Yes, unfortunately some people make everything harder for the rest of us… But fortunately it’s all over now!

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amanda 17 February 2017 - 21 h 54 min

That is crazy. This why I am afraid to use Airbnb. I travel with my kids and if this had happened with them it would have been really dramatic. Not enough wine in the world could make it better haha.

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Alice Cardy 19 February 2017 - 13 h 29 min

Haha yes, I totally understand your fear! Even though if you stick to properties with a lot of good reviews, you should be fine. Cheers to that!!

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Mikkel 17 February 2017 - 22 h 56 min

That totally sucks! I didn’t realize you could get scammed like that. Now I know. Thank you for sharing your story!

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Alice Cardy 19 February 2017 - 13 h 29 min

I didn’t know before it happened to me too! Crazy…

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Sheena 17 February 2017 - 22 h 57 min

Interesting read!

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Alice Cardy 19 February 2017 - 13 h 30 min

Thank you 🙂

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Sarah 17 February 2017 - 23 h 43 min

Wow! That is crazy. I hope you end up with a super awesome apartment once it’s finished.

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Alice Cardy 19 February 2017 - 13 h 31 min

What we ended up having was pretty good, we should put an update on Tuesday when everything is totally over. But I really can’t wait to get our own apartment, after 9 months of having no ‘home’!

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Global Brunch 18 February 2017 - 17 h 12 min

Oh no, what a nightmare. So glad to hear that you managed to find a place to stay in the end. Definitely not how you want to start a new chapter. When I moved to England as a student my first day was horrible. Everything possible went wrong, but I ended up loving the city. I hope you will too.

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Alice Cardy 27 February 2017 - 19 h 37 min

It ended up being fine, and same as you with England we really like the city anyway 😉

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Jurga 18 February 2017 - 19 h 17 min

What a terrible experience! People like that give the whole concept of AirBNB a bad name.

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Alice Cardy 27 February 2017 - 19 h 38 min

Yes, it’s so bad because otherwise it’s a great service!

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Megan | Red Around The World 18 February 2017 - 20 h 46 min

That sounds like quite the ordeal! At least Airbnb was helpful with finding a new place and with the voucher!

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Alice Cardy 27 February 2017 - 19 h 39 min

Yes, fortunately they helped and the issue was nicely resolved 🙂

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Priyadarshini Rajendran 18 February 2017 - 21 h 17 min

OMG! It must have been a nightmare. Thanks for the warning. I never had a clue that such things happen with Airbnb. Good that you got some place to stay finally. Keeping my fingers crossed for your stay to work out well.

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Alice Cardy 27 February 2017 - 19 h 40 min

It wasn’t fun haha! You’re welcoming, I hope that at least if that happens to someone who has read the article they won’t feel too desperate and will now how to react! It worked out fine in the end, thanks!

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Daisy 18 February 2017 - 23 h 19 min

That’s so annoying! But I’m glad it worked out (somewhat). Hoping for a positive update xx

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Alice Cardy 27 February 2017 - 19 h 41 min

Thanks, it worked out fine even though the whole ordeal has been quite annoying you’re right!

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Rebecca 18 February 2017 - 23 h 41 min

Oh God, how awful! I can’t wait to read the update and see how it turned out.
What is AirBnB’s policy of punishment to the fake hosts, if they can do anything? I’d imagine they’d have to list their personal details so do they get fined as well as blacklisted?

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Alice Cardy 27 February 2017 - 20 h 00 min

Fortunately it turned out fine in the end but so many adventures to go through!!! I have no idea what happens with fake hosts… It’ll be interesting to know, though!

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Scarlet Mansfield 19 February 2017 - 0 h 41 min

Wow that’s some horrible luck you’ve got there! It’s good though that airbnb sorted you out, it’s just such a pain the second host was useless too :/. Did you tell airbnb about that as well? Or had you just given up by this point?

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Alice Cardy 27 February 2017 - 20 h 02 min

We were so angry at the second host after all of this….. We did tell Airbnb, but their policy is that if you accept, they’re fine with it. We accepted because the friend’s place (who happens to also be a Airbnb host) was nice and probably less noisy than the official one. But the official host should have transfered the booking, which she didn’t do, so we have no idea if we got ripped off or not but at that point we just didn’t want to fight anymore…

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Nicki 19 February 2017 - 13 h 46 min

This is always my biggest fear when booking with Airbnb. It has actually changed the way I travel with them. I only book instant book places that are verified and have more than 20 reviews. But even still – I have been scammed that way myself. Just recently actually in Scotland.
Sorry you had to go through that and I am very glad Airbnb helped out with the mess.

What ended up happening?

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Alice Cardy 27 February 2017 - 20 h 05 min

I’m sorry you also got scammed… Not super reassuring as I plan to go to Scotland while we live here. I’ll try to be incredibly careful but that’s proof it can always happen…
About the rest, we stayed at the “friend”‘s place. It was nice enough but the official host never transfered the booking (they dealt with money together) and because we didn’t have the will and energy to fight we just let it go…

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Dóra 19 February 2017 - 20 h 54 min

OMG what a story! I am so sorry! What the fuck is wrong with fate and karma. I hope from now on everything will be fine! Your final room seems to be cosy. I wish you the best!

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Alice Cardy 27 February 2017 - 20 h 06 min

The final room was indeed nice, but then we booked another Airbnb which wasn’t so great….. Hopefully now karma will stop going at us, we’re moving in our new apartment (we’re renting for real for a few months) tomorrow and we’re so happy about it!!

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A Weekend in Belfast - A (vegan) Guide - Take Your Bag 30 March 2017 - 20 h 42 min

[…] though we’ve had a misadventure with an Airbnb, it’s still what we recommend to choose for a weekend in Belfast. It’s budget-friendly […]

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