Nowadays, we face a peculiar dilemma when we try to shop online or book a place to stay.
Not only have we learned that we can’t really trust the pictures that sellers include in their listings, but there’s no guarantee that the reviews we see are genuine either.
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Thus, we’re left in a bizarre position where we don’t want to buy anything with too many negative reviews, but we also don’t want anything with too few negative reviews because it’s hard not to think the listing has been astroturfed with false praise.
And the results of such a situation have a lot to do with why one woman will find it hard to trust Airbnb from here on out.
On June 30, TikTok user @phoenruber released a video in which she explained why she felt that Airbnb had betrayed her trust.
And as Bored Panda outlined , the listing she found seemed promising but ended up creating a saga that saw her fight to reduce an $1,195 bill to $324.
It’s worth noting that prior to her stay, she never expected to be in the lap of luxury.
As she shared in her video, the photos included in the listing made the house seem old, but cozy enough to suit her purposes.
And while she found the scarcity of photos of the place suspicious, the number of five-star reviews were enough to convince her to book the house.
However, she realized she had been duped when she actually saw the place she was supposed to spend 10 weeks at.
Not only did the amount of clutter in the house make it look like it belonged in Hoarders , but neither the shower nor the air conditioning worked, and she came home to a latched screen door every night.
Since she worked nights, that meant she had to call the owners every time she came back.
Although she was planning to just push through, she became emboldened when her commenters told her to seek a refund and to get out.
As she stated towards the end of the video, “Someone save me from this nightmare.”
Although her host promised to fix everything, no action was taken and the TikTok user didn’t feel safe, so she left after spending 11 nights there.
Unfortunately, her problems didn’t end there as her case with Airbnb initially saw them try to charge her $1,195 for the time she spent there.
However, they eventually came around to applying the original discount to what would have been a 70-day stay and she ended up having to pay $324.
While that still seemed high to her for such a discrepancy between the appearance of the listing and the Airbnb’s actual quality, she accepted that arrangement and drew her bizarre saga to a close.
h/t: Bored Panda
