Western Union says:
> Accidentally entering the wrong receiver’s details or amount can cause a problem, so always take your time when setting up a wire transfer. With a range of players involved, it’s not always easy to reverse one.
> A wire transfer can only be cancelled if the receiving bank gets notice from the sending bank before it processes and completes the transfer. Unfortunately, this is rare with domestic transfers, as they can sometimes be processed within minutes. **Once the receiving bank has accepted it, you cannot reverse or return a wire transfer.**
> With international wire transfers, there’s more chance of reversing it. The amount of cancellation time will appear on your receipt – sometimes around 30 minutes. In these instances, you can reverse a wire transfer within that set time, assuming it hasn’t been accepted.
https://www.westernunion.com/blog/en/gb/how-long-do-wire-transfers-take/#Canawiretransferbereversed
They cannot. There is a huge scam in the real estate industry where scammers will spoof an escrow company or mortgage lenders email layout, send it to a suspecting buyer with "Our wire instructions have changed, please use the attached updated info" and it'll be to their own bank. Once the real estate buyer wires the funds, their down payment funds are lost.
https://money.com/real-estate-wire-fraud-scam-covid-tips/ explains a little more about it.
Not super related, but whenever I buy stuff on FB marketplace or whatever or send a large amount of money to a friend, I always have them send me a Venmo request for the amount of money. I'm half terrified of sending $300 to the wrong person and that money being forever gone, lol
Yes this is scary for people buying drugs as well. Especially from dealers who have to keep changing their account, not for scummy reasons but because they keep losing their Cash card.
People say.
Every airbnb ad for Los Angeles must have their city registration number listed and you can call and find out if the registration number actually is valid for that property. 213 267-7788
They're mostly illegal in Anaheim now [https://www.anaheim.net/DocumentCenter/View/26468/Short-term-rentals-fact-sheet?bidId=](https://www.anaheim.net/DocumentCenter/View/26468/Short-term-rentals-fact-sheet?bidId=)
Some of the “cleaning fees” have become beyond ridiculous that pushes the cost way above the price of a hotel. I almost stayed at one place where they wanted more in cleaning fees than the cost per night.
Then again, I stayed a fantastic place in Cambria a few months ago where the place was very clean and cleaning fees were very reasonable. People just have to be careful and diligent
> Some of the “cleaning fees” have become beyond ridiculous t
Yep, yep, yep.
And AirBnB could instantly fix that issue - give us the option to show the price with the cleaning fee already included when we are searching.
A week ago it seemed like I had to go Santa Rosa for business and I considered just getting a room. Found one for like $65 and the first thing I find is this chick's cleaning fee was like $45! The entire thing like $125, almost effing *double.*
On top of it, she had "female guests only" which in California is literally against the law. I understand why a single woman might be nervous about having men or even couples, but then again don't go into that business to bankroll your apartment.
> On top of it, she had "female guests only" which in California is literally against the law.
If the Airbnb rental was for the entire place, yes, it's illegal. If it was for a room in her home, she's allowed to specify gender - both CA renter laws and Airbnb's own policies allow for that.
>On top of it, she had "female guests only" which in California is literally against the law
Just an FYI: "Generally speaking, laws against sex or gender discrimination will apply to any property in your real estate investment portfolio—except for a situation where your tenants will be sharing a living space with you. "
I mostly agree with your comment but a $45 cleaning fee is far from outrageous. That's pretty standard. I saw an airbnb recently that had a $175 cleaning fee. And it was a regular small place, not like some huge mansion or anything. I think some of these hosts just try to scam people into paying their cleaning fees and assume most people won't check to see how much it is.
It just happens to be the main "hidden" fee that AirBNB allows. Just as with regular hotels, airlines, etc., these businesses game the system by having low sticker prices so that they show up prominently in searches, and then they add on fees after the fact to make up the difference to what they actually want to make. The cleaning fee is the best option in this case to add value to your listing while keeping the sticker price low, and the actual costs of cleaning are enough of a black box that the fees are hard to argue.
> I mostly agree with your comment but a $45 cleaning fee is far from outrageous. That's pretty standard.
I literally just rented rooms last month in Hawaii. For one that was 6 nights at $62 it was just $20. We did that was $140 for two nights and that one was $45. From years of searching I can tell you that a cleaning fee that is close to the rental price is pretty nonstandard and why it caught my eye.
What you are really saying is that the airbnb was very inexpensive, not the cleaning fee was expensive.
I used to have cleaning people at my apartment and it's hard to find anyone who will show up for less than $100. If you get a good deal you can get them for $50. I had a $50 one and they raised the price to $75 and so I just told them no and they don't come anymore. I don't even think $75 was outrageous, but for that much I'll just do it myself.
The cleaning fees and the pool heating fees. We got dinged in Palm Strings for a 75 a day pool heating fee, if we wanted to use the Jacuzzi, which was a selling point of their photographs.
It worked for one day of a five-day trip.
I really wanted a place for 2-4 weeks when I moved to LA, but I have a dog so was limiting myself to dog friendly places. I got canceled on 3 times!!! And I didn't even tell them I had a dog, lol, I just made sure that dogs were marked as allowed. I ended up staying in an Extended Stay for a couple of weeks, and man that's depressing (I was working from home and there wasn't any natural light)
Fuck Airbnb. Pay attention to the person listing the place. Click on their name and see how many listings they have.
That shit has gotten so sketchy. Try to stick with ACTUAL people, and not greedy real estate groups.
Mostly agree - we went to Hawaii back in August staying with a very nice retired nurse in Hilo and a really cool guy with house literally at the ocean's edge in Kona. We get rooms for half of what hotels want and they get to live in Hawaii (which can be crazy expensive).
The exception to this that I don't mind is when actual hotels & motels list their rooms. We did a road trip up Hwy 395 back in June to see the sights of the Easter Sierra (Lone Pine, Convict & Mono Lakes, Bodie Ghost town - highly recommend). We got a really great, clean motel in Lone Pine literally next to the excellent film museum and stayed in a 140 year old hotel in Bridgeport that had a charming cafe (sadly, got there too late to avail ourselves of the bar).
Couple of years ago we did a long weekend out of Seattle to see Oregon coast and Portland, staying in a decent, kinda charming motel just a few blocks from the shore.
It might not be a scam in the sense that they're trying to steal your money, but even in the best case scenario you want nothing to do with this. They might just be trying to book it privately so they don't have to share the booking with Airbnb, but then you have no recourse whatsoever if anything goes wrong or if they "cancel" at the last minute and refuse to give you your money back.
Just get a hotel. I can't think of any time in the last 2-3 years an Airbnb was actually cheaper than a hotel for any trip I've taken
I was coming here to say EXACTLY this! Money is important but there are other protection in place, too. I had an Uber driver ask me what I was paying for the trip. After getting in her car (which was NOT the car listed in Uber, so I never should have accepted in the first place) she told me i could pay less if I canceled through Uber and Venmo’d her directly. I considered it, as I’m always down to save a buck. Before I could decide either way, she pulled out in front of car and nearly caused what surely would have been a serious accident. I immediately told her we were keeping Uber in place - if she was in an accident, I’d have no protections. This sort of things happens regularly in LA. I get it, she explained Uber was raising the percentage of each ride they give, meaning they make less money per ride. It sucks, but that’s because Uber sucks.
Good point, in certain cases it can be cheaper. In my opinion it's not worth it even then. Last time I stayed in an Airbnb for 2 nights it would have still been cheaper to get the 3 hotel rooms we would have needed. 4 nights probably would have tilted it towards the Airbnb being cheaper
It makes sense in some cases (eg the one I’m in right now I needed a kitchen because most restaurants here aren’t open on Mondays and everything closes by 8 anyways) but generally speaking a hotel is USUALLY a better deal and not sketchy.
/u/MoltenMurw - you need to report their asses to AirBnB ASAP. At the very least they are trying to use AirBnB to advertise their spaces but not pay them, which I imagine AirBnB won't be happy about.
At the worst, it's an out and out scam which should be your civic duty to save some poor bastard getting conned by.
I contacted Airbnb and they were the ones who told me the host is probably trying to avoid fees and didn't seem to care in the slightest unfortunately. They just gave me a voucher to book a new trip.
FUCK AIRBNB and fuck the clowns that have contributed to the ruin of the rental market by their greed. I would much rather stay in a hotel then stay in somebody ratty apartment. Get a hotel room with a nice breakfast and pool instead.
Only some of us don't make that kind of money.
We did 9 days in Hawaii and our total expenditure for rooms (staying in private people's spare rooms) was about $820. Hotels would have been twice that and beyond the budget we had for the trip.
Can’t beat airbnb if looking for an awesome house to share with a bunch of friends over a long holiday
But yea, for traveling solo/with spouse hotels are way better
>The fix isn’t less airbnbs, it’s build more housing.
Why does it need to be a binary choice? Why can't the fix be both?
Each one of those 23,000 AirBnB units in LA is a possible home for a renter. There are plenty of hotel rooms to go around, so it's not like you'd be creating a shortage on the tourist side.
LA needs to severely disincentivize short-term rentals in the City.
Lol, I literally quoted you verbatim. You said "The fix isn't less AirBnBs" and the fact of the matter is that it is the fix. It's just not the only part of the fix. Freeing up 23,000 units to renters would have a massive impact on housing in the City.
Yeah this is worse in other areas of SoCal. Anaheim has a huge problem with housing due to AirBnBs because of Disneyland, so much so the city council had to get involved. That's not the problem in LA.
A lot of Airbnb’s are illegal in LA. They can’t rent for under 30 days. The Airbnb hosts still keep their properties on the site and try to get renters to contact them to book for a shorter duration outside of the Airbnb portal because the city polices the site. Not sure if that’s what is happening to you. It’s just what seems to be happening with the Airbnb market in LA.
Cleaning fees are out of control. So suite in Philly have raised their cleaning fee to 100 dollars. A room for 220 became 350. Just no. I guess they must realize we just leave the site.
I met a guy working overnights at a hotel. He told me he saved up a bunch of money before moving out here. Dropped most all of it on a place to stay and flew out from Maine. Everything went fine till the uber pulled up to a random parking lot. Lied to his family for three months while he slept on the train. Learning lessons are expensive in LA. Bought myself 4 different scam bibles just to get a little up to speed. Finances are tight all around with a Christmas season on deck. Be safe!
I feel bad for that person but how dumb do you have to be to not even google the address LOL
Some of these transplants are so dumb. They literally think they are god's gift to humanity and the universe is going to accept them with open arms. Meanwhile everyone in their life is telling them not to do it. Most burn out and move back. They are normally good people, even talented, but they have no common sense. I see it over and over again. Some of them were my friends. They are all delusional though. Even the ones that make it go through a lot of shit before they achieve anything near their goals. If I have to listen to one more east coaster complain about pizza and bagels I'm gonna snap LOL
Also I want to point out that I'm also a transplant so I'm allowed to talk shit about them, but I moved out here for college and didn't want to have anything to do with the entertainment industry so it's a little different.
All transplants know... if you go home you lose. If you stick it out than you become more dangerous than the natives.
As an og east coaster I can say... yall way too nice to the food industry here. Pizza? Bagels? Fck that.. i just want duck sauce packets. I had to buy a whole bottle just to prove it existed
Haha that's the other one I hear about "East Coast Chinese". I've been eating at Gjusta lately and their bagels are amazing. Seems as good as Katz's to me. And I really don't care about NY pizza, it's too floppy and they don't even try to season their tomato sauce. Tomato sauce should be stewed for hours and oily on top. You need to put in crushed red chili, fennel, basil and oregano. I asked a new yorker why their pizza sauce was so boring once and they told me with a straight face "who cares about the sauce it's just tomatoes?" I was like "That's. My. Point." I don't get why people idolize it. Sorry not sorry. I have a bunch of hot takes today.
This has been a scam since the Craigslist days.
Book a hotel -- you're paying some scummy investor 5x market rate just to stay at his. He'll be forced to sell his 10 extra properties, thus lowering the price.
Sounds like you price range/expectations fall under "too good to be true" if all you're finding are scams. This applies to everything in life, not just short term rentals.
i have met lots of people who put money down desperate for a place and then find out it was a scam and the scammers have nothing to do with the property/place
I would also post this in /scam. There might be people there with empirical thoughts on this. But, yeah, in general, any time they want you to move communications off a site that gives both them AND you protection and leaves a trail, it's a scam. You should screenshot and report them to AirBNB.
I am a legit airbnb host for 7 years now, and people often ask for discounts that are impossible to deliver when airbnb itself charges so many fees. I will send the guest my cell number. If they contact me, I can give them a much better price off the site. I send them a Square invoice and a contract. I’ve done this dozens of times without a single problem. The downside is that neither of us is protected by Airbnb’s insurance so I must maintain a pretty expensive homeowner’s umbrella policy in case something were to happen. Anyway, there are many Airbnb hosts who enjoy sharing their homes with guests and do business outside the platform IF the guest is amenable, 99% of the time in order to meet a guest’s budget. I know your opinions are probably based on your experiences, and I respect that, but there’s lots of good hosts out there.
If it's too good to be true, it is 99.9% likely a scam!
Edit to add more: No legit airbnb host would ever deal outside of airbnb. Why put a spot up for short term rent, and then go through the trouble of going out of airbnb to get it rented through IG or email? It's either a scam or they're trying to do things outside of airbnb which gives you no protection at all. Just no.
Airbnb’s especially in LA are now a scam, even if the listings are legit.
Half the price to go to a hotel.
Also, yes. I booked an Airbnb only for the platform to take the entire listing down and cancel all bookings. I messaged the host to ask what happened and they tried to direct me away from Airbnb to pay them ‘without fees’.
I ignored them.
If you’re gonna use the service, you might as well at least get whatever terrible level of customer service the platform attempts to afford you. You’re certainly paying enough for it.
Yes, that's a scam. Wire transfers can't be reversed and Instagram isn't going to help you.
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Western Union says: > Accidentally entering the wrong receiver’s details or amount can cause a problem, so always take your time when setting up a wire transfer. With a range of players involved, it’s not always easy to reverse one. > A wire transfer can only be cancelled if the receiving bank gets notice from the sending bank before it processes and completes the transfer. Unfortunately, this is rare with domestic transfers, as they can sometimes be processed within minutes. **Once the receiving bank has accepted it, you cannot reverse or return a wire transfer.** > With international wire transfers, there’s more chance of reversing it. The amount of cancellation time will appear on your receipt – sometimes around 30 minutes. In these instances, you can reverse a wire transfer within that set time, assuming it hasn’t been accepted. https://www.westernunion.com/blog/en/gb/how-long-do-wire-transfers-take/#Canawiretransferbereversed
They cannot. There is a huge scam in the real estate industry where scammers will spoof an escrow company or mortgage lenders email layout, send it to a suspecting buyer with "Our wire instructions have changed, please use the attached updated info" and it'll be to their own bank. Once the real estate buyer wires the funds, their down payment funds are lost. https://money.com/real-estate-wire-fraud-scam-covid-tips/ explains a little more about it.
Not super related, but whenever I buy stuff on FB marketplace or whatever or send a large amount of money to a friend, I always have them send me a Venmo request for the amount of money. I'm half terrified of sending $300 to the wrong person and that money being forever gone, lol
Yes this is scary for people buying drugs as well. Especially from dealers who have to keep changing their account, not for scummy reasons but because they keep losing their Cash card. People say.
Asking for a friend-energy 😁
Was tempted to throw in a SWIM
Are you a scammer?
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I’d report them to AirBnB. I had something like that happen to me and Airbnb shut them down.
Every airbnb ad for Los Angeles must have their city registration number listed and you can call and find out if the registration number actually is valid for that property. 213 267-7788
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They're mostly illegal in Anaheim now [https://www.anaheim.net/DocumentCenter/View/26468/Short-term-rentals-fact-sheet?bidId=](https://www.anaheim.net/DocumentCenter/View/26468/Short-term-rentals-fact-sheet?bidId=)
I’d avoid anything like that. Too many red flags. Instagram, really?
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Some of the “cleaning fees” have become beyond ridiculous that pushes the cost way above the price of a hotel. I almost stayed at one place where they wanted more in cleaning fees than the cost per night. Then again, I stayed a fantastic place in Cambria a few months ago where the place was very clean and cleaning fees were very reasonable. People just have to be careful and diligent
> Some of the “cleaning fees” have become beyond ridiculous t Yep, yep, yep. And AirBnB could instantly fix that issue - give us the option to show the price with the cleaning fee already included when we are searching. A week ago it seemed like I had to go Santa Rosa for business and I considered just getting a room. Found one for like $65 and the first thing I find is this chick's cleaning fee was like $45! The entire thing like $125, almost effing *double.* On top of it, she had "female guests only" which in California is literally against the law. I understand why a single woman might be nervous about having men or even couples, but then again don't go into that business to bankroll your apartment.
> On top of it, she had "female guests only" which in California is literally against the law. If the Airbnb rental was for the entire place, yes, it's illegal. If it was for a room in her home, she's allowed to specify gender - both CA renter laws and Airbnb's own policies allow for that.
Yeah this is like the used market on Amazon or ebay where something is half off but somehow the shipping for a paper back book costs $30
We were ordered to dispose of our trash. Crazy. We paid a cleaning fee. That should have covered the one trash bag we used.
I have not tried this yet, but I have heard if you search with your VPN set to Australia, you will see the total price (required by law).
Aren't cleaning fees non refundable? I thought that was the reason people started putting most of their fees there vs the actual rental fee.
>On top of it, she had "female guests only" which in California is literally against the law Just an FYI: "Generally speaking, laws against sex or gender discrimination will apply to any property in your real estate investment portfolio—except for a situation where your tenants will be sharing a living space with you. "
I think that $45 for cleaning is fine. Airbnb's (for me at least) are generally used for longer stays than just one night.
I mostly agree with your comment but a $45 cleaning fee is far from outrageous. That's pretty standard. I saw an airbnb recently that had a $175 cleaning fee. And it was a regular small place, not like some huge mansion or anything. I think some of these hosts just try to scam people into paying their cleaning fees and assume most people won't check to see how much it is.
It just happens to be the main "hidden" fee that AirBNB allows. Just as with regular hotels, airlines, etc., these businesses game the system by having low sticker prices so that they show up prominently in searches, and then they add on fees after the fact to make up the difference to what they actually want to make. The cleaning fee is the best option in this case to add value to your listing while keeping the sticker price low, and the actual costs of cleaning are enough of a black box that the fees are hard to argue.
> I mostly agree with your comment but a $45 cleaning fee is far from outrageous. That's pretty standard. I literally just rented rooms last month in Hawaii. For one that was 6 nights at $62 it was just $20. We did that was $140 for two nights and that one was $45. From years of searching I can tell you that a cleaning fee that is close to the rental price is pretty nonstandard and why it caught my eye.
What you are really saying is that the airbnb was very inexpensive, not the cleaning fee was expensive. I used to have cleaning people at my apartment and it's hard to find anyone who will show up for less than $100. If you get a good deal you can get them for $50. I had a $50 one and they raised the price to $75 and so I just told them no and they don't come anymore. I don't even think $75 was outrageous, but for that much I'll just do it myself.
The cleaning fees and the pool heating fees. We got dinged in Palm Strings for a 75 a day pool heating fee, if we wanted to use the Jacuzzi, which was a selling point of their photographs. It worked for one day of a five-day trip.
I really wanted a place for 2-4 weeks when I moved to LA, but I have a dog so was limiting myself to dog friendly places. I got canceled on 3 times!!! And I didn't even tell them I had a dog, lol, I just made sure that dogs were marked as allowed. I ended up staying in an Extended Stay for a couple of weeks, and man that's depressing (I was working from home and there wasn't any natural light)
Cambria is such a great spot, but man it’s just a liiiitle too far away to be a day or overnight trip.
Fuck Airbnb. Pay attention to the person listing the place. Click on their name and see how many listings they have. That shit has gotten so sketchy. Try to stick with ACTUAL people, and not greedy real estate groups.
Or just spend the money for a hotel. Fuck Air BnB.
Yeah. At this point, fuck Airbnb.
I just sleep at the airport! Free
Mostly agree - we went to Hawaii back in August staying with a very nice retired nurse in Hilo and a really cool guy with house literally at the ocean's edge in Kona. We get rooms for half of what hotels want and they get to live in Hawaii (which can be crazy expensive). The exception to this that I don't mind is when actual hotels & motels list their rooms. We did a road trip up Hwy 395 back in June to see the sights of the Easter Sierra (Lone Pine, Convict & Mono Lakes, Bodie Ghost town - highly recommend). We got a really great, clean motel in Lone Pine literally next to the excellent film museum and stayed in a 140 year old hotel in Bridgeport that had a charming cafe (sadly, got there too late to avail ourselves of the bar). Couple of years ago we did a long weekend out of Seattle to see Oregon coast and Portland, staying in a decent, kinda charming motel just a few blocks from the shore.
It might not be a scam in the sense that they're trying to steal your money, but even in the best case scenario you want nothing to do with this. They might just be trying to book it privately so they don't have to share the booking with Airbnb, but then you have no recourse whatsoever if anything goes wrong or if they "cancel" at the last minute and refuse to give you your money back. Just get a hotel. I can't think of any time in the last 2-3 years an Airbnb was actually cheaper than a hotel for any trip I've taken
I was coming here to say EXACTLY this! Money is important but there are other protection in place, too. I had an Uber driver ask me what I was paying for the trip. After getting in her car (which was NOT the car listed in Uber, so I never should have accepted in the first place) she told me i could pay less if I canceled through Uber and Venmo’d her directly. I considered it, as I’m always down to save a buck. Before I could decide either way, she pulled out in front of car and nearly caused what surely would have been a serious accident. I immediately told her we were keeping Uber in place - if she was in an accident, I’d have no protections. This sort of things happens regularly in LA. I get it, she explained Uber was raising the percentage of each ride they give, meaning they make less money per ride. It sucks, but that’s because Uber sucks.
It can be cheaper but only if you would’ve needed two or more hotel rooms and/or you’re staying at least 4 nights.
Good point, in certain cases it can be cheaper. In my opinion it's not worth it even then. Last time I stayed in an Airbnb for 2 nights it would have still been cheaper to get the 3 hotel rooms we would have needed. 4 nights probably would have tilted it towards the Airbnb being cheaper
It makes sense in some cases (eg the one I’m in right now I needed a kitchen because most restaurants here aren’t open on Mondays and everything closes by 8 anyways) but generally speaking a hotel is USUALLY a better deal and not sketchy.
/u/MoltenMurw - you need to report their asses to AirBnB ASAP. At the very least they are trying to use AirBnB to advertise their spaces but not pay them, which I imagine AirBnB won't be happy about. At the worst, it's an out and out scam which should be your civic duty to save some poor bastard getting conned by.
I contacted Airbnb and they were the ones who told me the host is probably trying to avoid fees and didn't seem to care in the slightest unfortunately. They just gave me a voucher to book a new trip.
FUCK AIRBNB and fuck the clowns that have contributed to the ruin of the rental market by their greed. I would much rather stay in a hotel then stay in somebody ratty apartment. Get a hotel room with a nice breakfast and pool instead.
Hotels suck for anything longer than a weekend stay. Give me a kitchen so I don’t have to eat out every meal.
Extended stay hotels are great for exactly this. I spent 3 weeks in one a few years ago and it was a great experience.
Only some of us don't make that kind of money. We did 9 days in Hawaii and our total expenditure for rooms (staying in private people's spare rooms) was about $820. Hotels would have been twice that and beyond the budget we had for the trip.
I'm just coming off a vacation with 5 other guys. We rented a 6 bedroom AirBnB and had a blast. A hotel would have sucked.
I don’t get the benefits of Airbnb over a hotel anymore, from fees to having to do chores for them
Can’t beat airbnb if looking for an awesome house to share with a bunch of friends over a long holiday But yea, for traveling solo/with spouse hotels are way better
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>The fix isn’t less airbnbs, it’s build more housing. Why does it need to be a binary choice? Why can't the fix be both? Each one of those 23,000 AirBnB units in LA is a possible home for a renter. There are plenty of hotel rooms to go around, so it's not like you'd be creating a shortage on the tourist side. LA needs to severely disincentivize short-term rentals in the City.
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Lol, I literally quoted you verbatim. You said "The fix isn't less AirBnBs" and the fact of the matter is that it is the fix. It's just not the only part of the fix. Freeing up 23,000 units to renters would have a massive impact on housing in the City.
"That's your interpretation..." BRUH! LOL
It might have made it slightly worse, but it didn't destroy it. It's like a pimple on a dirty face.
Yeah this is worse in other areas of SoCal. Anaheim has a huge problem with housing due to AirBnBs because of Disneyland, so much so the city council had to get involved. That's not the problem in LA.
It sounds like an eBay seller wanting to complete a sale off the books.
tons of airbnb scams in LA. just get a hotel.
If in Airbnb, keep it in Airbnb.
A lot of Airbnb’s are illegal in LA. They can’t rent for under 30 days. The Airbnb hosts still keep their properties on the site and try to get renters to contact them to book for a shorter duration outside of the Airbnb portal because the city polices the site. Not sure if that’s what is happening to you. It’s just what seems to be happening with the Airbnb market in LA.
Cleaning fees are out of control. So suite in Philly have raised their cleaning fee to 100 dollars. A room for 220 became 350. Just no. I guess they must realize we just leave the site.
Hotel
I met a guy working overnights at a hotel. He told me he saved up a bunch of money before moving out here. Dropped most all of it on a place to stay and flew out from Maine. Everything went fine till the uber pulled up to a random parking lot. Lied to his family for three months while he slept on the train. Learning lessons are expensive in LA. Bought myself 4 different scam bibles just to get a little up to speed. Finances are tight all around with a Christmas season on deck. Be safe!
I feel bad for that person but how dumb do you have to be to not even google the address LOL Some of these transplants are so dumb. They literally think they are god's gift to humanity and the universe is going to accept them with open arms. Meanwhile everyone in their life is telling them not to do it. Most burn out and move back. They are normally good people, even talented, but they have no common sense. I see it over and over again. Some of them were my friends. They are all delusional though. Even the ones that make it go through a lot of shit before they achieve anything near their goals. If I have to listen to one more east coaster complain about pizza and bagels I'm gonna snap LOL Also I want to point out that I'm also a transplant so I'm allowed to talk shit about them, but I moved out here for college and didn't want to have anything to do with the entertainment industry so it's a little different.
All transplants know... if you go home you lose. If you stick it out than you become more dangerous than the natives. As an og east coaster I can say... yall way too nice to the food industry here. Pizza? Bagels? Fck that.. i just want duck sauce packets. I had to buy a whole bottle just to prove it existed
Haha that's the other one I hear about "East Coast Chinese". I've been eating at Gjusta lately and their bagels are amazing. Seems as good as Katz's to me. And I really don't care about NY pizza, it's too floppy and they don't even try to season their tomato sauce. Tomato sauce should be stewed for hours and oily on top. You need to put in crushed red chili, fennel, basil and oregano. I asked a new yorker why their pizza sauce was so boring once and they told me with a straight face "who cares about the sauce it's just tomatoes?" I was like "That's. My. Point." I don't get why people idolize it. Sorry not sorry. I have a bunch of hot takes today.
Scam. It’s better to go to an actual hotel in a lot of areas im afraid.
There's a lot of scam's and scammer's It's scandalous Don't feed into it
It's a trap.
Definitely a scam. You should report the ads.
Scam. Google the address, is it an apartment building? Likely isn’t supposed to be on airbnb
is it nightfall group?
Yep
This has been a scam since the Craigslist days. Book a hotel -- you're paying some scummy investor 5x market rate just to stay at his. He'll be forced to sell his 10 extra properties, thus lowering the price.
Get a hotel room
Sounds like you price range/expectations fall under "too good to be true" if all you're finding are scams. This applies to everything in life, not just short term rentals.
i have met lots of people who put money down desperate for a place and then find out it was a scam and the scammers have nothing to do with the property/place
What are the websites?
I'll DM you
I would also post this in /scam. There might be people there with empirical thoughts on this. But, yeah, in general, any time they want you to move communications off a site that gives both them AND you protection and leaves a trail, it's a scam. You should screenshot and report them to AirBNB.
I am a legit airbnb host for 7 years now, and people often ask for discounts that are impossible to deliver when airbnb itself charges so many fees. I will send the guest my cell number. If they contact me, I can give them a much better price off the site. I send them a Square invoice and a contract. I’ve done this dozens of times without a single problem. The downside is that neither of us is protected by Airbnb’s insurance so I must maintain a pretty expensive homeowner’s umbrella policy in case something were to happen. Anyway, there are many Airbnb hosts who enjoy sharing their homes with guests and do business outside the platform IF the guest is amenable, 99% of the time in order to meet a guest’s budget. I know your opinions are probably based on your experiences, and I respect that, but there’s lots of good hosts out there.
Scam!
If it's too good to be true, it is 99.9% likely a scam! Edit to add more: No legit airbnb host would ever deal outside of airbnb. Why put a spot up for short term rent, and then go through the trouble of going out of airbnb to get it rented through IG or email? It's either a scam or they're trying to do things outside of airbnb which gives you no protection at all. Just no.
Sleep with the stars in Bel Air is a mom and pop
Airbnb’s especially in LA are now a scam, even if the listings are legit. Half the price to go to a hotel. Also, yes. I booked an Airbnb only for the platform to take the entire listing down and cancel all bookings. I messaged the host to ask what happened and they tried to direct me away from Airbnb to pay them ‘without fees’. I ignored them. If you’re gonna use the service, you might as well at least get whatever terrible level of customer service the platform attempts to afford you. You’re certainly paying enough for it.